Camp Magruder 2008

I'm behind on my blogging, so I'm just now posting pics from my church's annual weekend at Camp Magruder, even though it was the first weekend in October. This year we went a week earlier, hoping we might have better weather than we usually do. No such luck. It was rainy most of the time we were there. It took me, a transplanted Californian, awhile to learn that rainy weekends at the beach can be fun. At Magruder that's especially true, because rainy days mean more time to sit by the wood stove and read, visit, or work on a craft project. This year I worked on a cross stitch project, cross stitching cute little vegetables on a green apron while making sure my son didn't destroy the building. I did have to venture outside for a few activities, such as trips to the dining hall, a scavenger hunt, trips to the dining hall, loading and unloading the car, and trips to the dining hall.

Here's part of my scavenger hunt team, tromping along in the rain:


Jerry displays a Tootsie Roll:


So much for the Tootsie Roll:


At the foot of the donkey statue:


Scavenger hunt team on the beach:


Scavenger hunt team showing their donkey ears. Apparently Tony is confused about the type of ass we're talking about.


One of the best things about our annual trip to Magruder is watching the kids play. They're deafeningly noisy, but they have tons of fun and sometimes look cute doing it:




Another Magruder weekend has come and gone. Next up: visiting a local pumpkin farm - but that will have to wait till I've had some sleep.

More monkey butts

Just when you thought it was safe to return to my blog--time for more monkey butts! After my last post on this fascinating topic, someone on Flickr saw my monkey butt pics and asked where she could find this classy product. Librarian that I am, I searched various arcane sources (OK, I Googled "monkey butt powder") and discovered that the manufacturer has a web site: http://www.antimonkeybutt.com. I can only imagine the comments when they applied for that domain name. Anyway, the site includes a store where you can buy Anti-Monkey-Butt Powder, along with hats and t-shirts. There's even a video of a commercial for the product. Imagine BJ and the Bear 20 years later, and you'll have the general idea.

I think I'm going to put the ladies' tank top on my Christmas list.

Extreme Pumpkins, 2008 Edition

A couple of years ago, I wrote a brief post about the 2005 extreme pumpkin contest winners. For awhile that post came up as the third results when Googling "extreme pumpkins," so I got a lot of blog traffic around Halloween. In case that happens again this year--and as a public service for all those weirdos out there who, like me, enjoy gutting and carving innocent squash--I've decided to put together a short guide to resources for extreme pumpkin carving.

ExtremePumpkins.Com: Home of the aforementioned extreme pumpkin contest, this site offers a ton of stuff, much of it free and the rest cheap: Instructions for preparing and carving pumpkins (including a video), great photos of extreme pumpkins, some carving patterns which you can download for a few dollars, and instructions for using gasoline and other flammable materials to do pumpkin pyrotechnics. The emphasis here is on the funny, gross, and disturbing, rather than the cutesy designs you find on other pumpkin carving sites. The site is run by Tom Nardone, reigning king of extreme pumpkins and author of:




If you're as warped as I am, you'll love Nardone's work.

Since we're on the subject of books, I found one other book on extreme pumpkin carving:


For additional inspiration, search for extreme pumpkins on Flickr and YouTube.

I'm thinking of doing a cannibal pumpkin this year. Should be fun.

Now Google can save you from yourself

What's more fun than drunk dialing? Drunk emailing, of course! Now, instead of just embarrassing yourself with one person, you can have your drunken ramblings forwarded to 250 of your closest friends, your boss, and probably 10 or 20 total strangers. How can you prevent such a devastating occurrence? Well, you could cut back on your drinking, but where's the fun in that? Instead, the company that helps you find important information--the name of the Black 'N Blue's drummer (Pete Holmes, in case you were wondering), get directions to that cool club downtown that won't let you in, and find that picture your friend took of your butt last year--comes to your rescue once again. Google Labs just announced Mail Goggles, a GMail add-on designed to keep you from embarrassing yourself after a night of drinking. The concept is delightfully simple: Once you install Mail Goggles, you won't be able to send any email late on a weekend night without solving a series of math problems within a specified time period. And you thought you left timed math tests behind in 5th grade.

Install Mail Goggles, and never again will you declare your undying love for someone you talked to for five minutes in a bar, call your boss unprintable names, or proposition your cousin... well, at least you won't do any of these things via GMail... unless you can do basic math despite a blood alcohol level that should render you clinically dead. Hey, there are no sure things in life, right?