Amazing Trick-or-Treat Ideas 2017

So, today, (yesterday if you're reading this when I post it) October 30, at around noon, I decided to look at my Time Hop app, the handy app that takes you back in time to see yon posts of yesteryear, (I mainly use it to find and delete old embarrassing social media political posts that my younger, stupider self thought were a good idea to share with the world) and I was reminded of my yearly tradition of writing a post of alternative Halloween candy ideas. I had completely forgotten about it, which is also apparently becoming a yearly tradition. So since I have to work at 5 tonight, apparently I have just a few hours to write up a post. I suppose I could do it when I get off work, but I think I write better under pressure. Let's see if I can do it. If you're reading this, I probably did it. :p

For those of you who are new, every year I like to come up with new, amazing things for you to hand out to Trick-or-Treaters. After all, you want to be the most memorable house in the neighborhood, right? Well if you follow my advice, you'll certainly be memorable. It's up for debate whether that's a good thing or not.

If you're interested, the previous years' posts can be found at these links:
2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016

Candy - No not edible candy, Aaron Carter's hit 2000 pop single 'I Want Candy' covering the 1982 pop smash by Bow Wow Wow, which was itself a cover of a 1965 song by the Strangeloves. You can give out one of the originals too, but you're going to get egged. Oh who am I kidding. You're going to get egged anyway.

A Haunted Diadem - Do you have an ancient, cursed crown that's just swarming with ghosts, who never leave you alone, and are always opening your cupboards, looking for food they can never eat, and occasionally flushing the toilet and playing (admittedly catchy) Turkish pop music just to mess with you? Well, when you get a Trick-or-Treater around who you particularly despise, probably that rotten neighbor kid who shaved and painted your cat that one time, just give him the crown, and your troubles are over! It's perfect! If his parents complain, you can just act like they're crazy, because ghosts aren't real, right?

Cucumber - Just leave a cucumber on the porch.

Raisin Boxes - This one's a bit tricky, but for this one, just put all your real candy into raisin boxes. That way all the spoiled brats won't take any, and you can keep it all for yourself. And if they do take one, well, they must be a very polite child, and therefore they deserve the candy.

A Trick - Kids always say Trick-or-Treat, so why not call their bluff? This year, when they say Trick-or-Treat, wordlessly pull a rabbit out of a hat. When they applaud, go back inside and shut the door.

Another Trick - When the kids all say Trick-or-Treat, do some kind of a sick skateboarding trick, or a sweet bike jump. Grind down your porch rail, and ride off into the night!

A Mean Trick - Just swipe all their candy and go back inside. They asked for a trick, and they never specified what kind. Legally you are totally in the clear. Probably.

Trix - Just pour some Trix cereal into their candy bag. It's a treat and a pun!

Marbles - Marbles are pretty cheap right, right? All you have to do is dress up like a little old lady who can't see well. The kids will just assume that you mistook the marbles for candy and will be too polite to say anything, saving you a TON of money on candy. If they do say something, you can just give them a Tic-Tac out of your purse, because what self-respecting little old lady doesn't keep Tic-Tacs in her purse? And if those little rotters complain, you can just pelt them with the marbles, while screeching at them to get off your property. It's a win-win either way.

Tea - Open the door dressed like a proper British Lady, complete with the fanciest, most unnecessarily elaborate gown you can find. Bonus points if you dress as the queen and wear a crown. This goes for guys too, the exquisite gown, as well as the most exaggerated, high pitched falsetto voice you can muster, are an absolute must for this one, no matter your gender. Optionally, you can also wear some giant fake teeth if you want, but that's probably racist, so maybe you better not.

