Amazing Trick-or-Treat Ideas 2020 - PANDEMIC EDITION!

I know it's tradition for me to give you ten delicious Halloween handout suggestions each year, treats to give to all the adorable costumed kids who parade through the neighborhood, but this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, all Halloween treats are to be replaced with tricks. Sorry, I don't make the rules. (Or do I?)

Anyway, as the tradition is "Trick-or-Treat" the option to go exclusively with tricks was always there, we just needed a reason to use it. So with that in mind, instead of ten treat ideas, here are ten easy, socially distanced trick ideas you can use to frighten off any crawly little germ carriers that come creeping round your Hollow this 'Ween.

Oh, and it should go without saying, but set up a video camera. You're destined for TikTok virality with these tricks!

~

A Plastic Bag Fulla Pumpkin Guts

Load that sucker into a trebuchet, and launch it at whenever a germy little gremlin trespasses across your yard. Bonus points if you manage to hit them.

A Swarm of Holographic Bees

This is exactly what it sounds like. Set up a projector with a fog machine, a copy of John Williams' "Realistic Swarm of Bees" soundtrack, and voila. The most visceral Halloween terror of all. Nature.

Sort of. 

Rotten Eggs & Mustard Balloons

The old standbys. Sometimes the classics are the best. Just chuck those puppies out a two story window and wait for the police to show up. You won't get away with this one, but it will be worth it.

Non-Dairy Creamer
No this isn't a treat, even though non-dairy creamer is a dusty delight, on Halloween it's a perfect rugrat repellent. You'll need about a 3 ton pile of Vaguely Vanilla™, as well as an industrial fan with a motion activated sensor. I think you can see where I'm going with this. *PLOOF!* Classic!

A Tiger Pit
Dig a ten foot pit in your front yard, cover it with a tarp and leaves, and wait. Little Suzy won't know what got her. Oh, and put some pillows in the pit of course. You're not a monster.
I hope.

A Massive Pile of Old Magazines
Everyone has at least one old grandma who's been hoarding magazines since the 1950's. Make a huge mound just inside your fence, barring entry, and surround it with tripwire attached to firecrackers, set to go off any time anyone gets close. It's important that you don't let anyone actually take the magazines, Grammy Gladiolas needs those back. They could be worth something someday.

Plutarch Heavensbee
Just hire an actor to sit behind a raised podium in your yard, and interview passing children as if they are about to enter the Hunger Games. Hilarious!

Dollies
Just fill your yard with hundreds of old fashioned, antique baby dolls. Position them in vaguely unsettling configurations, and have a speaker playing an adorable little voice repeating, "Mamma! Mamma!" "Feed me! Feed me!" "Baby needs a change!" And

"¡̩̗̂̕D͓̒ark̫̀ ̫̈́Lor̼̽d̈͜,̙͝ w͕̒e ̻̅b̻̿e͖̊see̠̾c̼̀h̟͂ ̈͜ṯ͋hi̯̾ne̳̐ ̳͘ǐ̗n̻͘t̐͢e̛͕rv̪̂ȩ̔nt̳͑iö̫n ̅͢i̧̅n ̱͛th͚̚e̱̽ ̳̈́m͚̒or̈́͟t̜͂al͇̽ ̨̆r̭̐ë̟́ḁ̐l͖̇m̜͛!̼͂"

No child will get anywhere near your house again.

A Clown Ballet
As clowns are obviously not human, they cannot get or spread Covid-19, so there's no need for them to self-isolate. Gather a large crowd of them in your front yard to perform the classic clown ballet, Honk Lake, which features an ordinary clown that is magically transformed into a Volkswagen Beetle. The passing children will not know how to handle the beautiful representation of a foreign culture, and will be so entranced, they will no longer attempt to mooch candy off your porch.

Vegan Candy
The ultimate trick. They think they're getting a delicious treat, and bam! Carob chips and unsalted almonds! Just make sure you light the whole container on fire the next day. You don't want to risk getting any diseases potentially left behind in your bowl. Also it's vegan, so, you know, gross.

~

So there you go, these are my suggestions for all the various tricks you can play on passing children this year. I know it's not the same as the wonderful treat suggestions that I usually give, but these are extraordinary times, and we all must adapt.

If you want to look back on the way things used to be, you could read all my sweet suggestions from previous years, and wax nostalgic for all the delicious ideas I've given you.

2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019

Hopefully we can return to normal next year, and I can suggest more wonderful Halloween handouts, like a full pan of steaming hot lasagna, a used dish sponge, and a homemade egg salad medley complete with eggshells for extra crunch and texture. Mmmmm... I'm getting hungry! See you next year!

