Screaming & Dining

October 12, 2009 20 Comments read Attractions, Masticating With Mellzah

Last night, I met up with Amber & Mana and a few other people and we went to the Kube 93 Haunted House, located at what used to be the Georgetown Morgue. The scares started early, as I dug through my cabinets to find canned food to donate to save money off of the ticket price and I found that the majority of everything in my cabinets was expired, some of it as far back as 2006. That’s right. I moved expired food. Twice. My attention to detail is nothing but astouding, and I’m sure you’re all duly impressed by my housekeeping abilities.

Now, shadowstitch has indicated that if Fallout has taught him anything, it’s that canned food can be good well past the expiration dates, minus a bit of radiation poisoning, HOWEVER, I feel that it’s not really in the spirit of donation to give people botulism.

I arrived early AGAIN (this is the third event in a week that I’ve showed up not just on time, but early. What’s the matter with me? Am I ill?) and hung around waiting for everyone; in the air hung the pungent odor of the loathesome HoneyBuckets, and the night was pierced by shrieks and running chainsaws. The majority of the group finally showed, and we waited together for the few remaining stragglers and watched as a clown repeatedly chased people out of the attraction with chainsaw and laughed because WE knew what was coming at the end now.

They split our group of ten up into two groups of five; I got partnered with 4 girls I’d never met before, and ended up bringing up the rear. For a while, I definitely felt like the man of the group–the other four would shriek and cover their heads and wail and moan and lil ole me bringing up the rear didn’t react at all, mainly because the pop-out scares were always directed at the front of the group. However, later in the house, people made me jump a few times by following me for a while through the pitch black areas and blowing into my hair. Toward the end, the girl in front of me was so freaked out, she grabbed for my hand and put it in a deathgrip, and this is when the clown came out of a side alley, fired up his chainsaw and started chasing us.

…I’m not going to lie, we scattered like sheep.

Running for twenty steps or so works up a hearty appetite, so afterward we all went to Beth’s Cafe, featured on Man vs Food & known for its twelve-egg omelette, which none of us were ballsy enough to order. Whilst we waited for our food, we drew pictures with crayons and admired the plethora of wax-based artwork already on the walls:

I got the bacon waffle which turned out to be even MORE delicious than it sounds. Frankly, I didn’t know it was possible to stuff so much pig product into a waffle iron and still have room for waffle batter, but I’m glad to live in a world where I know now that valiant men and women make the attempt.

All of this screaming and dining has barely sated our lust for screaming and dining, and this is why we are planning an outing to Maris Farms this Sunday, the 18th. They’ve got a Haunted Forest that is supposed to be the very best and scariest in the state (it’s a 35 minute hike!) and you’re not even supposed to show up more than 15 minutes earlier than your scheduled ticket time because the scares start from the moment you get out of your car. However, given that it’s all the way up in freaking Buckley and it’s exceedingly difficult to coordinate disparate groups of people to arrive within fifteen minutes of a specific time when we all live so far away, AND there’s stuff I (and ANY non-terrorist) would want to do there during the day ANYWAY (like MONSTER TRUCK RIDES and the triple crown of pig racing and a DESTRUCTION ZONE where they LAUNCH PUMPKINS WITH A TREBUCHET TOWARD A TRAMPOLINE (this can only end in awesome, I swear) and and and and) so I’m thinking we go for the afternoon on Sunday, leave & grab some dinner somewhere in the area, and then we’ll all be together to arrive for the Haunted Forest. Anyone interested? CAN YOU SAY NO TO THIS?

If you want to come, I would suggest buying your ticket(s) now as supposedly this attraction tends to sell out. We’re doing the 8pm time slot for the Haunted Woods, we can figure out when we’re heading up to the farm for all the other stuff closer to the 18th.

Flowers for Mellzahnon

October 9, 2009 24 Comments read Everything is Terrible

My dog is a scientist.

You may not believe me when I say this, but I swear to you that it is true. Though he lacks a tiny lab coat and goggles (not for lack of desire on my part to outfit him with them, I assure you), he conducts experiments on me, mainly on my days off from work. These experiments are to measure the power of annoyance.

After a hard week at work, there is nothing I like more than rising late on a Friday morning, perhaps wandering around pantsless while eating an english muffin, drinking coffee, and reading a book. Some people might rise with the sun and go to a farmer’s market or take a jog or go out to breakfast or go shopping–I like to drink hot beverages pantsless. Don’t judge me.

The dog’s goal is to remind me that the universe does not cease to revolve around him on my days off. After being fed, it is of immediate importance that He Goes Out Right Now. This need is equally urgent whether I get up at 5am or 8am or 11am, and it is at odds with my desire to remain pantsless. It is at that precise moment that the tiny scientist emerges.

Napoleon’s Theory of Annoyance: Subject is annoyed by a certain number of Whines Per Minute or WpM, and that as WpM increases, annoyance will also increase until subject gives in to demands.

He will first announce the beginning of the experiment by flopping down in my vicinity with a loud sigh. Then he will initiate a low cycle of WpM, where WpM < 2. Approximately every fifteen minutes, WpM will double, and will continue at this rate until WpM>60 or ∞, depending on your perspective.

In MY persepective, WpM at this point=∞, because when I am trying to read or relax or enjoy coffee without spilling it onto my nethers, a constant stream of whisper-whines with nary a pause to take in another breath, to the point where I cannot concentrate or hear ANYTHING but “whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine” FEELS like infinity, and I am powerless to consider anything but two options: dog murder (also known as ‘Rexicide’) or give him whatever he wants RIGHT NOW which invariably leads to putting on pants and taking him outside, whereupon he extrudes a carefully measured picoliter of urine.

I am considering renting him out to prospective parents; if they can put up with his demands for a week or longer without wanting to pick him up and furiously shake him like a maraca, they are qualified to have a baby.

Olé!

Twatter

October 8, 2009 90 Comments read Everything is Terrible

Real quote from the internet: “If you follow me on twitter, I tweet about what I’m eating/drinking almost daily.”

Protip: NO ONE CARES.

I know everyone and their sister have embraced Twitter, but I hate it. HATE IT. I gave it a try for a few months, and all I saw was that it reduced all of the intelligent people I know to the most mundane details they could eke out in 140 characters or less. And generally, after someone has taken up Twitter, they stop writing blog posts, they just feed Twitter, like a bunch of blurbs about their sandwich and their coffee and how their bus is late are supposed to replace the thought-provoking things they used to write about, the interesting details, the moments of their lives that it takes more than 140 characters to express.

If all we have to talk about are the things we eat and drink, is it really WORTH talking about?