Impish “Brimstone Breath” Dragon & Lethal “the Litch”Leprechaun along with Mephistopheles’ Tormented Souls Choir Present the DragonLaffs Haunted Halloween Hooley. A Demented ( and quite possibly FERMENTED) Souls Production. (Hooley (n): Irish slang for party or celebration)
Macbeth Act 4 Scene 1
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch
Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time.
First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
(I apologize for the distracting background noises readers, that’s just Impish’s stomachs rumbling over the description of what he considers haute cuisine. Just please do your best to ignore it and lets try to continue on)
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Enter HECATE to the other three Witches
HECATE
O well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i’ the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
HECATE retires
Second Witch
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wickedly humorous this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!
Enter Impish Dragon
Impish
Here now you secretive green gold thieving machine
what evil is’t you do?
Lethal Leprechaun
‘Tis the intro to our Halloween Spooktacular
Oh he who’s brains are probably boiling in the witch’s cauldron,
did you nae read the bloody memo? You promised to help out this year!
Impish
Yup I’m all over it, flying anti TPing patrols at night, doing quality control checks on all the candy (when is more arriving the last batch took an awful lot of testing), throwing myself on any candy corn that presents itself. I’m also ready to scare off the little urchins when they come begging… I MEAN trick or treating so there is more candy for me I MEAN… us!
Lethal smack forehead against his desk
Lethal
What about helping with the ISSUE?
Impish
What? Here I’m taking the initiative to cover all this other extremely important stuff and I got to pitch in there too?
It not like you do all that much around here you know!
Lethal (as he reaches for his pistolized sawed off over and under shotgun)
Get.
Out.
NOW!
Impish suddenly remembers unsampled candy and exits stage fastest available route.
Impish over his shoulder while in full flight
You know if you don’t develop a better attitude you’re going to wind up like your Uncle Jack you told me about, unqualified for heaven and unwanted in hell!
Two loud reports are heard, a loud groan and heavy thump follow, then naught but deafening silence. The scene now semi obscured in what might be taken for gun smoke slowly fades out.
(later than night Impish’s remaining remains coarsely ground in an industrial tire shredder and well combined with quickset concrete mysteriously find a home in a shallow unmarked and already occupied grave of a rabid liberal in the unhallowed ground of a potters field. Dragon’s bane is planted all over the grave.)
Haunted Espresso Anyone? No?
Perhaps a Demonic Latte then?
Well before we start celebrating it, as is our (o, so it’sk MY) custom here, let’s find out what and why we celebrate this ancient Celtic holiday and in the manner we do shall we?
History
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while “some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)”. The name of the festival historically kept by the Gaels and Celts in the British Isles which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly “summer’s end”
(bloody Romans! They’re as bad as modern politicans or Federal Law Enforcement they’ll try to take credit for anything wither it’s due them or not! Why am I not surprised? Why do I think this isn’t going to be the end of trampling on the original custom?)
Origin of name
The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even (“evening”), that is, the night before All Hallows Day] Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, mass-day of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself not attested until 1556.
Symbols
Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. For instance, the carving of jack-o’-lanterns springs from the souling custom of carving turnips into lanterns as a way of remembering the souls held in purgatory. The turnip has traditionally been used in Ireland and Scotland at Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips. The American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837 and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.
The imagery of Halloween is derived from many sources, including national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein and Dracula), and classic horror films (such as Frankenstein and The Mummy). Among the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne in 1780, who made note of pranks at Halloween; “What fearfu’ pranks ensue!”, as well as the supernatural associated with the night, “Bogies” (ghosts), influencing Robert Burns‘ Halloween 1785. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.
Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, or mythical monsters.[12] Black and orange are the holiday’s traditional colors.
Trick-or-treating and guising
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, “Trick or treat?” The word “trick” refers to a (mostly idle) “threat” to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. In some parts of Scotland children still go guising. In this custom the child performs some sort of trick, i.e. sings a song or tells a ghost story, to earn their treats.
The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of “puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas.”
Holy Cutpursed Halloween Customs! I knew it! You get a good thing going and everyone wants to steal it!
WHAT A BLOODY LOAD OF HOLY & P.C. HOOIE!
IS NOTHING sacred and off limits the hypocritical holiday thieving catholic church and it’s history re~writing born again henchmen??!!? OK let’s finish this and get on to a couple laughs before presenting the opposing (and closer to plaintive truth) origins
In Scotland and Ireland, Guising — children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins — is a traditional Halloween custom, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.The practise of Guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children going “guising” around the neighborhood.
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the U.S; The Book of Hallowe’en (1919), and references souling in the chapter “Hallowe’en in America”;
The taste in Hallowe’en festivities now is to study old traditions, and hold a Scotch party, using Burn’s poem Hallowe’en as a guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Hallowe’en is out of fashion now.