Out of Context! - An Affectionate Clothespin

It has been way too long since I posted one of these. I have really neglected my blog this year. I wish I hadn't but things have come up. Despite everything, 2020 was a really busy year, and my blog definitely fell by the wayside. I made a few posts, but my regular series, like my Out of Context Quotes, just didn't happen very much.

But now I'm back! And I have posts coming! I won't say how many, or when, but more are coming! Starting with one of my favorite series! Which is probably only funny to me, but who cares. This is my blog.

Anyway, you know the drill: These are all real quotes, yadda, yadda, they all made sense in context, but I thought they were funnier without.

And of course, full disclosure: Most of these are from me and my cousins. We say weird things. Like a lot, apparently.

 

"I got these pickles with the face of an old lady."

"I saw someone make a rice pudding that haunted me."

"She is definitely hairy and nubbly."

"I wouldn't mind a few pineapple clumps."

"I'm like a mother who wanted a librarian and got a rocket." 

"It's a lettuce tornado!"

"It's a Baptist vampire."

"I was channeling a punk rock princess."

"You could give her an affectionate clothespin."

"Mmmm... I like gnawing on q-tips." 

"She started collecting a whole bunch of hair from all over the place."

"We're gonna need both our guns for when the burlap comes."

"If you're going to be my pastor, then you should know I make these noises." 

"That's like eating a turkey sandwich and hoping for the best." 

"I figured he'd like little old ladies breaking the law."

"You've always been a shoe baby."

"He was on that commercial with the roadkill that I loved."

"Did you hear about the night Timmy drank the pancake batter?"

"It's so cute how you still make baby otter noises."

"Is a strange man touching your toes?"

If you like these Out of Context posts as much as I do, you can find the entire collection HERE. 

10 Years!

So, it has been 10 years to the day since I started this blog! I started writing here on July 17th, 2010, because I had been reading all kinds of blogs for several years, and I had really wanted to start my own. It took me forever to actually begin though, because I had to get past my own thinking that I had nothing to write about. That's kind of a theme with me, because I remember wanted to start a diary or a journal when I was a kid, and thinking I either had nothing to write about, or that I needed to start it at the beginning of the year, and then I just never did it.

So, I didn't want to just never start a blog, like I never started a journal, so finally I decided to just go for it. I didn't have a theme, I didn't really have anything to write about, I just wanted to write, so I did. Now it's 10 years later, and I still don't have any real theme, I just write for fun whenever I feel like it.

A lot has changed in the last ten years. Soon after I started this blog I decided to go back to school. I had always wanted to go to art school, so I decided to go for it. I used this blog to chronicle my time at Iowa Western Community College, and to some extent I did the same when I transferred to Iowa State University, though since I switched majors and had a lot less art to share, those posts were a lot fewer and father between than my Iowa Western updates.

I also ended up using this blog, as well a second blog I started in 2011, to explore photography. I still continue to take pictures most everywhere I go, but sitting down and blogging them has proved to be a challenge. I do want to get back to that at some point though, so I guess keep an eye out. I will get back into that eventually.

Nowadays I have a bunch of different projects that I've prioritized over my blog, though everything I do is teaching me new things, so that's not really a bad thing. I have my YouTube channel and podcast, which I have now spun off into a second podcast, and those take up most of my free time. The YouTube channel was another instance, like the blog, or even going back to school, where it was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and finally I decided to just go for it. I seem to make a lot of impulsive decisions like that. I want to do something for ages, and then I just jump into it randomly one day.

Some things in my life seem like they haven't changed at all, like when I started this blog I was living on our family farm, and working at Hy-Vee in Harlan, and even though I moved to Ames to go to Iowa State, and I've now worked at several different places over the last decade, this year I moved back home, and I'm back at the Harlan Hy-Vee. So even though so much has changed, in some ways, nothing has. Though that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Anyway, I guess that's all I have for this post. I just wanted to mark the occasion, and I didn't really have anything special in mind. Like I've said multiple times, I have plans for more blog posts, whether it's pictures or writing, but I can't promise timely updates. With all I have going on, they'll probably just happen whenever they happen, but I haven't forgotten about this blog, and I'm going to keep writing. This blog was where I got my start online, and I have no intention of quitting any time soon, so we'll see you next time. :)

Out of Context! - Full of Cake & Fatigue

You know the drill: These are all real quotes, from real conversations that I had, heard, or overheard. They all made sense in context, but I thought they were funnier without.