In your worst British accent, screech at the little tots that approach your door, "CHEERIO MY DARLING, I'M SIMPLY CHUFFED TO BITS TO SEE YOU!!! WOULD YOU LIKE A SPOT OF TEA?!?!" And then proceed to pour boiling hot tea out of your finest china teapot, directly into their candy bag. "HOW ABOUT A CRUMPET?!?!" and throw one of those in too. "BICKIE?" and just dump a whole box of digestives in there as well. If they start crying, whether in fright, or because you just melted all their Twixes and Kit-Kats, exclaim, "BLIMEY!!! THIS DOES THROW A SPANNER IN THE WORKS!!!" and turn around pretending that your husband is inside.

"REGINALD MY DARLING THIS TINY BEGGAR CHILD IS HAVING A RIGHT BEASTLY BLUB ON OUR DOORSTEP!!! SHOULD WE CALL THE ORPHANAGES!?!?" Then grab your carpet bag, pop open your umbrella, and float away into the night calling, "TOOTLE-OOO, LOVE, TOOTLE-OO!!! PIP-PIP!!! CHEERIO!!! JOLLY-GOOD!!! SMASHING, SIMPLY SMASHING!!!"

#TrueFacts 26

Did you know that the term "Fast Food" was coined by a caveman chasing a velociraptor? Needless to say, that phrase lasted a LOT longer than he did. #TrueFact

Did you know that emus are the ballerinas of the avian world? Angry, vicious ballerinas. #TrueFact

Did you know that sneezes are caused by tiny nose gremlins firing little cannons out of your nostrils? They're at war with the microscopic gnomes that live on your throat, making you cough. #TrueFact

Did you know that sneezes are caused by nose demons from the sinus dimension? The sneezes are your nose's attempts at a nasal exorcism. #TrueFact

Did you know that a sneeze is the byproduct of your own forgetfulness? Every time you forget something, the thought travels out of your brain, through your sinuses, and into your nose, where the exposure to the intense amount of oxygen, (and maybe your nose hairs) causes your thought to violently explode inside your nose, causing the sneeze. #TrueFact

Did you know that I can purposely contradict any facts that I choose? I can do whatever I want! No one can stop me! #TrueFacts are mine alone to control! Mine! MINE!!! HA HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!!! #TrueFact

Did you know that there is an island near Easter Island called Halloween Island? It is populated by 40 foot high, stone skulls. #TrueFact

Did you know that pizza is the world's least healthy vegetable? #TrueFact

Did you know that the gas giants in our solar system are all bubbles, blown by a cosmic space entity named Timmy? Timmy also likes playing with rocks, and he left his collection out between Mars and Jupiter, which is why we have an asteroid belt. Timmy needs to listen to his cosmic space mommy and pick those things up before his cosmic space daddy comes home and steps on one. #TrueFact

Did you know that before Instagram, people had to wait up to 10 years for pictures to decay enough to be presentable? #TrueFact

This Month in Internet (September 2017)

Not that many videos this month. Not sure if it's because my favorite creators haven't been putting out as much stuff, or if I'm just not watching as much as usual. I have been getting busier and busier with my own YouTube channel, which does leave less time for watching other people's oh well. I do have a few videos to share, so let's get on with them!

Peter Hollens released a video with 'Ten Second Songs' that I just loved, which is ironic, because I actually really don't like this song, but they managed to put a spin on it that I loved.

Also I now really want Peter to sing more opera songs. :p

A channel that I recently discovered, 8 Bit Universe, released an 8-bit cover of Toto's Africa. I never knew how much I needed this to exist!

The Warp Zone did another of their geeky acapella themes, this time mashing up the various themes from different Star Trek shows.

I haven't really gotten into Star Trek yet, but I remember watching Voyager quite a bit as a teenager, so when that part of their compilation came up, I got a bit of a nostalgia hit. :)

There haven't been that many updates to one of my favorite websites, homestarrunner.com, in recent years, but on their twitter account, run by fan-favorite character, Strong Bad, they have been releasing these ridiculous little drawing 'tutorials' by Strong Bad. They've all been funny, but this one made me laugh a lot.

We'll end this post with another Kulning video by Jonna Jinton. I just love her voice. She's like a vision of a time, long, long ago.

