Hip Hop Happy Halloween from the Beagles

Ranger does a reprise as Darth Beagle and Kodak with his new K-9 outfit shown earlier.



Also included - a tripod enabled shot of Steph's Bat Pumpkin:

¡¡¡HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the DEVIL DOG!!!

1st question wrong on Millionaire

This guy is an idiot, but I can't help feeling a little bad for him. What the hell was he thinking?

The Coolest Gift Card Ever

You may know that Target tends to have nifty trinket type gift cards. Recently I heard about a new one out in honor of the fast approaching launch of Nintendo's new Wii system. I immediatly went to Target to find the card but they were all gone. : (
As luck would have it, Erin was at the Super Target in Des Moines this weekend and scored one for me!


The card appears bland at first glance but simply push the button on the front and...



It lights up like Luke Skywalker's lightsaber! If I ever get a blinking copy of Pink Floyd's Pulse then I'll store the two items together.

Halloween '06

We went to the big Halloween party last night. Steph and I went as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf respectively. Here's a snap:



One of the better sets of costumes was "Jack" and his cheerleader - for those of you without Jack in the Box restaurants the costumes might not resonate as well.



Kodak got a new outfit this year. He's going to be a police dog. As expected, he is a member of the K-9 unit.

Buckley and Friends

As we found out, Buckley's story ended happily. However, Buckley was not the only missing pet in Cameron Park.

Still no word if Precious the cat has turned up.

Silly the duck is also still missing!

In other news Dolly Madison has apparently been sold out to Hostess. Does one company really need both Zingers and Twinkies?

Jack O' Lanterns in CA

Steph and I decided to each carve Jack O' Lanterns this year. Two pictures attached - the lit lanterns sans and with flash. Cast you vote in the comments for your favorite.



less effective with the camera flash on...

Nice BBC documentary about Tetris

A hard to find documentary about Tetris and its creator Alexey Pajitnov. Also covers the rivalaries between Nintendo and Atari and the absurdities of buying copyrights for software from a country that doesn't believe in property, much less intellectual property. Ultimately, a great documentary about a very important game.

The Rolling Stones - Live in Seattle

The night before we were flying to Seattle for our Canada trip Steph wondered if there were any shows in Seattle for the 1 night we would be there. I grabbed the computer and quickly learned that the Rolling Stones would be playing in Qwest Field with Dave Matthews Band opening. We figured tickets would be impossible but I had just finished reading an article in the Wall Street Journal on Stubhub.com so I pulled it up and scored 2 tickets for $60 a piece. The Seattle paper the next morning (Oct. 17th) was advertising $700 tickets!



The show was awesome! The Stones featured a 20,400 square foot, 300 ton stage. It takes 70 semis to hall the thing. They played 17 tunes including:

Jumpin' Jack Flash
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Let's Spend The Night Together
She Was Hot
Let It Bleed
Streets Of Love
Midnight Rambler
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
Little T&A
Under My Thumb
Oh No, Not You Again
Start Me Up
Honky Tonk Women
Sympathy For The Devil
Paint It Black
Brown Sugar

Encore
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Satisfaction

Village Idiot

When Bill was out we met our friends Stacey and German at the local brewpub BJs. As we were enjoying the conversation the Folsom village idiot joined us and just wouldn't leave. Bill was being nice to him initially so that just encouraged it. He ended up giving Bill his phone #.



Perhaps Rick Springfield was right? Don't Talk to Strangers.

Chapstick Shortage?

Dad has always taught us that you can't have too much Chapstick. As a result, on many a trip to Target or Wal-Mart I pick up a tube - just in case. I recently cleaned out the junk drawer in the kitchen and to my surprise I found 17 chapsticks!

Buckley!

Lots of blogging to do as I'm way behind - will start small. When Bill was out visiting a few weeks ago went outside to find a stray dog in the garage. Steph wanted to keep the dog but I wouldn't allow it. We did name the animal though - Buckley.



We've had two Buckley sightings since - in one he was riding in a truck wearing a bandana. In the second, he was in front of his house barking - also in a bandana. Turns out old Buck lives just two doors down.

Hardrock Halellujah!! LORDI

I discovered this band called Lordi. This song and video tell the story of Gretchen's high school days.

Dr. Choice

As some of you may know, I'm a casual scholar of Dr. Pepper copycat sodas. Here's my latest find.

paul test

test for family blog

Signs go 3-dimensional in Arkansas Campaign!

The Truck as it travels around town A pumpkin sign at Windover and Harrisburg Road near Burger King My campaign manager Jake-the-Snake My Sign Guy at Work

My Strange Quest for a Nintendo Wii

Today is Wii-day. The first day that a select few are able to preorder a Nintendo Wii to supposedly guarantee a unit on day one of the mid-November launch. I decided to head to Gamestop to get one! I went at about 8AM this morning. There was a line of 9 people already there. The first guy in line had been there since 7PM the night before!

This is a picture of the Wii.

Here's a picture from my position in line.

This lady handed out oatmeal creme pies to everyone. Yuki and I shared one.

Yuki was a nice companion to have since it was close to freezing out.

These ladys approached from the Super Clips Haircut place in the stripmall. They offered free haircuts to anyone in line for some kind of barber school certification exam. After making sure that my spot in line was secure, I took them up on the free cut. I was the only one to do it!

Here's a snap of the first guy in line. Over he waited 14 hours through a freezing night. That's dedication!


The oatmeal pie lady approached again, this time offering what she called "magazines to help us pass the time". I took a couple to be nice since I'd eaten one of her oatmeal pies. Yes that's right, she was an oatmeal pie wielding Jehova's Witness!!!

The story ends like this: The employees arrived and began letting people in one by one to preorder. I asked the guy how many units they had and he said "less than 12". This scared me because I was number 10 in line. Number 11 and I were sweating! They finally got to me and let me in the store and told #11 to take a hike. I was the last person to get one!

I'll have a Wii day one!!!!

Pumpkin Beer Face Off: This One's For Will

With Halloween cometh pumpkin beer! I've been waiting since last spook season for this stuff. Both the Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale and the Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale are made by big American brewers. Coors puts out Blue Moon and Anheuser-Busch makes Jack's. Will may know of some other micro pumpkin producers. The pumpkin flavor in each is fairly mild. Both are excellent in my opinion, with a very slight nod going to the Jack's. Stock up now before they clear the seasonal shelves for the Nutcracker Xmas Ale!!

Arkansas: Alabama State Champion

Last week-end was a banner football week-end with big wins by Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Michigan and Arkansas State.

Interesting Link

Find a Grave....

Jake at 6 months, and Luke for good measure.

Nebraska!

I found a last minute cheap flight to Omaha so I flew out to visit Bill. We caught the Nebraska-Kansas game which turned out to be an overtime thriller as Kansas gave Nebraska way more than they wanted before falling in the end.

On the way back to Omaha we had a bit of time so we drove by to check up on the old Comstock estate. Though it has been painted, it continues to slip further into a state of disrepair. Here are a few snaps that we took...



Here's a snap of the pool and the summer house. Summer house actually looked to be pretty decent.



We drove the loop we used to walk and stumbled on to the "Forgot Store". We tried to eat dinner here but it was closed...



So we drove through back down to 30th street and went in to Florence , the historic heart of Omaha, where we stumbled across Omaha's best fried chicken at Time Out Foods...



And closed our adventure, as always, with a trip to Zesto for Chocolate and Marshmallow malts :)