Mischief and Mayhem at the Weezil Compound

Tonight we hosted our family Halloween party. It was a great success with such fun things as the bubbling witch cauldron of root beer to the stick-to-the-wall gooey things that are now stuck to our ceiling, courtesy of DrummerBoy.

Among our activities was the Mummy Wrap game where the kids had to wrap their daddy in toilet paper like a mummy. We have photos, but they aren't downloaded yet. It was fun, but the TP kept breaking.

We had an excess of dry ice, so as you can imagine that all the boys in the house, fresh from a great episode of Mythbusters, set to trying the 2-liter bottle dry ice blooey. Three unsuccessful attempts were made before the dry ice ran out. We decided that the dry ice had lost its punch because it had been sitting out most of the evening. A short drive to the grocery store replenished the supply and mayhem ensued.

With DrummerBoy as the point-man and me as the giddy chaperone, we proceeded to do the thing up right. We recalled how Jamie from Mythbusters had carefully cut his dry ice into long strips, we set out to duplicate this. I sawed out several pieces and loaded the baby up. After about 20 minutes with no big bang, I was getting annoyed. There was plenty of fuel this time.

We gathered in one of the first attempts and discovered that the bottle was rock hard from the pressure. Since it hadn't blown on its own, we decided to give it a little help. One big toss into the sky onto asphalt later and the bottle kersploded. We both ran inside giggling like school girls.

"Did you leave it out there?" I said.

"It was gone... I found the label though."

"Go see if you can find any pieces from it."

A minute or so later he came back in. "I think it went in the neighbor's yard. She was pretty mad."

I came up here to do this post, and was about to the second paragraph went I heard a BOOM. I charged downstairs to hear DrummerBoy and DramaMama laughing heartily. The way it sounded, I thought it had gone off in the house.

This time he used a bottled water bottle. We found the wrapper from that too. So far no sirens.

I was originally going to blog about "Whistles for kids at parties are the Devil", but this won out.

By the way, the last bottle we tried is so bloated and hard that it is going to be a dandy when it hits the pavement. We are saving it for tomorrow so the neighbor that got the first one doesn't get too mad. We'll wake her up with it. Tee Hee.

Trunk-or-Treat

This evening we attended the annual "Trunk-or-Treat". What's that you ask? In our church, to help promote safe Halloween candy gathering, a night is set aside where all the families gather in the parking lot of the church with decorated car trunks. The cars are parked side by side to make "trunk-or-treating" move quickly. Our car was themed after Hitchcock's "The Birds"... It had bird crap all over it. They also have a few games and dinner.

DramaMama made the "Ghost Chili" from the recipe on Domestic Goddess's blog. It is most excellent.

As tonight was also Drummer Boy's first official date (Homecoming), DramaMama was the one in charge of decorating him in his tux, and getting the "before" shots. She missed most of the Trunk-or-Treat, but did arrive in time to chat with several friends.

I was in charge of the Bear and his friend from school. The Bear was Batman, and his friend was Spider Man. They met up with another friend of the Bear's who was Superman. DramaMama got a picture of the three of them. It may show up here (or on her blog) later.

The first order of business was the dinner which consisted of about 20 selections of chili, and 3 or 4 selections of cornbread. I of course had the ghost chili. I was helping the boys get their food, and carrying their treat buckets. I wasn't paying attention to the level of my own bowl, and accidentally "ghosted" Spiderman's mask and gloves which were in his purple pumpkin candy bucket.

The Bear had a bucket that was Elmo's head. So Batman is gathering candy in an Elmo bucket. Interesting. "Elmo loves the caped crusader!"

With all of the political stuff going on, I was called into work today. I have a great t-shirt for such occasions. It reads: "Let me drop everything and work on your problem." I am so tired, both physically and mentally. This shirt expresses my feelings perfectly. I decided that it would serve well as my costume for this evening as well. I went as an over-worked computer guy.

One of the activities there was a dunk tank. The Bear really enjoyed that. He even hit the target and dunked the guy.

So, even though this has been a horrendous week on pretty much all fronts, I had an enjoyable time this evening.