Full disclosure: The majority of these are from me and my cousins. We say weird things sometimes. Okay, lots of times.

"It's a sourdough panini full of mint and pop rocks."

 

"I like that she’s a 40-year-old woman."

"Don't sneeze on me, you filth!"

"We had a screaming match over whipped cream."

"I'm breathing on you with my human breath!"

"I'm gettin' $9 worth of mealworms."

"Right now he's got the cocaine rat and is going berserk."

"It was in the chicken hole."

"People kept choking on the babies." 

"There's a lunatic in a van chasing me."

"There’s kind of an obnoxious smell coming from the sink hole."

"It’s like drinking jet fuel!"

"You were blessed by the kitten fairies."

"I have a purple cardigan with a bad reputation."

"Maybe it's Monday in my heart."

"Inside every snowflake is a tiny naked person."

"Tear out its jingley entrails!"

"Can I try a baby out?"

"I'm not the meat-mobile."

"I'm so full of cake. And fatigue."

Watch This! (November 2019 - But like, in April 2020)

Hey! A new video sharing post! If you're wondering about the title, it's because I started this post in November, and then kind of forgot about it. I had so much going on last year that my blog definitely fell by the wayside, but I'm going to try to be a bit more active on it this year. I'm not making any promises, but I am going to try.

And I'm definitely not going to promise more of these kinds of posts, they're probably on the low end of my priorities, but since I had this one started, I figured I might as well finish it. So let's just jump into it!

Since this is April, let's start with a video from this month. Peter Hollens' April Fools video! This was originally teased as a cover of Billy Eilish's Bad Guy, not whatever this video became. But I love a good Rick Roll. 😆



And because Peter Hollens and Lindsey Stirling have consistently been two of my favorite YouTube musicians for most of the past decade, it's only fitting that I start the post with both of them. Lindsey put out a few songs toward the end of last year, but this one was probably my favorite. In going back to put this post together, I listened to it in it's entirety at least 4 times in a row.



Rosanna Pansino is mostly known for her baking videos, but she also can sing! Including opera! This was just a short, one-off video she did last year, but I hope she keeps it up!



Avi Kaplan keeps putting out amazing music. As sad as it was when he left Pentatonix, at this point, I am so glad he did. I really love his solo music.



And speaking of Pentatonix spin-offs, not that he's left, he hasn't, but Scott Hoying has a new project - except he's not actually the one doing the singing! He has put together a kid's choir, and they are really good!



And then of course because I really like Bohemian Rhapsody for some reason, here's their mash-up of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Somebody to Love.



I absolutely love it when Postmodern Jukebox does something really out of the box. Their jazz covers of Lady Gaga or Motown versions of Katy Perry are good, but when they do a jazz/tap-dance medley of songs from the Super Mario Brothers video games? I am all over that!



If you follow my video sharing posts, then I'm sure you know how I much I love the music of Steven Universe. A few years ago I made a giant BLOG POST of all my favorite covers of songs from the show. Now, as much as I'd like to do another post like that, I really don't have the time to comb YouTube again, so I will just share a couple covers that came out after last year's Steven Universe: The Movie was released.

There was a ton of great music on the film, it was a full on musical after all, but there was one song that I've played over and over since the movie came out, Other Friends. And soon after the movie was released, a couple of my favorite music cover channels put their own spin on the song, Video Game Remixes and Caleb Hyles. Normally I'd just do one here, but you know me, I love multiple versions of things, so I'm including both. Like most musicals, the lyrics don't make complete sense out of context, but who cares. I love it anyway. 😆





These posts have mainly been a way for me to share music or comedy I really like, but I saw this video and had to share it. It's made entirely out of photographs that people had posted online. It's amazing.



I have loved Pogo since I first discovered one of his Disney remixes back when I first "discovered" YouTube. Last year he did a remix of my childhood favorite film, Bambi, and it was everything I could have hoped for.



Walk off the Earth has come a long way since they started on YouTube, but this video really seems to be getting back to their roots. Specifically their roots of crowding a big group of people around one oversized instrument, and all playing on it together. :)



The Piano Guys did a collab with DoodleChaos, a channel who'd made a couple of classical-based videos I'd seen online, but always on a third party site like Facebook or Reddit, that never gave credit to them, so I didn't even know who they were. I am so glad The Piano Guys reached out to do this collab with them, otherwise I might never have discovered them for myself!