In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; “Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Hallowe’en customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries”.
While the first reference to “guising” in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.
The earliest known use in print of the term “trick or treat” appears in 1927, from Blackie, Alberta, Canada:
Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.
Namely these these Halloween Moaners and Groaners!
Q: What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi.
Q: How do you make a witch stew?
A: Keep her waiting for hours.
Q: How do ghosts begin their letters?
A: “Tomb it may concern…”
Q: What happened to the guy who couldn’t keep up payments to his exorcist?
A: He was repossessed.
Q: What do you call a person who puts rat poison in a person’s Corn Flakes?
A: A cereal killer
Q: How do you mend a broken Jack-o-lantern?
A: With a pumpkin patch.
Q: What is a ghost’s favorite ride?
A: A roller ghoster.
Q: Why are there fences around cemeteries?
A: Because people are dying to get in.
Q: What do you get when you cross Dracula with Sleeping Beauty?
A: Tired blood.
Q: Why was the mummy so tense?
A: He was all wound up.
Q: What kind of street does a ghost like best?
A: A dead end.
Q: How do you know if a ghost is lying?
A: You can see right through him.
Hey the tradition is TRICK or treat! Don’t complain about the tricks! Speaking to tricks, I wonder if Impish discovered those Chocolate Ex~lax Chip Cookies I left laying out yet? I bet he’ll be very “moved” by them!
And now for some opposing more traditional history on the roots of Halloween or more properly Samhain.
The Celts celebrated Halloween as Samhain, ‘All Hallowtide’ – the ‘Feast of the Dead’, when the dead revisited the mortal world. The celebration marked the end of Summer and the start of the Winter months.
During the eighth century the Catholic Church designated the first day of November as ‘All Saints Day (‘All Hallows’) – a day of commemoration for those Saints that did not have a specific day of remembrance. The night before was known as ‘All Hallows Eve’ which, over time, became known as Halloween.
Samhain the Lord of Darkness
Samhain was known in Ireland as the “Lord of Darkness”. The Druid religion was practiced by ancient Celtic tribes that populated Ireland and parts of Europe. This religion worshipped Samhain, the Lord of Darkness. Some writings also speak of Samhain as the “Lord of the Dead”. But, scholars suggest that this is incorrect.
The Druid New Year began on November 1st. It is also known as the “Feast of Samhain”. The Celts only recognized summer and winter seasons. Literally translated, Samhain means “Summer’s End”. At this time, the hours of nighttime were growing significantly over the hours of sunlight. Hence, Lord Samhain reigned over the long winter months as the influence of the Sun god and the summer season (Beltaine or Beltane) preceded. Samhain’s influence grows with the increase in the hours of darkness, as he can only roam the earth during hours of darkness.
The Druids believed that on their New Year’s Eve, all of the people who died in the past year would rise up and search for the passageway to the netherworld. On this night the passageway or “veil” between both worlds was it’s thinnest. Lord Samhain would roam the earth in search of these souls to capture them and take them to his world of darkness. To this day, some people put lights in their windows to help the dead find their way, and keep Lord Samhain away from taking them.
The Druid religion, dating back to about 200BC, had priests and priestesses. These magicians (soothsayers or wizards) filled the most important roles in Celtic culture. At the time the Celtic tribes were close to nature. As a result, they worshipped many things in nature as their gods. But no Druid god was more powerful ,nor more feared, than Lord Samhain.
Some of the roots of Halloween are traced back to the Druid religion and Lord Samhain. Certainly, Halloween took aspects of darkness , black color, evil spirits, and people rising from the dead and roaming the earth on this night. These themes of Halloween are all common with this religion.
On the road again, I can’t wait to get on the road again.
My life is running over a dragon who is my friend and I can’t wait to get on the road again!
Actually those are never really meteors, rather they are the Dragon equivalent of Hair Balls they just get mistaken for meteors when Dragon heave one up while in flight.
Yeah ok so I didn’t get this one either, but if I didn’t included it 50 of you would be writing us or commenting to point out it was missing .
I wonder, you think Dragons could have originated on Mars? Nah! Impossible! No snack shops between here and there and no Dragon I know could never fly that far without getting lost.
Dragons being a STRONG case in point
So do some Dragons for that matter!
Wadda ya expect with Liberals and Democrats running the show? Here’s a spoiler~ Plan 10 is another Bailout!
Yeah that Mrs. Dragon even scares the bejayus out of me sometimes and I’m not even married to her!
Trust me when I say the only thing “special” about Impish’s special effects is Impish!
Or in Impish’s case at least until room service shows up with his coffee and breakfast
Brainbats? Oh so THAT is what happen to Impish’s brains! I knew it wasn’t the zombies!
