Recently in Friends & Family Category

I don’t have enough money to buy you anything cool, so here’s a little something I cooked up in Photoshop. I thought you’d appreciate the creepiness. I was inspired by The Shining, of course.

Click the image for a high resolution version.

Related articles:

• Free High Resolution Photoshop Brushes (techie-buzz.com)
• “Folk Star Mary Travers Dead At 72” and related posts (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• “Henry Gibson Died: Dead At 73” and related posts (huffingtonpost.com)

I went looking at Christmas light displays with my friends Cliff and Norm last night. We came across this one on “Candy Cane Lane” in Pacific Grove. These folks were playing Elvis’ Blue Christmas and are obviously the coolest in the neighborhood.

The life-sized Elvis is spectacular. Have you ever seen anything like this? 

Related articles:

• Website Lets You Sing With Elvis Presley
• Christmas light meltdown an isolated case

My friend Glen sent this to me today:

One sunny day in 2009

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White
House from across Pennsylvania Avenue , where he’d been
sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said,

“I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr.

Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The old man said, “Okay” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White

House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go

in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said

yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president  and no longer

resides here.”

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House

and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying “I

would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked

at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a

row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush.

I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the

president and no longer resides here.  Don’t you

understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I

understand.  I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said,

“See you tomorrow.” 

Back in September, my brother sent me a $40 gift certificate for an online store called Archie McPhee. Trying to figure out how to redeem the gift certificate was somewhat of a nightmare. I tried to make a purchase and ended up being charged for the full amount.

Finally, I got the credit card dispute all settled and was able to use my gift. After careful consideration, I purchased something called a Jumbo Mystery Box:

If you like Archie McPhee then you’ll love the Jumbo Mystery Box, the bigger cousin of our Surprise Bag. Inside this 12” x 12” x 16” cardboard box you’ll find a collection of treasures that are sure to make you squeal with glee (or shake your head in puzzled bewilderment). For less than $40, you get over $250 worth of miraculous miscellany. Collection varies according to stock on hand.

Of course, I couldn’t resist a real live mystery! The box just arrived tonight via UPS and I couldn’t wait to find out what is inside.

I was surprised that the box was so heavy. When I opened it, it was obvious that it contained a lot of merchandise — really weird unique merchandise.

Here the box is about half empty. There are all kinds of goodies: sushi placemats, rubber duckies, playing cards, cocktail napkins, something called “Parasite Pals” and cute stickers.

Good God! What am I going to do with all of this crap lovely merchandise?! Actually, there are tons of cool things in here. It really would cost over $250 to order all of this stuff separately — I checked the catalog.

My brother knows that I like kitchy stuff like this. So, it was a very appropriate birthday present. I’m going to have fun playing with all of my new toys for a very long time.

For some reason, this box of goodies reminds me of the 4th of July. I remember opening up the big box of fireworks that Dad would bring home and marveling at all of the brightly colored packages. That was almost as fun as setting off the fireworks (back in those days, parents just turned the kids loose with the fireworks and box of matches).

Anyway, thanks for the gift, Frank. This was definitely worth the $40 bucks they charge.

Please remember to vote for Panchy in the Intel “I Need a Tech Makeover” contest. If she wins, I let you see the guys in the photo below do a really cool trick. Just click the link below and vote:

Panchy needs a tech makeover because…

You’ll see these guys do something absolutely amazing! I swear to God. You won’t believe your eyes.

Come on. You know you can’t resist. All you have to do is vote — once. Aren’t you just dying to know what happens?

Usually, I don’t have any trouble telling me apart from my brother in old childhood photos. This one, however, has me stumped. I think I am the one on the left. But, I’m not really sure. I like our outfits in this photo. The red Keds are pretty cool. If you’re thinking that we look like scary little demons from an old horror movie, I don’t blame you.

Yesterday, I was digging through the family albums looking for a photo of my twin brother and me wearing our Archie Bunker for President t-shirts and I found this portrait of my mother’s twin uncles, Leo and Cleo Gardner.

I don’t know anything about these guys and I’m posting it here on my blog in the hope that someone will find it while doing a geneological search. Gardner isn’t an unusual name. However, there aren’t too many men named Cleo — and probably only one with a twin brother named Leo.

If you are a relative of Leo and Cleo Gardner and you stumbled upon this blog entry, let me know something about them.