Atkins diet about to make a comeback?

Aug 18th 2009 By Michael Rundle

In more bad news for the living today, scientists have determined that humanity would almost certainly perish in the (probably still unlikely) event of a zombie outbreak.Using probability to demonstrate what us "Walking Dead" fans have known for years, a team in Canada has shown that a zombie-like infection -- one that quickly killed its victims and then returned them to life in order to feast on the living -- would spell almost certain doom for us all. Among the issues faced by humanity would be the exponential increase in new zombies created after each human dies, and the sudden shutdown of vital services and resources.The University of Ottawa researchers who worked on the study assumed that the zombies were the classic, slow-moving type seen in the original George A. Romero films, and not the heretical and far-more-deadly ultra-fast zombies as seen in films like "28 Days Later." Even so, their analysis revealed that any attempt to cure or capture the Shuffling Horde would only put off the inevitable. All the more reason to lay back and submit to hot zombie babes.

(So, scientific studies prove what we already knew all along. Now if we can only take this team of geniuses and get them started on the cure to cancer!)

Hauntworld Magazine

A new edition of Hauntworld Magazine hit my mailbox yesterday. It's such a tremendous resource for both the commercial and home haunter. Truly informative articles, eye tickling photography and information that is both useful and practical. I love when a new issue shows up!

http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_houses.cfm

Halloween Hits Local Retail

Some of you may have heard that Halloween is the largest retail holidays second only to Christmas.

Alas, it is not so....


People like myself notwithstanding, your spending on Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter and Father's Day still beat it out overall. I have read, however, Halloween is 2nd in terms of overall retail sales in decorative merchandise. There is a way you can help Halloween rise some notches on the list, you know. Start buying expensive Halloween presents for your friends and family!


There are plenty of places to start. Check out Big Lots. B.L. is usually the first retailer to usher in the Halloween holiday. Michael's Craft Store and Costco are a couple others. The annual Spirit store has lifted its banner and is visable from the Winchester exit off I-15. It is only the beginning. Target and Wal Mart are dragging their asses, but they are sure to carve out their piece of the Halloween season pie eventually.

To Haunt or not to Haunt? WHEN is the question.

Ok, so the haunt is definitely on this year. I've already made several investments in new props, and all the parts and components for my "big" new scare this year are either sitting in boxes here in my office or are on order from various suppliers. Kiss the new car goodbye this year, baby, I've got a haunted house to build!

So, as stated, the haunt is on the launch pad and ready for lift off. The question I'm faced with this year is when to press the trigger? Last year was the first year I experimented with opening the haunt before Halloween night. We had a handful of early birds walk through the night before for a lights and sounds only event we called the "chicken run". It was meant to give the smaller tots an opportunity to walk through the haunt without any of the impact scares going off on them. I didn't advertise it heavily, so the turnout was pretty small, but I felt the idea was worthwhile, and it helped soothe some of the guilt I was feeling over the smaller children getting left behind as the haunt was evolving into something more teen+ appropriate.

This year Halloween is on a Saturday night (rubbing hands together in anticipation), and this presents the possibility of running a 3 day event. I would like to do a "chicken run" on Thursday, October 29. This would once again be a lights and sounds only event meant to let the tykes and big-scaredy-adults get a taste of the haunted house without anything jumping at them or shocking them. That would leave Friday and Saturday for the main event: 2 solid nights of screeching, nail biting, pants crapping haunted house. (Really, I'm jumping up and down right now flapping my hands up and down with excitement, and I'm still skilled enough to type while doing so!)

The obstacles:

1. We have never had enough volunteers even running one night. Not ever, not once, not even close. Although I add a couple each year, I have never even gotten to the point that I had even half of what I think we could have used. Being safety paranoid means filling key crowd control and lookout positions first, but key actor positions go unfilled each year. I admit that I have not really put a lot of effort into recruiting people, but I do know if you get 30 to swear they'll be there 10 will show up.

2. This is not a commercial venue; this is a residential neighborhood. Would the neighbors tolerate 3 nights of this??? This is clearly a tolerant neigborhood. Seriously, we have a house on the cul de sac with a bunch of teens who when they aren't partying and shouting all night seem to run an industrial metal shop in the driveway. The welding and grinding goes on all day, and I've never seen anyone call the law yet. Yet.