ESPECIALLY if one belongs to a Dragon!
graphics from: http://tomkrohneportfolio.blogspot.com/
Halloween Hits Volumes 1 thru 8
A mixture of oldies and newer songs assured to get you in the seasonal frame of mind
http://www.halloweenhitswebsite.com/
Or Impish Dragon in disguise taking candy from babies…literally
Halloween Movie Details
- “Halloween” was made in only 21 days in 1978 on a very limited budget.
- The movie was shot in the Spring and used fake autumn leaves.
- The mask used by Michael Meyers in the movie “Halloween” was actually William Shatner’s mask painted white.
- The character Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis was named after John Carpenter’s first girlfriend.
- While the setting for the story is in Illinois, the vehicles have California license plates.
Halloween Holiday Trivia
- Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.
- Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Great for unique monster carvings!
- Halloween was brought to North America by immigrants from Europe who would celebrate the harvest around a bonfire, share ghost stories, sing, dance and tell fortunes.
- Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.
- The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.
- Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States.
- Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.
- Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.
- Black cats were once believed to be witch’s familiars who protected their powers.
Q: Why don’t witches like to ride their brooms when they’re angry?
A: They’re afraid of flying off the handle.
Q: Where do ghosts go on vacation?
A: Lake Erie.
Q: How can you tell when a window is scared?
A: They get shudders.
Q: Why didn’t the skeleton dance at the Halloween party?
A: It had no body to dance with.
Q: What do you say to a ghost with three heads?
A: Hello, hello, hello.
Q: What is a witch’s favorite subject in school?
A: Spelling!
Q: When does a skeleton laugh?
A: When something tickles his funny bone.
Q: What tops off a ghost’s sundae?
A: Whipped Scream
Q: What has a black hat, flies on a broomstick, and can’t see anything?
A: A witch with her eyes closed.
Q: Why is a ghost such a messy eater?
A: Because he’s always a goblin.
Q: What happens when a ghost gets lost in a fog?
A: He’s mist.
Q: What sailor like to be chilled to the bone?
A: A skeleton crew.
Q: Where does Count Dracula usually eat his lunch?
A: In the casketeria.
Q: Where did the goblin throw the football?
A: Over the ghoul line.
Halloween Facts:
Monster Trivia & Folklore
- Signs of a werewolf are a unibrow, hair palms, tattoos, and a long middle finger.
- Vampires are mythical beings who defy death by sucking the blood of humans.
- In 1962, The Count Dracula Society was founded by Dr. Donald A. Reed.
- To this day, there are vampire clubs and societies with people claiming to be real vampires.
- There really are so-called vampire bats, but they’re not from Transylvania. They live in Central and South America and feed on the blood of cattle, horses and birds.
- Many people still believe that gargoyles were created by medieval architects and stone carvers to ward off evil spirits.
Why Pumpkins Are Better Than Men
1. Every year you get a brand new crop to choose from.
2. No matter what your mood is, pumpkins are always ready to greet you with a smile.
3. One usually makes a better pie.
4. They are always on the doorstep there waiting for you!
5. If you don’t like the way he looks, you just carve up another face.
6. If he starts smelling up your place, you can just throw him out.
7. From the start you know a pumpkin has an empty, mush filled head to begin with.
8. A pumpkin is turned on (lit-up) only when you want him to be.
The Pumpkin:
Carving Pumpkins dates back to the eighteenth century and to an Irish blacksmith named Jack who colluded with the Devil and was denied entry to Heaven. He was condemned to wander the earth but asked the Devil for some light. He was given a burning coal ember which he placed inside a turnip that he had gouged out.
The tradition of Jack O’Lanterns was born – the bearer being the wandering blacksmith – a damned soul. Villagers in Ireland hoped that the lantern in their window would keep the wanderer away. When the Irish emigrated in millions to America there was not a great supply of turnips so pumpkins were used instead.
Stingy Jack, The legend of Jack O’Lantern
What a fantastic likeness of our reader K~squared!
I think one of my cats, the mischievous one posed for this
Wonder if they used the Force or a Lightsaber to carve this one?
You have NO idea how hard it was to find a pumpkin large enough to carve a likeness of Impish on!
Here’s a rendition of Molly cooking my birthday dinner a few weeks back captured on a pumpkin.
Top Ten Reasons Why Trick-or-Treating is Better Than Sex
10. You are guaranteed to get at least a little something in the sack.
9. If you get tired, wait ten minutes and go back at it again.
8. The stranger you look, the easier it is to get some.
7. You don’t have to compliment the person who gave it to you.
6. Person you are with doesn’t fantasize you’re someone else, you already are.
5. If you get a stomach ache, it won’t last nine months.
4. If you wear leather and chains, no one thinks you’re kinky.
3. Doesn’t matter if kids hear you moaning and groaning.
2. Less guilt the next morning from over-indulging.
1. If you don’t get what you want at one place, you can always go next door to get more!
Traditional Samhain Fare
Colcannon for Dinner: Boiled Potato, Curly Kale (a cabbage) and raw Onions are provided as the traditional Irish Halloween dinner. Clean coins are wrapped in baking paper and placed in the potato for children to find and keep.
