What you get when you polish a turd

There’s an old saying that goes: “It doesn’t matter how much you polish a turd, because in the end it’s still a turd.”

Well, to update such a wise and clever saying, if you polish a turd, it’s no longer a turd – it becomes this.

An airsoft shotgun.  But not just any airsoft shotgun, but a Chinese knockoff airsoft shotgun.  That surprisingly, did not work at all as soon as I opened it up and gave it a go.

It was 50% off, so in the end it was $26.  Now I can think of several other ways to drop $26, but I couldn’t resist having a cool looking toy shotgun that didn’t look like the kind of crap they sell at the Halloween stores.  I kind of knew it was going to be a piece of shit when I bought it; it was obviously a Chinese knockoff, being sold by Chinese guys, at the sad shell of what was once a Borders, but even I didn’t think it was literally going to break, or was already broken when I took it out of the box.  Another subconscious reminder was the obvious declining of plastic BBs for the gun; I had little belief that I was actually going to use it for shooting of physical matter, but it’s like I knew that this was going to be a piece of shit, and couldn’t justify the necessity for 5,000 pellets.

In the end, despite it breaking as soon as I opened it up, and taking about almost two hours to fix it back up, it’s still a cool looking prop, which would go great with the Gay Chris Redfield costume if I ever decide to bust it out again in the future.  But man, does shit like this really sour me to even the most counterfeit of Chinese knockoff merchandise.

Photos: Halloween Partying, and more

Halloween’s come and gone for another year, and before I dive head-first into Nanowrimo-land for yet another year, let’s close the book on the frightful holiday.  Jen, Tom, Allison and I decided to Resident Evil it up this year, and go hang out at Center Stage’s Halloween party.  Yes, believe it or not, I am a Resident Evil character; an obscure one, albeit, but Chris Redfield nonetheless – Safari Chris reference.  I guess I’d be more convincing if I were actually on steroids and not just doing extra arm workouts and drinking more protein shakes for two weeks.

But anyway, the party itself was kind of blah, the venue wasn’t as well executed as it was last year, but from what I hear it’s irrelevant since there won’t be a Halloween party there next year.  Naturally, that’s hardly the important part, because it was still an enjoyable evening with good company.  Not to mention I got my first exposure to hunch-punch, and more or less got obliterated on top of a myriad of beer, thinking the red concoction wasn’t alcoholic.  But from what I remember, it was still a night of inebriated belligerence, and I have one fond drunken memory of pulling out the race card on a black girl at Waffle House for making assumptions about my ethnicity, and then shooting down her weak rebuttal that her boyfriend was Asian, that such notion does not make her the authority on Asian people double standard oh shit I’m going to go sit down no wait I have to go take a piss

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It gets worse every year

Here comes the annual, regression of Halloween post:  Despite recent events, I don’t wish to let it really impact the way in which I live life.  That being said, I still partied for Halloween, and on actual Halloween night, I would still be a willing participant in facilitating trick-or-treaters.  Incapacitated front door be damned, it was agreed that myself, Jen and Tom would hang out up front and hand out candy to the children of the neighborhood, despite the fact that many of them were predicted to be teen punks in no costume at all, just doing it for the candy.  It was still tradition, that was something done when I was a kid all the way up to my sophomore year in high school, and now that I am a “grown-up” homeowner, something that I would give back to the current generation of children.

The first trick-or-treaters came around maybe 7:20-ish, but I wasn’t really paying any attention.  Tom’s zombie costume did a great job of scaring most all the kids that actually did come by, made one cry, and literally made at least six kids run away, and require assistance from parents to give them courage.  But the gaps in between the groups of trick-or-treaters were gigantic, and as predicted, there were a good bit of kids who simply didn’t even try; but to be fair, not nearly as much as I predicted.  But despite the lazy kids / overprotective parents who drive their kids door-to-door instead of walking like it was done when I was their age, and the impressive, albeit impromptu presentation of our house, we gave candy to at most, 40 kids.  By 8:45 p.m., the sounds of children were nowhere to be heard, and we closed the book on trick-or-treating for this year.

I know times have changed, the world is a little bit more paranoid and scared of everyone else, and there are legitimate psychopaths out there that do ruin it for everyone else, but I have to err on the side that there are still a good bit of decent people out there that still get in the spirit of this transitional holiday to Christmas.  If Halloween and trick-or-treating becomes a thing of the past, I think I’d legitimately be sorrowful for it’s once great tradition.  Waiting for the sun to set, trick or treating from 6:30 to 9:30, and walking several miles with friends, and earning an entire pillowcase full of candy.  Running into peers and sharing information on where the best candies or showmanship houses were, and legitimately embracing the scary houses, costumes, and traditions of the night.

Maybe it’s where I live, where pretty much, myself included now, everyone’s home has been attempted to have been broken into at some point, but it just feels like a once-great time-honored tradition is slipping away.

10,000 Pictures and Counting

Allison, dressed as Claire Redfield, shooting whom I guess is Tarzan at the Center Stage Halloween party with Pervy-Aladdin in the background trying to get his mack on with two mobster chicks.  This is also the 10,000th photograph taken on the camera I’ve probably used the longest.  Just noticed the odd way my most recent camera dump ordered the photos, and realized that the numeric order of the photos had reset after the first 9,999 photos taken.  Makes for good brogging material, too.

Photos: Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

Sometimes, without tradition, then we’d have nothing to ever really look forward to.  In spirit of Halloween is once again the annual pumpkin carving party held at Allison and Stuart’s place.  A fun occasion marked with cutting up pumpkins, real and fake, good food, company, and lots of spirited conversation about swingers and cougars, and puzzle video games.

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