I think that'll be where I quit for now. I could probably add more, but I (re)started this post at the beginning of the month, and I haven't touched it for like a week, so I should probably just get it out there. I won't make any promises about doing another post soon, even a tentative promise like last time, but I probably will do one eventually. I enjoy putting these together, but I have other projects that are taking up more of my time at the moment, so I'm giving my own work priority. And hopefully I'll have some of my own stuff to share soon. :)

I'm In Canada!

So I made it to Canada! I met a super nice border guard named Maureen, and at first she didn't want to let me in, but once I explained that I didn't believe in passports, and my dad was from Canada, she was super understanding.

Right now I'm working on learning the language, so I can find a place to rent a moose. So far it seems pretty simple. Canadian is a pretty easy language to learn. So far I have "Eh" and "Poutine" down, and I already knew a lot of the other words. American and Canadian must have a common root language or something.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in to let you know I was doing fine and to tell you April Fool! Yes, obviously yesterday's post was an April Fools day joke. I haven't done one of those for a few years, and I wasn't really planning on doing one this year, but then everyone on Twitter was like, "April Fools Day should be cancelled this year! Everything is awful! Nothing is funny! This is no time for jokes! Stop being so insensitive!" And I was like, Oh yeah? You can't tell me what to do, lady! And that's how yesterday's post happened.

Anyway, if you liked this post and you want to read some of the ones I've done in the past, here's some handy links for those.

Becoming a homeless street mime: Click HERE & HERE.

Becoming an interpretative dancer: Click HERE & HERE.

Auditioning for DWTS: Click HERE & HERE.

Joining a doomsday cult: Click HERE & HERE.

Marrying a Russian mail-order bride: Click HERE & HERE.

Interning at PBS to replace Big Bird: Click HERE & HERE.

And of course, if you missed yesterday's "Announcement," you can click HERE.

I'm Leaving America!

Well, it's been a long time coming. I'm leaving Iowa. And the country. And the continent. Provided my car can fit on that teeny strip of land between North and South America. I don't actually know how thick that place is. Maybe I should check into that before I fully commit to that part.

But  I am leaving!

I just finished my internship last month, so, I technically have no real commitments that I care about. So, seeing as how I have been having so much trouble finding an actual job, I've decided to stop trying. I'm giving up! I'm going to become a world traveler instead!

In case you're wondering what I will do about money, don't worry! Most money is just theoretical anyway, so I am choosing to stop believing in it. Once you don't believe in money, your life just opens up to all kinds of possibilities!

So first thing I'm doing when I leave, is heading north. My last name is North, so I feel like that's a sign. Plus my ancestors are from Canada, so that's like another sign. I don't have a passport, but I don't believe in those either, and since I'm half Canadian, I'll just claim asylum, and they'll have to let me in.

So I'll probably drive around Canada for a few months, I've always wanted to visit Nunavut, and riding a moose is something I really need to check off my bucket list. Plus I've heard Anne of Green Gables lives on an island in Canada, so I might try to visit her.

After I've finished revisiting my ancestral home, I guess I'll head back to America. There's still some things around here worth looking at I guess. Like the Grand Canyon, and that giant crater that killed the dinosaurs.

And then I'll head to Mexico. The people on Facebook say it's SUPER easy to cross the border, so I'll just head on over, and try some real burritos. Apparently they taste different than the ones here. I don't actually believe that, but it's probably worth investigating.

Of course, my true goal is to actually visit another continent. Canada and Mexico are fine, but they're basically the same thing as America except different. Like Canada puts gravy on their fries instead of ketchup, and Mexico puts limes in their tacos instead of sour cream. Yeah, those are weird, but that's not any weirder than Americans putting pineapple on pizza. I tried that and it was fine I guess.

So I want to visit all the continents, and I need to start with the one I can (hopefully?) get to by car. Like I said, I need to see if that little strip at the bottom of Mexico will hold my car, but as long as I can get through there, I'll be fine.

Once I get across that, I need to visit Baia in Brazil. I watched a movie with a dancing parrot asking if I've been to Baia, and I hadn't, so that seems like the most important place to check out down there. Like, America has zero dancing parrots, so even if Baia only has the one, they're doing way better than us.

At some point I'll get to the bottom of South America, and then I'll need to find a way to get to Antarctica. I'm not sure how that will happen, but once I get there I'll probably figure it out. They're close enough, they probably have a ferry or something.

So, that's all my plans so far, eventually I want to visit all the other continents too. No one ever really thinks of it, but all the places you see in movies are actually real, and totally visitable! Even Australia! So, I guess I'll update you when I'm on my way! I'm leaving this afternoon, and I'm taking my cell phone with me, so as long as I have reception, I'll let you know when I get to Canada!