The Barnbrack Cake: The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barnbrack which is a fruit bread. Each member of the family gets a slice. Great interest is taken in the outcome as there is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag then your financial future is doubtful. If you get the coin then you can look forward to a prosperous year. Getting the ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness.
While arguably Colcannon IS good eats, its not particularly scary or fun, from my point of view two very important things to be had on this day so here are a couple of recipes that are!
Creepy Mummy Dogs Recipe
You’ll find recipes for these cute-and-spooky mummy dogs all over the web. But –in our humble opinion– this one takes Halloween recipes fun to a whole new level. Why? Because as well as cute and tasty, these mummy dogs are super easy to make, as they use breadstick dough instead of the biscuit dough called for in most recipes. So your dough will already be perfectly suited to making mummy wrappings. This will be one of the kids’ favorite Halloween treat recipes, without a doubt.
Serve these on a cute festive Halloween tray with ketchup “blood” dipping sauce and green food-colored mustard “bile” dipping sauce, and listen to the oohs and ahs of appreciation. They’re really cute and fun to eat.
Ingredients:
1 (11 oz) can refrigerated breadstick dough
2 slices cheddar cheese, quartered (optional)
8 hot dogs
black mustard seeds
Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. If desired, place one cheddar cheese slice on your hot dog. Then wrap each dog to look like a mummy, leaving a open area for the eyes.
3. Cut two tiny slits in the exposed hot dog and insert two black mustard seeds for eyes. If you’d like to give your mummies entire faces, you can cut a little slit for a mouth, which will gape open a bit during cooking.
4. Place mummy dogs on an ungreased baking sheet and bake around 15 minutes, until golden.
5. Serve with plenty of ketchup and mustard and listen to the kids rave about having such Halloween recipes fun.
Scary Halloween Recipes: Slithering Snake Pizza
This Halloween snack recipe is always one of the first things to disappear from any Halloween buffet table– kids love it! It’s colorful, fun, and oh-so-cute. As a bonus, it’s one of those Halloween recipe ideas that’s easy to personalize. Don’t like the combo of pepperoni, ham, and sausage? Use whatever you or your kids like. If you can put it on a pizza, you can put it in this recipe.
We usually do an “adult” version of this Halloween recipe, complete with mushrooms and peppers, and a kids’ version, with just pepperoni and cheese or with ham and pineapple. It’s good any way you make it, and looks great on a festive Halloween tray. Just be sure not to use anything too watery (or drain watery ingredients well) to avoid a soggy snake.
This is one of those Halloween recipe ideas that’s fun to have the kids help with. If you’re making this for the first time, I’d suggest buying an extra can of crescent rolls to have on hand in case you need to patch your dough in places. Any openings in the snake will split and leak during cooking.
Serves 10-12 as an appetizer
Ingredients:
2 (8 oz.) cans crescent rolls
flour, for dusting
1/2 C. prepared pizza sauce
10 oz. thinly sliced pepperoni
10 oz. thinly sliced ham, chopped
10 oz. Italian sausage, cooked, crumbled, and drained
12 oz. mozzarella cheese, grated
1/2 C. fine, freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Decorating:
Liquid food coloring, your choice of colors
4 egg yolks, divided
2 peppercorns
2 pimento-stuffed green olives
1 roasted red pepper
Instructions: 1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. On a lightly floured surface, spread out your two batches of crescent dough end-to-end lenghtwise. Be careful not to let the sections separate.
3. Pinch all the seams together until you get one block of dough.
4. With a flour-brushed rolling pin, roll your crescent dough into a large, long rectangle. Don’t roll it too thin, or it will split.
5. Spoon pizza sauce on top of dough, leaving an inch of bare dough on all four edges.
6. Sprinkle meats on top of sauce, followed by any other optional toppings.
7. Sprinkle with cheeses.
8. Fold one side of the dough lenghtwise over the topping, up to the half-point of the rectangle.
9. Fold the other side over to meet it. Pinch and press the dough together on all sides to seal.
10. With a pastry brush, brush the beaten yolk of one egg onto the top of the dough.
11. Fold your filled dough in half lengthwise. The egg yolk should help it stick. A seam should be created lengthwise along the dough. Pinch this seam together to fully seal and make a sort of cylinder. Be sure all seams are well closed. Any open seams will open further during baking.
12. Gently manipulate ends into a snake shape– one end should be tapered for a tail, and the other shaped for the head. Don’t curve it into a snake yet. You’ll do that right before baking.
