a new jack o’lantern for Halloween

Once again it’s the Halloween season.   Well, not really a season, because it’s just one day of trick-or-treat, but I suppose some folks do lots of decorating for it.  It seems like the “spooky” decorating is becoming more rampant each year.  But I digress…

Are you going to go to the most sincere pumpkin patch to wait for the Great Pumpkin?  Each Halloween night, he rises out of the pumpkin patch to scare little children, er, I mean, to give them candy and presents.  That’s what I hear anyway.  I haven’t ever been to one of those sincere pumpkin patches.  Maybe I’m not sensitive enough to know if one is sincere.  Whatever…  Let’s get to the point of this story…  I’m digressing again…

One Halloween holiday tradition I’m trying to get started is putting a flaming pumpkin of poop on someone’s front porch.  I mentioned this a while back, but it has yet to catch on for some reason.  I know, creating a jack-o-lantern out of poop is not ideal, so here’s an update (consider it version 2.0).  Take a standard jack o’lantern (however you want to spell it), and cover it with poop.  Take it to a friend’s porch.  Then you set it on fire.  It’s a guaranteed good time!

Some of the staff here voted and nominated Mango-Man’s house as the first place to try out this new Halloween decoration.  I’m sure it’ll draw trick-or-treaters to his house, with all the bright fire on his pumpkin.  He’ll have to let us know how it turns out.  🙂

caption contest, explosion behind man

A new week, a new caption contest.  All you have to do is explain what’s going on here.  So add your commentary and captions.

(To see the other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

butt implants

One of the writers here recently mentioned the growing industry of butt facials, and then the article he referenced said men haven’t taken to it so far.  That is completely understandable.  But I recently read something similar to this which disturbs me.  (Read on if you dare.)

In an article in TIME Magazine about not looking old on the job, they list some of the cosmetic surgeries common among men and women of the baby boomers generation.  I can understand wanting to look younger, especially in tech fields typically dominated by people in their 20s and 30s.  But wait ’til you read some of these.  For men, the article lists things like tooth-tightening, neck tucks, and knee-tightening.  That’s weird enough, but it gets even more crazy.  The last item mentioned is a “butt lift and implant” — for men.

I’d never heard of such craziness, and I kinda wish I had never known.  (If you feel the same way, well, too bad, because now you know.)  The article explains why a man would want this: “Slacks can’t hide a saggy, deflated tush.”  Whether true or not, I have to ask “WHO CARES?”  Do men get less promotions or job offers because of their butts?  I don’t think so.  (And if there are instances where that is true, I wouldn’t want to work there anyway!)

The article explains the procedure: “Buttock lifts (up 660% in men from 2000 to 2006) involve surgically lifting baggy behinds; implants, a newer option, mean inserting silicone sacks.”  I just have trouble believing any man would want butt implants…  I don’t know…  And guess what it costs… $4,500!

What is this world coming to?

viewer mail, issue #13

It’s about time to open the viewer mailbag again.  I have some time-specific ones about Halloween which might prove helpful to people with questions, plus there’s some general issues to discuss.  As always, these are actual search terms that people used to find this site.

  • what to do with old pumpkins — With it being close to Halloween, a lot of people are probably wondering about this.  I didn’t make a trip to the pumpkin patch to get one, but I know of people who did.   Anyway, I e-mailed the Buffet o’ Blog staff to see what they thought, and here are the options they presented: A) catapult; B) fire; C) both A and B.  Another suggestion was to line up a few hundred pumpkins on the train tracks, then wait for a train to plow through them.   That would be awesome to see.  (Of course, the standard disclaimer applies to these ideas: we are not responsible for any of the stupid stuff you do.)
  • cycling calories burned smell — So when you’re riding your bicycle for exercise, you encounter a burnt smell?  Well, the truth is, you can’t smell calories burning.   You might not want to know what that smell is, but I should probably tell you so you will know.  It’s either sweat or gas.  I don’t know that cycling gives you gas, but the act of cycling may cause more release of gaseous fumes.
  • pickles burn calories — I’ve never heard this, but it could possibly be true.   But even if pickles do lead to the burning of calories (and thus exercise in some form), you don’t want to take this route.  Let me explain.  Pickles are evil.  That’s well-documented at that link.  The side-effect (or full-effect) of eating pickles is not fully understood by scientists, but some important scientists suspect pickles turn people into zombies.   The way this can burn calories is that your body has a natural immune system, which will try to fight off the effect of the evil pickles.   But there’s no guarantee that you will win.  So just don’t eat pickles!   There are much better ways to burn calories.
  • subservient chicken — This is not as good an idea as you might suppose.   Burger King created one online a few years ago, and the page is still there.  We’ve written on this before, and the link to him is at that post.  He can do some stunts and even dance for you, but if you tell him something useful like “bring me nachos”, he does weird stuff and never brings me any nachos.
  • is fat bigger than obese — Interesting question.   Everyone has fat, but of course not everyone is obese, so I’d say obese is bigger.  To get technical with it, obesity is when you have so much excess body fat that your health is negatively affected.  So I reckon if your body fat is not excess — that is, it’s how much you want — then you’re not obese.  Or even if you’re fat or “big-boned” but still have good health, then you’re not obese.  So maybe it has to do with how you look at it.  From a scientific standpoint, it is generally agreed that you’re obese if you’re a man with more than 25% body fat or a woman with more than 33% body fat.  I could explain why those numbers are different, but this is a family-friendly blog…  AWW-RIGHT!

Well, this has been fun, but I have stuff to do, so I’m calling this issue finished.  Besides, some people say these posts get too long (which means they have the attention span of a cheese sandwich).   If you want to read more, you can catch up on the other issues here.