#TrueFacts 25

Did you know that if you eat enough raw nutmeg and aspirin you can hear colors, and see music? It's true! The Psychedelic Nirvana Owl told me! #TrueFact
(It's also a great way to find inspiration for these posts! #TrueFact)

Did you know that Swedish Meatballs were actually invented in Norway? The Swedish government has been keeping that scandal under wraps for centuries. #TrueFact

Did you know that chess boards are made from checkered racing flags? You can make your own with a nice starch dip and an iron to achieve the desired stiffness. Either that or just bury them till they're fossilized. That's what the ancients did! #TrueFact

Did you know that Crisco is actually just bleached butter? #TrueFact

Did you know that the first football goal posts were actually giant cheese slicers? Early football players, or footcheese players, as they were called at the time, would use a large wheel of cheese instead of a ball, and they would kick the cheese through the goalposts to slice it on the giant cheesewire. Many spectators over the centuries were knocked out by the flying cheesewheels, but the sport remained popular because of all the free cheese slices. This barbaric game eventually evolved into the far more civilized sport that we Americans so love today. Mostly because people realized that eating dirty cheese was just gross. #TrueFact

Did you know that ostriches could fly if they wanted to? They just choose to not. Ostriches and most other flightless birds don't feel the need to conform to society's birdist stereotypes. #TrueFact

Did you know that trees think that we are related to them? They think that our arms are weird, leafless branches, and our hair is some kind of bizarre foliage. Boy those trees sure are dumb, right guys? Yeah. They're dumb. #TrueFact

Did you know that ninja grandmothers use starched doilies as throwing stars? #TrueFact

Did you know that clowns are not well-trained, make-upped comedians? They are actually wild animals. Circuses collect them by baiting clown traps in the woods with large meringue pies, and honking bicycle horns from a nearby tree. #TrueFact

Did you know that humans spend almost 2/3rds of their lives breathing? The human body is truly a marvel. #TrueFact

This Month in Internet (August 2017)

This months post is shorter than usual, but there's still a lot of good stuff here. Let's start it off with Lindsey Stirling! I really love the stripped down version of the song. I love her elaborate music video productions, but I also love these videos. I love that she had a song she liked, and just sat down and played it on her violin. :)

Earlier this week I shared my eclipse vlog, a video where things didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but everything worked out anyway. Turns out, things didn't go as expected for lots of people, Peter Hollens included, but I love that even though he kind of failed at making the video he wanted to make, he put it together and put it out there anyway. It's easy to forget that people who make such amazing content like Peter have days where things don't work out for them either. I loved this little reminder of that. Plus I still loved the song, no matter what happened in the actual video.



Last month I introduced you to Ava Ryan with a video compilation of her character Charlene. Charlene is probably most people's favorite Ava character, but not mine, I do love Charlene, she's hilarious, but my favorite character is Bossy Boss Lady.



Last month I also introduced you to Joe Jeremiah, with his epic 8-bit Steven Universe song. Well this month he managed to top that, doing the theme song to Gravity Falls!



And then he also did a piano cover!



Well, it turns out that my favorite clown was not Simon Cowell's favorite clown, and Puddles Pity Party did not make it to the end of America's Got Talent. I'm sad he lost, but I know this isn't the end for him. A talent like his won't be forgotten easily. I still haven't brought myself to watch his last AGT performance, but I've been keeping up with all his videos on YouTube. Here's his latest.



Let's end this post with Mike Tompkins' latest collab with Peter Hollens. This was my absolute favorite music video all month.

Eclipse 2017 - My First Vlog!

Well, I figured it was only a matter of time after I started doing YouTube before I decided to vlog something. I've been blogging for years, so I guess this was the natural evolution. One could argue that my movie reviews are a kind of vlog, but this was me, actually going out into the world, filming something I was doing.