Decorating Instructions:
1. Beat each of your remaining three egg yolks in a separate bowl.
2. Add the food coloring of your choice to each bowl to make three separate “paints.”
3. With a pastry brush or a food-safe paintbrush, decorate your snake as desired.
4. Transfer painted snake to a foiled-lined, greased baking sheet.
5. Gently shape as desired, into an “S” or other snakey shape.
6. Stick two peppercorns into the front of the snout for nostrils.
7. Slice your roasted red pepper into a forked tongue. Insert into front of head.
8. Bake your snake about 20 minutes, until golden and cooked through.
9. Remove from oven. Attach olive “eyes” to the top of the head using toothpicks. Pimento centers should face forward.
Halloween Snack Recipe: Creepy Deviled Eyeballs
If you like deviled eggs, you’ll love these deviled eyeballs. This is one of those fun Halloween recipe ideas that’s easy to make, tastes great, and looks terrific on your Halloween food table.
You can adjust the amounts as desired– this is a very flexible recipe, and you can add pretty much whatever you like.
Ingredients:
12 hard boiled eggs
1/2 C. mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
2 green onions, finely minced
1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. dry ground mustard
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
blue food coloring, as needed
red paste food coloring, as needed
24 slices of black olives
pimentos or fresh red peppers
Instructions: 1. Peel the hard boiled eggs and slice in half lengthwise. Scoop the yolks out into a medium bowl and reserve the whites until needed.
2. With the back of a fork, mash the yolks until smooth.
3. Add mayo, onions, parsley, mustard, salt, paprika, and garlic powder. Mix well.
4. Add a few drops of blue food coloring to turn the yellow mixture a soft green.
5. Spoon green yolk mixture into the cavity in each white half, dividing evenly.
5. On top of each yolk filling, place one black olive slice. Add a small piece of pimento or red pepper for the pupil.
6. With a toothpick dipped in red food coloring paste, draw red veins on egg white’s surface.
7. Cover and chill until ready to serve.
Tombstone Brownies
Tombstone Brownies make the perfect Halloween dessert for any Halloween party or event. They’re very easy to make 🙂 , all you’ll need is brownies, or make your own with brownie mix and of course your own cookie tombstones that you can also shape yourself, or use a tombstone cookie cutter. After those two are done you can just go crazy with your own icing and candy decorations and then enjoy <3.
Brownie Ingredients
6 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa
1/4 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/3 Cup Flour
2 Eggs
Tombstone Brownies Directions
In a microwavable dish, melt the 1/4 cup of butter. Stir in the 6 Tablespoons of Unsweetened Cocoa. Mix in sugar, eggs, 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract, flour, and salt. Pre-heat the oven to 325F degrees. While waiting for the oven to warm up flour the baking pan.
Pour the brownie batter into an 8×8 dish and cook for 35-40 or until a toothpick stuck in comes out clean.
Cookie Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup soft butter
1 egg, slightly beaten
3 tbsp cream
1 tsp almond extract
Chocolate, white and green icing and little candy pumpkins for decor.
Directions for the Tombstone Cookies
Sift dry ingredients together and place into a bowl. Add butter, eggs, cream, and almond extract. Blend thoroughly and chill for several hours. Once chilled break off a piece of dough the size of an apple and pat it flat in your hand.
Roll out dough onto floured board about a 1/4 inch thick. Cut out using tombstone shaped cookie cuter and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 5-8 minutes at 400 F. Remove the cookies from the oven as soon as you see them turn color and let cool on a wire rack
Put chocolate frosting on the cut brownies and on one side and place the sugar cookies on the side of the brownie. Decorate with mini pumpkins and more.
Creepy Tidbits
- If you see a spider on Halloween, it is the spirit of a loved on watching over you.
- Worldwide, bats are vital natural enemies of night-flying insects.
- The common little brown bat of North America has the longest life span for a mammal it’s size, with a life span averaging 32 years.
- In about 1 in 4 autopsies, a major disease is discovered that was previously undetected.
- The Ouija Board ended up outselling the game of Monopoly in its first full year at Salem. Over two million copies of the Ouija Board were shipped
HALLOWEEN CAKES!
10 Things That Sound Dirty On Halloween, But Aren’t…
1. So…What’d you get in the sack?
2. Once you get under the sheet, start moaning and groaning!!!
3. Just hop on that broomstick and ride it!
4. Those small suckers are gone in a few licks!
5. I got the best piece from that house.
6. Quit screwing around on the porch!!!
7. Stick your hand in and guess what you’re feeling….
8. It was so filled and heavy, I had to use TWO hands!!
9. They’ll suck you dry if they get their teeth in you.
10. I bobbed and bobbed, but couldn’t get my mouth around it!
(Nothing scarier than the true appearance of politicians…unless its the realization they have all had their brains removed Hanibal Lecter style!)
