Scare Tactics

/ Shane / 1 Comment

There used to be a show called Scare Tactics on Sci-fi that was the greatest hidden camera show of all time. The way the show worked was that they would get at least one person who wasn’t in on the joke and then just scare the crap out of them, often using movie grade special effects and makeup.

The thing that made the show so great was the reaction. These people were so scared that there was no way it could be faked. Something about the crazy look in their eyes where you just know all bets are off, and they’re just ready to do whatever it takes to survive the situation, even if it means sacrificing their friends. There are physical reactions from the adrenaline flow that just can’t be faked. Like when I saw a guy try to run and do a double flying drop kick trying to go right through a wall to escape some “poison gas”.

Let me give you another example; when this guy thinks a gorilla is coming after him (possibly to mate with him) he leaps to the top of a huge fence like superman. I really don’t think he could have done that again if he wanted to. Of course that clip also gave us the immortal line, “Monkey with a gun! Monkey with a gun!”

Okay, so maybe the stunts are a little cheesy, but don’t try to pretend like you wouldn’t be just as scared in that situation. That’s what makes it so fun to watch!

Plenty more videos here.

Sometimes, they would even double trick someone. They would tell someone that they were in on the joke and then still play a joke on them. For example, one time I saw one where they told a guy he was going to scare the barber, so when the barber gave him a shave, he activated a device that squirted blood all over. But see, the joke was on him, because then the fake barber had a fake heart attack and the guy thought he killed him.

I also saw several episodes where they had to rush in and end it early because someone was going to kill someone. Like one time a guy in a robot suit was going crazy and ignoring the furious “Halt!” commands of the person being tricked, so he picked up a giant wrench and made for the robot’s head.

Well anyway, I just found out that they brought this awesome show back, with Tracy Morgan as the host! If I were you, I would definitely check it out.

Potty Update

/ Shane / 3 Comments

I realized I hadn’t really had a good post to close out the potty training.

Evie is just the super most awesome in the world. She is doing so great. We had our rough patches, but we pushed through them. We still have some power struggles now and again, especially if we try to force her to go, but if we just leave her alone about it, she takes care of everything.

She hardly has any accidents, maybe one a week at most. She doesn’t wear a diaper during her nap and her overnight diaper is dry most nights. She has been going poo poo in the potty for weeks now. We discovered the magic formula for that was to put her on the potty, tell her to hold on tight, run and find Nala, toss her in the bathroom, go out and shut the door. Usually she was going before the door was even closed. The privacy part is very important, even though I am always a little nervous about leaving her perched precariously on the edge of the toilet.

She also knows that going poo poo means she gets to pick out a prize from the prize bucket, which is mostly stickers and toys from cereal boxes. Believe me, it doesn’t take much, one of her favorite prizes was a thing of travel size Kleenexes. Another good reward is singing the “potty song” which is a nice little conga that goes, “Pee pee in the potty! We listened to our body!” Sara is quite proud of the second line. 🙂

Evie has always enjoyed going out of the house more than in the house, so taking her to new places isn’t really a problem. In fact, the problem was that she enjoyed strange potties a little too much and would insist on going over and over again at every stop. I think the thing that fixed that was only allowing her to wash her hands if she actually went potty. She thinks that washing her hands is pretty exciting, and she especially likes to see what color soap a particular place has. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has every bathroom in the city memorized and categorized by soap color. Using this as a “reward” seems to have calmed it down to 1 or 2 trips instead of 4 or 5.

Evie is something of a clothes horse, so it should have come as no surprise when she started wanting to change her underwear about 10 times a day. It can be pretty frustrating, but we quickly learned to let her change whenever she wanted or else she would pee in them just so she could change them. This has been lessening lately though, and she has some days where she stays in the same pair all day.

She has even started going by herself now, I mean completely by herself, up until the part when she calls you in to show off her handy work. So I think we can say she is officially potty trained! Well, I would have said it a while ago, but it’s not official until it is on the blog.

In summary, hard work, persistence and out smarting your enemy, those are the keys to potty training!

Your car as an oven

/ Shane / Leave a comment

If you can’t spring for the toaster oven, but you still insist on cooking things in your car, why not let the sun do all the work? Here are step-by-step instructions on how to bake chocolate chip cookies in your car.

Gives a new meaning to that old phrase, “It’s so hot in here, you could fry an egg.” It kind of reminds me of the dishwasher salmon.

I have to say, I’m really surprised that it actually works. And to think that some people leave their dogs (or their kids!) in the car, windows cracked or no. I mean, they could at least give the kid some cookie dough, in case he gets hungry or something.

Common Printer

/ Shane / 1 Comment

At work there is a printer in the lunch room. It is a really fast printer, and also the only one that’s color, but I’m not sure why people use it to print personal stuff and then forget to pick it up. I don’t understand why people would print some of this stuff out in the first place, but if they were going to print it out, especially in the most public of all rooms, you’d think they would make an effort to pick them up.

I always browse the orphaned print outs while I’m waiting for my lunch to microwave. They’re always just spread out all over the table, face up. I don’t even need to move them to read them. I’m just amazed at the amount of information to be had there. Some things are only interesting in the work sense, like who’s going to which conference and what important visitors are coming soon or who is submitting who for which award. But some are a lot more interesting, like personal emails containing gossip,  cable bills (no questionable movies though, I checked) job postings as if someone is searching for a new job, bank statements, and even people complaining about their bosses.

The other day though, I think I found the one that takes the cake. Someone had left a photocopy of a receipt for lice removal products. I don’t know who, but I will certainly be taking a closer look at all my co-workers.

Bacon Product Review

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Given the number of bacon products out there, it is important to have good recommendations on what sorts of bacon products you should spend your precious bacon eating time on. Therefore, check out this link in which they ate, and reviewed, one ridiculous bacon filled meal consisting of:

Bacon Freak Maple Bacon Pancakes, Bacon Freak bacon jerky, skillet bacon jam, Spam with bacon, bacon-flavored jellybeans, bacon-flavored gumballs, and bacon-flavored toothpicks.

I’m not sure if I can trust their reactions, since they enjoyed batter blasters. However, we do seem to have the same tastes, since they have also reviewed bacon vodka, bacon salt, and bacon chocolate.

Anyway, I enjoyed the humor of the article, including the Clerks reference at the end. And for the record, I’m totally on board with bacon flavored toothpicks.