My cousins and I were planning on going to see the total eclipse for a few weeks before it actually happened. It wasn't until a few days before the event that I actually thought about vlogging it. Until that point I hadn't given vlogging much thought. I thought it might be fun, but it wasn't, and still isn't, something I was planning to do as a regular thing. But for something as big as the eclipse, what better thing could there be to do for a first vlog?

Sarah and I were planning on going by ourselves, but about a week before the eclipse, we found out that Shaina had the day off, so we convinced her to come. The only problem was, by that point, we still hadn't gotten eclipse glasses. I had planned to buy them on Amazon, but then there was that whole scandal with scammers making fake glasses to cash in on the hysteria, so I never got any there. The store I work at had apparently gotten some in, but they had sold out before I even knew we had them, (allegedly, to one person who bought them all, I'm assuming to resell to desperate people) and they weren't planning on getting any more in.

(Side note, that last week before the eclipse was so much fun at work... *sarcasm* SO many people coming in to ask if we had any of the eclipse glasses left. They all said they'd been all over town and we were their last hope. Apparently my store could have cleaned up if they'd had the foresight.)

The Friday before the eclipse we were down to the wire. I started calling all the local stores, going out wider and wider, until of them told me that they'd heard that the Hy-Vee in Council Bluffs had just gotten some in. So I called them and was told that yes, they had just gotten a shipment, but they were down to the last couple hundred pairs, and they weren't able to hold any for anyone. So Sarah and I jumped in the car right then, and drove to Council Bluffs to get some. We had to wait in line for a lot longer than I expected to, at a register where all they were doing was selling glasses, but we got some!

Monday morning was the day of the eclipse, and since I vlogged all that, there's no need to blog it! You can just watch it all here!



As you could probably tell, I was taking pictures while we were there, and I plan to blog them at some point, but I haven't gotten around to editing them yet. I've actually done a LOT of photography this summer, I just haven't gotten around to blogging any of it. You might have noticed, but YouTube has been my main creative focus this summer. :p

While we were driving, we filmed another episode of Wonderland Wednesday, which has quickly become my channel's main series. We had listened to a radio adaption from 1948 while we drove, so I thought it would be fun to do the review as we drove too. :)



I have no current plans to vlog again, but I did enjoy doing it, and I had fun editing the video, so I will probably do it again someday. I definitely don't want to become a daily vlogger, that just sounds exhausting, but if I'm doing something fun, or going somewhere interesting, I could easily see myself doing it again.

SUIA (Steven Universe IS Awesome)

Awhile back I talked about making a post dedicated to Steven Universe covers, so here it is! Complete with a (probably) one-time use graphic that I just decided to make an hour before I posted this! I actually started this post months ago, and I just keep adding to it. Steven Universe is such a great show, and it has such amazing music. The composers and song writers are musical geniuses, and so many people have taken notice, you can get absolutely lost on YouTube if you just search "Steven Universe Song Covers." So, since most of you probably don't watch the show and would have no reason to search such a thing, I'll do the work for you and pick out the best ones. Some of the songs will be repeated, but I love different artists takes on different songs.

I'm just going to group these by song, and I'm not going to do introductions to most of the videos because some of these are people I follow all the time, but a lot of others are just ones I've come across online, and I don't really know who they are beyond the fact that I like their cover. Though a number of these people I discovered while researching this post, and I subscribed right away.

And just so you know, this is definitely going to be a long post, so make sure you have the time to watch, or plan to come back. :)

Steven Universe Theme



Is it a cover if it's sung live by the cast? I don't care, I love it anyway. :p



Giant Woman/Let Me Drive my Van into Your Heart



Be Wherever You Are



Comet



Stronger Than You



This has pretty much become the iconic song of Steven Universe. I could probably do a whole post on just this song along, but I won't, I'll limit it to two very different versions.



Something Entirely New





Peace and Love (On Planet Earth)



It's Over Isn't It?





Both of You



Here Comes a Thought





What's the Use of Feeling, Blue?







Love Like You (End Theme)