Halloween Costumes:
On Halloween night children would dress up in scary costumes and go house to house. ‘Help the Halloween Party’ and ‘Trick or Treat’ were the cries to be heard at each door. This tradition of wearing costumes also dates back to Celtic times. On the special night when the living and the dead were at their closest the Celtic Druids would dress up in elaborate costumes to disguise themselves as spirits and devils in case they encountered other devils and spirits during the night. By disguising they hoped that they would be able to avoid being carried away at the end of the night. This explains why witches, goblins and ghosts remain the most popular choices for the costumes.
Most popular Halloween costume? Charlie Sheen is ‘winning’
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Tousled hair, a vial of tiger blood and a hefty dose of attitude is all it takes to score a winning costume this Halloween.
Charlie Sheen — a.k.a. “the Rock Star from Mars” — who caused a frenzy following his departure from the sitcom, “Two and a Half Men,” earlier this year is now the top choice for a costume this season, according to Spirit Halloween, the country’s largest seasonal Halloween retailer.
In a growing trend toward pop-culture references, top choices for women include Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Snooki (or any member of the gang from the “Jersey Shore” cast). As for the kids, it’s all about the popular mobile phone app Angry Birds.
Thanks in part to the AMC series “The Walking Dead,” zombies are also making a big comeback, according to a separate report by the National Retail Federation.
“Zombies are everywhere you turn and consumers often take Hollywood and pop-culture and turn it into a costume,” noted Kathy Grannis, spokeswoman for the NRF. Halloween has also become more than a traditional children’s holiday, she said. “Over the last decade, more adults are finding ways to celebrate.”
Of course Halloween costumes need not be bought, homemade ones are often the prize winners because they are different imaginative and one of a kinds as seen here:
What? They’re taking proper precautions! I’m sure his “wine skin” in in a plastic bag just like a real box of wine!
See Impish?! I TOLD YOU your idea was not “new or brilliant”!
Then again if you’re just about scaring the bejayus out of some poor soul say a Dragon….
You can always get a dark suit and a mask like this. Just be sure to have an ammonia inhalant capsule in your pocket for when your unsuspecting victim faints from the fright! I suggest moaning “Tax Dollars!”, “Deficit Spending”, “Trillions!”, “Drink My Kool~Aid!” or “Four More Years!” instead of “Brains” with this one.
The Obama Zombie is still way scarier!
Other Assorted and Sundry Customs and Superstitions
Snap Apple: After the visits to the neighbours the Halloween games begin, the most popular of which is Snap Apple. An apple is suspended from a string and children are blindfolded. The first child to get a decent bite of the apple gets to keep their prize. The same game can be played by placing apples in a basin of water and trying to get a grip on the apple without too much mess!
The Bonfire: The Halloween bonfire is a tradition to encourage dreams of who your future husband or wife is going to be. The idea was to drop a cutting of your hair into the burning embers and then dream of you future loved one. Halloween was one of the Celt ‘fire’ celebrations.
Blind Date: Blindfolded local girls would go out into the fields and pull up the first cabbage they could find. If their cabbage had a substantial amount of earth attached to the roots then there future loved one would have money. Eating the cabbage would reveal the nature of their future husband – bitter or sweet!
Another way of finding your future spouse is to peel an apple in one go. If done successfully the single apple peel could be dropped on the floor to reveal the initials of the future-intended.
Anti-Fairy Measures: Fairies and goblins try to collect as many souls as they can at Halloween but if they met a person who threw the dust from under their feet at the Fairy then they would be obliged to release any souls that they held captive.
Holy water was sometimes anointed on farm animals to keep them safe during the night. If the animals were showing signs of ill health on All Hallows Eve then they would be spat on to try to ward off any evil spirits.
Ghastly Grins (or Groans)
Q: What do you call a goblin who gets too close to a bonfire?
A: Toasty ghosty.
Q: What do you call a ghost with a broken leg?
A: Hoblin Goblin.
Q: What do you call a wicked witch who lives by the sea?
A: A Sand-witch
Q: What did the baby ghost eat for dinner?
A: A boo-loney sandwich.
Q: What do you get when you cross a were-wolf with a drip-dry suit?
A: A wash-and-werewolf.
Q: What did the papa ghost say to the baby ghost?
A: Fasten your sheet belt.
Q: Who does a ghoul fall in love with?
A: His ghoul friend.
Q: What is a vampires favourite mode of transportation?
A: A blood vessel.
Q: What do you call a dog owned by Dracula?
A: A blood hound.
Q: What kind of hot dogs do werewolves like best?
A: Hallowieners.
Q: What do you call serious rocks?
A: Grave stones.
Q: How do you picture yourself flying on a broom?
A: By witchful thinking.
Please Drink Responsibly and Moderately
More Goulish Humor & Ghastly Grins
The professor was removing organs from the deceased before his students, all the while saying, “. . . and this is the heart, and this is the liver, and this is the kidney, and this is . . .”
“What the heck is the professor doing?” asked a student.
“Shh! He’s giving an organ recital.”