Muchas Politicos

Since hardly anyone laughed at my joke, I will regale you with tales from work. I covered the illness thing pretty well there. Lately, due to the upcoming election, our company has been uber-swamped with work for political candidates.

You know those annoying signs that get stuck all over the whole dern town? We do that.

You know those annoying political mailings you get every day for two months from various candidates trying to slurp up your vote? We do that.

You know those annoying phone calls you get asking you questions about the election and who you are going to vote for? We do that.

You know the web sites listed on the annoying signs (ie ErnestTBoogerheadForArizona.com)? We do that too. We have a local channel here that presents a show for the Mesa city government. I pause there occasionally, because I know pretty much everyone on the panel. I built the Mayor's website, the vice-mayor's website, numerous city councilmen websites, and one for the janitor to sell glow-in-the dark yo-yos.

I have a huge hand in the mailings and the phone lists. We are working statewide this election, so there is an abominable amount of data to organize. My brain is usually fried by end of day. But it is all worth it to make sure you get your share of political mailings and phone calls.

Vote for Ernest!

My Week and My Letter From the Bear

As you may have read on DramaMama's blog, I have been rather ill this week. It hit me Monday evening with a vengeance.

I stayed home from work on Tuesday, but still ended up doing a couple hours remotely.

Wednesday I went in, even though I felt like the Triceratops poop pile on Jurassic Park.

Thursday I stayed home, and talked my boss into paying me sick pay for the two days I was out. He agreed as long as I kept on top of all my work remotely. He's a peach ain't he? So there I sat at my home computer for several hours... feverish and chilling... helping some local politicians get their message out. I went to the doctor and got some meds. During the day as I was resting, the Bear came in with a sheet of paper with kid squiggly writing on it.

"I wrote you a letter, Daddy."

"Gwarksit Zhey?" Translation from ill-speak: "What's it say?"

"I hope you feel better, because you still talk weird."

Friday I was starting to feel better but was still way below par. I went into the office for what turned out to be the day from that hot burny place. I ended up pulling a 14 hour shift and finally left at about 10:00pm. I had very little for breakfast, then I had a Healthy Choice dinner thingy for lunch (very small). I had a yogurt too, but I guess when I put my lunch in the fridge, my for pierced the foil cap, and by lunchtime there was yogurt all over everything. I didn't eat the yogurt.

I drove from work to DrummerBoy's school to pick him up. He had just returned from playing at a football game.

Once I got home I finally got to eat, but then a long night of coughing commenced. Boy was that fun! A couple of times it felt like my lungs were going flop inside out of my mouth. I was coughing so hard that a couple times my neck popped. It was one of those very dry, very scratchy throat kind of cough. I'll spare the imagery about the voluminous goo.

So last night I got about zots for sleep. "Why are you typing a blog then dough-head?" you might ask. Well... iunno.

I am feeling somewhat better today, but am still having periodic bouts with this cough.

This thing really kicked my butt. I can only think of two instances in my life where I felt more sick than I did Thursday:

1) Just over a year ago when I was hospitalized (thinking I was having a heart-attack). I had been having severe nausea and other end, mixed with cold sweats. The whole scene was rather graphic, I will spare the gross details for non "technicolor yawn" fans.

2) Probably 13 years ago, I ate lunch at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants and ordered the Mexican-poop Tacos... um, I mean Chile Verde Chimichanga. This was my usual there. Something weren't quite right with it that day though. That evening I would have been glad to have been put out of my misery. This too involved great expulsion of barf matter from full-wide mouth portal, but I'll spare the details. *

So as you can see I felt rather crappy. I am happy to say though that my very long day yesterday did get me caught up with the mountainous amount of political mailing list data you can imagine.

So now... I think I'll work. On my book, I mean. :)


* See the comments for a cool story about this.

A Joke by CheezWeezil

A Rabbai took a much needed trip to the Hawaiian Islands. As he stepped off of the plane, he was greeted by beautiful island women who placed a lei around his neck. They began to dance and sing.

"Alo.... ha... hui"

The Rabbai held up both hands and said, "Aloha? Oy! Don't get me started!"



