DLOG Presents: Halloween Safety Tips

Once again, we come upon the time of year where we all encourage our kids to take candy from strangers, which would be viewed as hypocritical if there weren't potential Reese's peanut butter cups at stake. As the ever dutiful watcher over the denizens of the internet who wander through here, I offer the following helpful hints for keeping your kids safe this Halloween:

• Make sure your kids know that they need to let you inspect their candy before they eat any of it. Follow through on this. Personally, I go so far as to take a small bite of each piece of candy, just to make sure it is safe, but not all parents are as dedicated to safety as I am.


• If you see a zombie, and there isn't a discreet way to check it's pulse, take it out. Better safe than eaten.


• Kids walking streets in the dark make for unsafe conditions. Some suggest having costumes include neon colors or reflective strips. Of course, this will ruin their costumes, and possibly their social lives as well once the other kids see how their costume now sucks. Is one night of safety really worth that risk?


• Some people give out healthy treats on Halloween, like pennies or toothbrushes. Remind your kids to change into darker clothing and avoid roads when they go back to throw eggs and toilet paper at those houses.


• If you see a pet dressed up on Halloween, remind your kids to stay far away. Most pets are just waiting for an excuse to kill you. Putting a Yoda costume on one is like handing Jeffrey Dahmer a blunt object and a bottle of steak sauce.


• Your kids may become frightened by the scary costumes they see, making them prone to running away unsafely. To help alleviate this, find a couple of kids in really scary costumes, and show your children how easy it is to knock them down and take their candy.


• Some people will encourage you to feed your kids a big meal before trick or treating so the kids won't fill up on candy afterward. These people hate children. Besides, what's so healthy about eating a five-month-old Snickers bar that you've been saving since Halloween?


• Remember that kids are impressionable, and some may get into their costume a little too much. Remind them that just because they are dressed as a monster or a superhero, it doesn't mean they have those powers. Use a painful personal memory if possible to bring the story home, like my ill-fated invisible man costume. (In my defense, and this came up at the trial for indecent exposure, a lot of the people in that mall were acting like they couldn't see me at all.)

Have a safe and happy Halloween, Internet!

Trust Me On This One

In addition to making me a better person environmentally, my lovely wife also plays an important role in making me a better person in my household - defending our cat. For those that don't know, about eight years ago we picked up a Siamese cat. Given that all of my previous cats were of the "come to the barn and take a kitten" variety, I was not aware of the specific temperament of the Siamese cats. Mainly, they have two talents: yowling, and getting in your face and yowling. Neither is particularly endearing to me.

Don't get me wrong - when she was a wee, white kitten it was cute. We'd come home from work, and she would make the arduous journey climbing pants and shirt to get all up in our Kool-Aid and subject us to a tiny feline version of "Just where the Hell have you been all day?". Now that she's all grown up, however, I find myself looking back at my past cats, who were far less vocal, with a certain longing.



My lovely wife thus defends her. "Look how pretty our kitty is," she'll say, and I have to acknowledge that she is the prettiest cat I've owned. "Look how much kitty loves you," she'll say, and I grudgingly acknowledge that, yes, she is very affectionate (especially with me, who is not nearly as friendly with her - I'm thinking daddy issues, but whatever). She also tells me to stop it when I point out that for a cost equivalent to that of her adoption, I could have gotten a hamster, cage and all, who would have made far less noise. So she has thus protected the cat from my ire, which is probably a good thing.

Now she just has to protect her from the Princess, who once again brought up the idea of a kitty Halloween costume, an idea that rates with visiting an amateur proctologist both in awfulness and potential physical harm.

You'd Think Someone Named "Iron Eyes" Wouldn't Be So Weepy

One of the many things my lovely wife does for me is act as my social conscience. This means that when the grocery stores we frequent began selling reusable bags, she was the one that suggested we pick some of them up. Myself, I was contented collecting plastic bags, although in my defense I had intended to reuse them eventually. Having not yet found the time to put together a hang glider composed entirely of old Meijer bags however, I relented and now own enough of the reusable bags for most of my shopping needs.

There is, however, a cost to being responsible in this manner. See, when the cashier is bagging my groceries now, he or she seems to be incredibly self-conscious about how much they can fit in one of the reusable bags. This means that I stand there a lot longer while they call upon all their hours of Tetris playing to arrange and re-arrange the items in the bag. Yesterday, my cashier was actually taking things out of the bag, slowly looking over what she hadn't rung up yet, and then selecting items based on what would fit best. When she finally ran out of room in the bags, she actually looked ashamed when she asked if I wanted paper or plastic for the four items she couldn't fit.

Of course it probably exacerbated the situation when the question prompted me to sadly look across the store at the crying Native American.