You heard about the little mouse who looked up, saw a bat, and thought it was his fairy godmother?
Bloodshed – where the Red Cross keeps the plasma
Cemetery – bone zone.
Headline: “Due to strike, grave-digging at cemetery will be done by skeleton crews”
A kid stole a sign from a nursery and stuck it in front of a funeral parlor. It read: “LET US DO YOUR PLANTING FOR YOU.”
Undertaker – the last guy to let you down.
Tales of the Macabre – Halloween Stories
If you want to read the great, classic books, stories and tales of Halloween, these are the ones to read. Beginning with the Legend of Sleepy Hallow.
The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, by Washington Irving
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Raven, by Edgard Allen Poe
Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
Ulalume by Edgar Allen Poe
The Child That Went With the Fairies, by Le Fanu
Feathertop: A Moralized Legend, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving
Ken’s Myster by Julian Hawthorne
Red Hanrahan by W.B. Yeats
Tales we would like to add since they are out of copyright:
Black Stairs on Fire, Patrick Kennedy 1866
The Method of Making a Magic Staff Albertus Parvus Lucius
Cabbage Thumping Hugh Miller
October 31, 1866-1867 Queen Victoria
John Cokeley and the Fairy: On Preparing a Corpse in Ireland Jeremiah Curtin
Gruesome Halloween Joke New York Times
The Witches’ Hallowmass Ride J. Maxwell Wood
A Ballad of Halloween Theodosia Garrison
Hallowe’en Madison J. Cawein
The Ghost Vicomte de Parny
All-Hallow-Eve James Hogg
By Cupid’s Trick. A Parlor Drama for All Hallowe’en Griffith Wilde
The Immortal Hour William Sharp
The Feast of Samhain, James Stephen 1924
The Fiend’s Field: A Legend of the Wrekin 1832
A Hallowee’n Party Carline Ticknor 1896
All Souls’ Night Dora Sigerson Shorter
You know, findingh a suitable “Parting Shot” COmmentary for a Halloween Issue is WAY harder than you’d think…usually that is. This year one just plum fell into my lap (ok actually my inbox). Taken from Thisistrue.com’s weekly e~mail.
WHAT, YOU DIDN’T NOTICE?! The world ended today. It did too! Because some jackass said “The Bible Guarantees It!” you KNOW it happened. Because, you know, it was guaranteed! By the Bible!
I refer, of course, to Harold Camping. His prediction of “rapture” on May 21 flopped when nothing happened. I ran the story in
TRUE, and in a blog post titled “The End of the World: 2011 Edition” (linked below).
When nothing happened, Camping retorted “IT DID TOO!” (which may be a slight paraphrase): May 21 really was Judgment Day, he insisted, and God has done all the reckoning He needed to (despite Camping preaching that the world WOULD, in no uncertain terms, end May 21 in a giant Earthquake; God apparently decided to be much more subtle).
Camping’s own employees didn’t buy it, by the way: “I don’t believe in any of this stuff that’s going on,” a Family Radio receptionist at their Oakland headquarters told CNN in May, “and I plan on being here next week.” But, she said, some co-workers did actually blow their life savings on nice cars or vacations in anticipation of the world (nay: the entire universe!) ending, because, you know, God would want them to have a nice ride to Armageddon. The receptionist noted that “about 80%” of Camping’s own workforce didn’t believe his prediction, and admitted that the calendar she keeps had lots of appointments scheduled for well
after the supposed Armageddon.
So why did Camping change it to today? Apparently He (God, not Camping) needed to process a bunch of paperwork, which would take a few months, and the world will really, Really, REALLY end October 21. And this time he means it!
Yet YOU didn’t even notice you’re dead now. That just shows how observant you are! Well of COURSE Camping is a whackjob. You know that as well as I do. My point is that he was able to convince scads of followers to quit their jobs and blow their life savings on spreading his message of the end of the world. Repent! Hurry! Time’s almost up! Of course few listened to the gullible fools who now are jobless and broke in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Yet still, millions of people — let’s call them “lesser fools” — STILL LISTEN to Camping’s radio stations and the horribly errant words of a false prophet.
And why does THAT matter? I’ve actually heard people say that since the world is ending, we don’t need to take care of it. OK, so Armageddon didn’t happen THIS time (or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that, or [repeat literally hundreds of times!]), but SURELY it’s coming really, really soon, so why worry about pollution, or climate change, or dumping old tires in streams, or living in a way that’s sustainable for our children, their children, and the generations to come? They’d rather think that God made the world …so that we could screw up His creation. This makes Biblical sense (or even common sense!) …how? The bottom line becomes: if God *doesn’t* destroy the world, WE will. Yeah, surely THAT is what
God would want for his creation!