Copyright © 2006 CheezWeezil Dumb Jokes Unlimited

The Ferocious Fart Beast

Land of Many Moons

Today reminded me of an episode of Saturday Night Live years ago. In it, a repairman played by Dan Akroyd came to the home and his toolbelt weighed his pants down so as to emphasize his back side.

Bill Murray watched him as he began his work and said, "And the moon came out surprisingly early!"

Well today, it was tag-team at our house for different workmen. At 9:00, the first one showed up to deliver the fabulous new cookware that DramaMama had purchased. He made us some applesauce that was amazing. While he was there, a plumbing inspector arrived. He went through the house and checked all of the plumbing and the water heater.

While he was doing his thing, I returned to the cooking guy. He convinced us to move up to the next higher set than the one we had chosen.


The plumbing inspector got my attention and took me out to visit the water heater. He told me that since it is 10 years old, he wouldn't do the flush service. He showed me some corrosion, and blah blah blah. He recommended a new water heater, new lines, and a new valve.

As the Plumbing guy is preparing to leave, (the cooking guy is still there by the way), another knock came at the door signaling the arrival of the Dish Network guy to install our new system that DramaMama surprised me with. I opened the door and said, "NEXT!"

He mounted the dish on the side of our house where the Homeowners Association Nazis couldn't readily see it. He hooked up the lines and everything. He came in awhile later and said he needed to move the dish. He said that the stucco was too thin. (yeah, I know... I hate stucco). So anyway we now have 4 holes in the stucco on the side of the house.

There is a block wall that divides our lot from the neighbors. He ended up mounting the thing on that. If the HOA bums say a word... BANG, ZOOM, TO THE MOON!

It took him awhile to get the thing programmed and everything hunky dory. The cooking guy left with a bottle of DramaMama's wonderful salsa. The plumbing guy didn't get one because he was stinky.

DramaMama went to a Bridal Shower and returned before the dish dude was done. The Bear wouldn't believe me when I told him that our TV would come from space.

"It's still sitting right there!"

"I know, but the pictures in it will come down from space."

"If I go outside, can I see them coming down?"

At last the parade of vertical smiles had gone, and we could finally get on with the day.

Did I mention that in preparation for said parade that we were up before 7am CLEANING? My first task was to clear a path in the garage so the plumbing guy could get through without need of a machete. We also cleaned the kitchen to be ready for the cooking guy and straightened our room for the dish feller.

The garage looks half respectable now. The left half. The other side looks like an avalanche of boxes filled with Christmas crap. But alas, that will have to wait until some other workmen are coming. wink wink.

My Many Hats

I'm sure we all feel this way, all our different callings in life mixed in with our hobbies, work, church, schools, the yard, all fighting for our attention.

Some of my hats are of course Hubby and Dad, work... OY! Then writing, my business, and computer go-to guy for the extended family.

Recently, I have had a wave of people asking for help with their blogs. This was fun, because I got to put on my "prest-o change-o use the old thing and make it look completely different" hat.

I first took on "Beneath the Ivy Wreath" where I designed a header graphic for her. She hasn't got it in place yet, but soon I imagine. Next I took on a challenge from my sister the "Domestic Goddess" to help her redesign her blog. She had downloaded a very pink template from which I used one graphic and the color scheme. I think it turned out quite well.

DramaMama has been asking for a long time for me to fix an image on her blog. The people that created her template embedded her photo into the main image. She didn't like that, so I edited it out and replaced it. I also uploaded a profile image for her. I used the Pirate one he he he.

You may also have noticed a slight change in this blog as well. I originally used one of the stock templates, but was never really fond of the green blob in the profile. So now that I have become a bit better at template tweaking, I decided to do my own as well. I think it looks better, although it does have a few minor quirks.

Awhile ago, I helped redo my Writers in the Mist blog. The concept was mine, but I give full credit to Jonathan Boehme (see The Write Way Home) for the artwork and design of it. I made a few tweaks here and there.

So anyway, this weekend was a blog-o-rama, and I got a new hat.