Although That Venomous Duck Thing Is Tempting

So, a guy was mauled to death by a bear in Russia, which in and of itself would not be newsworthy, what with the fact that Russia is lousy with bears. What makes it newsworthy is that the guy was mauled to death by a bear wearing figure skates. No, not the guy - the bear. While this is a tragedy to be sure, it didn't happen to me or anyone I know, so it has now inspired a new feature:

Horrible ways to die that would look awesome in an obituary

• Mauled to death by a figure skating bear (duh)


• Dismembered by rabid fans


• Spontaneously combusted during a tour of a popcorn factory (a firework factory would work too)


• Poisoned by a venomous duck


• Sexed to death


• Devoured by an escalator


• Eaten by a grue


• Trampled during the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade during a particularly spirited edition of Dancing Queen played by the Kennesaw Mountain High School marching band



• Beheaded by group of misguided teens and their dog when mistaken for for Old Man Jenkins wearing a mask


• Zombie Apocalypse: Patient Zero


• Killed during a high speed buggy chase across Amish country

Me, I'm sticking with "died peacefully in bed surrounded by loved ones at the age of 127 years old", but hey, you guys are welcome to any of these.

Not A Word Until Thanksgiving. Got That?

Dear World,

I haven't had Halloween yet. As Halloween does not occur until October 31st, and today is October 21st, I'm guessing you haven't had Halloween yet either. As such, I would appreciate it if you might accommodate the following request: stop talking about Christmas. Don't tell me how many shopping days I have left. Don't put away the skeletons and ghouls on display to sell Snoopy in a Santa suit. Don't start discussing trips to Bronners with the kids. Just %#$&ing stop it. I'm not ready yet.

Sincerely,
Roger

P.S. I will make an exception for The Nightmare Before Christmas. That is all.

The Shopping List As Performance Art

A conversation on Facebook has awakened a new creative outlet in me. I have decided that my new favorite activity is coming up with shopping lists for our local superstore (Meijer, in my case) that are designed to invoke a narrative for the poor cashier who would otherwise have nothing notable to talk about his or her day besides screaming toddlers and furious debates over the price of Spam. The key here is that I know for certain I can get each of these items in the same store. As such, I present to you the first of these lists:

• 1.75 Liter Cheap Whiskey


• Machete


• Party hats


• Tampons


• Duct tape


• The Best of Tiny Tim CD (If they don't have that, anything by Abba will do.)


• Rubber hose (Good catch, Adam. I would have forgotten this one.)


• You-Mix Concrete

I like this list especially because in my case I follow up by asking the cashier if the industrial building up the road was still abandoned. Nice.

Your Home, Now Heated Through Sweet, Sweet Bunny Lovin'

As Fall slides through Michigan, bringing with it colder days and spectacular displays of colored leaves, some of us are forced to consider the impending Winter, and the heating bills that it will bring. Of course, in addition to the cost comes the consideration of the environmental impact of whatever method of heating that we each choose. My household uses natural gas, the cleanest of all fossil fuels (which is like saying that Jack the Ripper was the most charming of mass murderers, but I digress), so I don't feel too guilty. Still, there are those out there that are truly thinking beyond the rest of us.

For example, there's a town in Sweden burning bunnies.



Apparently, in response to the mass of rabbits eating up their public park foliage, Stockholm acted with extreme prejudice, resulting in a sizable pile of ex-rabbits. Instead of simply burying the bunnies (or having the biggest hossenfeffer cook off ever), someone had the bright idea of using their furry little carcasses as fuel to heat homes. Apparently, the body fat of a bunny has similar properties to heating oil. While I find the idea slightly repugnant (one can only imagine a town that reeks of barbecued bunny), you have to admire their inventiveness.

In fact, I'm thinking given rabbits natural habits, we're a case of Viagra and a carrot farm away from an endless supply of heat. Investors looking to get in on the ground floor of this can email me for more information.

I'm Not A Doctor, But I Advise Like One On TV

So, I'm reading one of the many blogs I follow, and this one on vaccinations and the people who protest them got me thinking about something important I've been meaning to mention to you guys. I understand that we here in America have an odd celebrity culture, and that we tend to idolize people for...bizarre reasons. It is because of this that I must pass along the following knowledge:

Celebrities are just people, and therefore are just as likely to be ignorant morons as anyone else.



Seriously you guys, I don't trust celebrity endorsements of snack foods and cooking machines (see above), much less medical advice. They are entertainers, not unlike clowns or that guy at the bus stop who will dance for a buck and a quarter (best money you'll ever spend). This is not to say they're all ignorant, but if you want to know if you, or your children, should be getting vaccinated or taking vitamins or seeing a psychiatrist or whatever, ask a %#$&ing medical professional. Do not trust Bill Mahar, Amanda Peet, or even Bill Frist. As much as I would love to leave those who need this advice to your own devices, and thus let natural selection work its magic, I feel that your kids should get a fighting chance.