So my contention, as stated in my tagline on the first story on Camping, is that those who believe this garbage are fools, and “every
rational person on Earth” knows it. It takes a pretty big ego to think the world will end in your lifetime. But hey, don’t worry: when I said it’s the end of the world “2011 edition”, you can count on another prediction in 3… 2… 1….
I’ve got it! How about the end of “the” Mayan calendar? Because clearly, the Maya knew the world was going to end in 2012, so they quit doing the calendar for that reason, NOT because they ran out of flat rock to chisel it on. Here’s the truth: the Maya actually had a number of calendars, ranging from 260 days to a generation — 52 years. The world didn’t end when those calendars did, now did they? But then there’s the Mayan “Long Count” calendar that spans from the modern calendar’s August 11, 3114 BCE, and ends 5,126 years later on December 21st, 2012 — *because it was designed to*. And *obliviots* contend there’s some significance to that, and (EEEEEEEK!) say that MUST be the end of the world. Right.
No, just like the OTHER Mayan calendars simply started over after 260 days, or 365 days, or 52 years, so does the Long Count calendar. Pretty obvious when you think about it, but fear mongers don’t WANT you to think, they want you to fear. They want you to be irrational – the opposite of rational. Do you just swallow that, or think about what YOU want to believe?
Meanwhile, no one seems to wonder that if the Maya were so smart to know that the world would end well over a thousand years in the future, why weren’t they able to predict their own civilization would die out much, much sooner? Because it did — in the 9th century. When the “world ends in 2012” prediction joins the hundreds before it and also proves false, you can be SURE there will be another one. (See: “It takes a pretty big ego to think the world will end in our lifetime,” above.) Fear mongers want you to live in fear; that gives them power. I refuse to, and invite you to live with me — with common sense and rationality. That’s the sort of thing you can do when you think for yourself, rather than listen to obliviots who do numerology on select Biblical passages, or on the lint in their navels, or the dust on their brains. Meanwhile, Camping’s Family Radio is STILL asking for contributions to Spread The Word. Yes, really.
The truth is, life is uncertain. It’s likely to continue for thousands and thousands of years into the future, and there will be good times and bad times, just like always. The best we can do is to leave a better world for our kids than our parents left for us. Is that really too much to ask?
Seems to me that P.T. Barnum had it right when he said;
“There’s a sucker born every minute”
What he left out was that said sucker would fall into one of three distinct categories and that falling into multiple catagories was possible. “And those categories are Lethal?” you ask.
Simple:
- The Religious Sucker: they believe crap like above, god hates gays so much he kills American troops & that if they do not donate their life savings to a Televangelist already living the high life off their donations God will “call him home”
- The Internet Sucker: Believes everything he sees and reads on the internet. Forwards every piece of claptrap and Chain Letter that comes his way. The thought of checking Urban Legend reference sites for the possibility that things that sound as bizarre as sticking a burned hand in a bag of flour making the burn disappear being bullshit never occurs to them. Further when confronted about it they will insist it has to be true because it would not be on-line otherwise. These people also frequently believe that AOL is the internet and everything on it works the way the weird little parallel universe that is AOL does.
- The Conspiracy Theorist: Never saw a stet of disassociated facts or random coincides they they could not spin into a fervent and devotedly held Conspiracy Theory. The farther removed from reality and/or realm of possibility the more strongly held the belief in the Conspiracy Theory and certainty that our government is behind it. I have to tell you that “the man on the grassy knoll” still gets a charge out of being mentioned in every Who Killed JFK? theory that comes along.
- Liberals/Democrats: These deep drinkers of the preverbal Kool~Aid believe that a Socialist Muslim nobody with barely any accreditable governmental experience was going to bring about “Hope & Change” by burying us deeper into debt, blaming his predecessor and apologizing to the world for being the ONLY Democratic Republic Governed Super Power, lo even the LAST Super Power remaining while his whites hating wife openly professed her shame over America while he attempted pulling a Robin Hood via the US Tax Code.
NOW, if you’ll excuse, me I have to jet over to New Mexico and pick up Elvis where he works as a short order cook in a Truck Stop. Then he and I are going to Area 51 to pick up the Roswell Aliens and then its off to blend in in San Francisco for a night of Trick or Treating with Jim Morrison.
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Well, this morning’s issue is so jammed packed full of stuff that I’m really not sure what to talk about in the opening. 
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but I doubt seriously anyone is going to get up special to do this, so … tonight, before you go to bed, remember to set your clocks back one hour. Yup, you get an extra hour of sleep tonight, to make up for the hour you lost this past spring. Now, don’t you feel better? Officially, at 0200 hrs, local time, on Sunday, November 6, 2011, it becomes 0100 hrs. Unlike the springtime when everyone shows up to work late (when you have to work on Sundays, in the fall, everyone shows up early. As one who is working this weekend, I’m going to do my very best to get it right and get my extra hour of beauty sleep. And those of you who know me, know that I really need all the beauty sleep I can get. lol.
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