Craigs List Find

For any of you curious neighbors who are wondering why there is a giant fireplace sitting in my driveway, thank Craigs List. I purchased the fireplace and a grandfather clock from a nice couple in Wildomar this week. The items look to be retired stage props, and I think they will fit in beautifully in this year's haunt. They will need a bit of repair and touchup, but almost everything about the look and feel of them seems premade for a haunted mansion.

These items were MUCH larger than I thought they would be based on their pictures. I barely got them in my truck. Like almost everything else I build or buy for Halloween, I shove the storage issue into the back of my mind with the attitude that "where there's a will there's a way". As stated previously these items are big and will take up a good chunk of space in the garage. Halloween is going to eventually force me out of my current and ridiculously small home or into a commercial venue, an idea I have been researching seriously the last couple years.

What's pink and made of foam that I can't get my hands on?

No, I'm not referring to a set of fake breasts....although it would definitely qualify.

Seeking Owens Corning foamular insulation boards to do some facade and tombstone work. I know they are extremely difficult to find in the Southern California market because they are weather rated for cold climates. Anyone know where they can be found locally? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller???

The Itch

Every year, usually at tear down, I flirt with the notion (never seriously) of giving up this eccentric Halloween hobby. Maybe I could buy myself a dirt bike or a quad like the rest of the dudes in the neighborhood- stand out in the driveway in the toasty summer evenings with a beer in one fist, endlessly revving the engine as my neighbors are trying to watch television. (Why the hell do they do that, anyway?) I could buy myself one of those oversized, 11 mile to the gallon (highway) trucks with a lift high enough to make myself a threat to migrating birds just to get my dirtbike, quad, and beer out to the desert on holiday weekends. There I could rev my engine with hundreds of other like minded dudes all revving theirs, twangy country music playing in the background and the smell of beer hanging thick on the air like the smoke on a bar scene.
Naw, I don't think so.
Clean up was tougher this year than it had been in years past. I ran out of juice towards the end. All my mojo evaporated into the ridiculously long lasting summer heat that settles over the Temecula Valley and sticks there like a leech. The walls were heavier, the props bigger and more unruly. The stacks of decor and building materials loomed before me like mountains. The extension cords went on seemingly for miles.
Not only is cleanup a first rate bitch, but it's sort of depressing too, like having some turd at the beach come along and stomp on the sand castle you spent half the day building. I got my walls stacked (three piles of them this year) and everything else made its way into the garage into something resembling ambiguously themed piles. Over time those piles morphed into one big indistingishable pile, and that's how it was until just a few weeks ago when I finally mustered the motivation to get it all back into the rafters where it rests during the "off" season.
I thought, not for the first time nor for the last, about how over-the-top I had gone once again to bring my vision to life, and how miserably I had failed to bring even a portion of it into existence at that. And still I marveled at how well it had all come off, and how no one had gotten hurt. We scared the shit out of lots of people, and it had been damn fun doing it. The feedback was great from those who took the time and had the inclination to give it, and even though I had overspent my budget and shed gallons of sweat putting it all together, the payoff had been huge. In the currency of the home haunter, the payoff comes in the form of screams. My wallet was full, metaphorically speaking.
Each year I swear off my weird hobby as I'm busting my arse breaking it down. The gravity of the expense (physically and monetarily) snaps down on you, and in that instant you never want to see it again. But when the heat of summer returns bringing on its heels the inevitable return of the Fall season, the haunting "itch" returns with it. You start surfing the net to see what the professionals are innovating in the world of prop building, you revisit all the haunter's message forums trolling for great ideas and in so doing allow yourself the luxury of not believing your hobby is all that insane afterall by reconnecting with other haunters around the country. You start to have dreams at night about where to run your queue line this year and how to improve your throughput without compromising the quality of the experience or the safety of the event. All the while that knot of expectation begins building in the pit of your stomach, and the crash after the high is completely forgotten as you begin to scheme how you will outdo last year's efforts.
It's Summer time and on the horizon I can smell October. The count down to Day31 has begun, and the "itch" is back....