On the bright side, we can look forward to a future full of interesting reality television like "I'm a Celebrity With Polio, Get Me Out Of Here. And By 'Here', I Mean This Bed.".

It Was a Three-Year-Old's "Barbaric Yawp"

Yesterday, the Moose was acting up at the dinner table. As a result, I put him in time out. As he was already in a dinner chair, all I did was pulled the chair away from the table where he couldn't reach anything, so he ended up sitting behind me. As he railed against his being in time out, he showed his dissatisfaction by taking off one of his socks and throwing it at the back of my head.

For me, the hardest part of being a parent is being an authority figure, which means when things like this happen, I have to hide the fact that I'm giggling like an idiot.

But Hey, Find Something That Works For You

I've been thinking a lot about workplace diversity lately. This is, in part, due to an email that went around my company suggesting that managers look around at their group and see how many of them share ethnicity, background, etc. with them. I reassured my manager that despite my appearance, I was actually a great employee to have around for diversity's sake as not only am I part Mexican, but I also grew up as a poor, black woman. (I saw The Color Purple at a very young age. It's...complicated). This did get me thinking about the companies I've worked at.

When you get right down to it, most of the places I've worked in the past have been populated with a lot of white people. I personally don't think of this as an issue of discrimination, as it pretty well reflected the population of the area where the business was located. Still, my teams have traditionally had all the diversity of, say, the Kidd Video crew.

Still, part of me wonders if by continuing to draw attention to our differences, we're just prolonging the awkwardness. I find that given a little consideration, you will find that you have more in common with the people around you then you think. Even furries. We're all just trying to get along, and focusing on what makes us different seems to be a backward approach to addressing the real issue, which is equality.

For example, I personally take great comfort in the fact that no matter who I meet, regardless of race, background, or religious convictions, is probably at least a little overwhelmed by my charm and good looks.

I Hope They Were Recording It - They Can Use It For Samuel L. Jackson's Next Screenplay

You know what I love? I love the fact that many companies have replaced the old standard automated answering systems where you press numbers to navigate menus to the new ones where you talk to them. This combines many of my favorite things like listening to crappy, ambient music no one would intentionally listen to, being misunderstood by a machine after I say exactly what it told me to, and cursing out machines, which in my defense is actually part of my job (a lot of people who drop out early in the Computer Science program miss out on the advanced machine cursing classes, which is why we professionals seem so good at it). These systems are far more efficient than the old ones. It used to take me like five, maybe six menus before I was ready to kill someone before.

Now, I'm pretty much ready to lay waste to humanity the first time I hear "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that".

One Even Had The Nerve To Mention My Unshaved Legs. Brute.

At some point in the last century, it was decided that in order for a man to be sexy, he has to completely lack body hair. I don't who the originator of this concept was, although one is forced to suspiciously eye the major razor manufacturers. Either way, it has become the norm that magazine ads, romance novel covers, and the walls of mall stores I refuse to enter on principal are adorned with sullen, half-naked men who seem to have skipped the part of puberty that gave the rest of us body hair.



This is bothersome to me, as I actually went all the way through puberty, and thus come equipped with said body hair. While I have no issues with shaving my face, the idea of taking a razor to the rest of my person just seems wrong, not to mention time consuming. I'm sure right now there are hypocrite alarms going off for some of my female readers (assuming I have female readers that is), but it's true. I can't imagine adding forty minutes to my morning routine to de-wookie myself, not to mention the investment in razors and shaving cream that would entail.

The thing is, because this is all I see, I become self-conscious about it at times. I mean, I'm not Robin Williams furry. If I take off my shirt, you can tell I'm not wearing a sweater or anything. Still, it makes me wonder if my good lady wife would, despite her protests, actually prefer the more aerodynamic look I see all around me. This is especially true in the most complained of area, the back hair, where I don't actually have full coverage, but rather one decent row of hair right across the top of my back.

Yeah, nothing says sexy like a unibrow across the back.

Still, I hold fast for the most part, taking comfort in the odd exceptions. Hugh Jackman seems to have retained sex symbol status, so there's hope for us manly men yet. In the meantime, I'll maintain my longstanding policy of simply remaining clothed pretty much all the time I'm within public view. Well, I don't know about longstanding, but at least since the neighborhood association got that complaint about me taking the garbage out half-dressed because I was running late.

If any of them knew how long it took to get those garters on in the first place, I'm sure they would have been a little more understanding.