20 WAYS TO CONFUSE TRICK-OR-TREATERS

1. Give away something other than candy. Tooth picks, golf balls,
bags of sand, goldfish, etc.

2. Wait behind the door until some people come. When they get
near the door, jump out, wearing a costume, and holding a bag,
and yell, "TRICK OR TREAT!" Look at them, scratch your head,
and act confused.

3. Fill a briefcase with marbles and crackers. Write on it, "TOP
SECRET" in big letters. when trick-or-treaters come, look
around suspiciously, say, "It's about time you got here," give
them the briefcase, and quickly shut the door.

4. Get about 30 people to wait in your living room. When trick-or
-treaters come to the door, say, "come in!" When they do, have
everyone yell, "SURPRISE!!!" Act like it's a surprise party.

5. Get everyone who comes to the door to come in and see if they
can figure out what's wrong with your dishwasher. Insist that
it makes an unnatural "whirring" sound.

6. After you give them candy, hand the trick-or-treaters a bill.

7. Open the door dressed as a giant fish. Immediately collapse,
and don't move or say anything until the trick-or-treaters go
away.

8. When you answer the door, hold up one candy bar, throw it out
into the street, and yell, "Crawl for it!"

9. When you answer the door, look at the trick-or-treaters, act
shocked and scared, and start screaming your head off. Slam
the door and run around the house, screaming until they go
away.

10. Insist that the trick-or-treaters each do ten push-ups before
you give them any candy.

11. Hand out menus to the trick-or-treaters and let them order
their candy. Keep asking if anyone wants to see the wine
list.

12. Get a catapult. Sit on your porch and catapult pumpkins at
anyone who comes within 50 yards of your house.

13. When people come to the door, jump out a nearby window,
crashing through the glass, and run as far away from your
house as you can.

14. Answer the door dressed as a pilgrim. Stare at the trick-or
-treaters for a moment, pretend to be confused, and start
flipping through the calendar.

15. Instead of candy, give away colored eggs. If anyone protests,
explain that the eggs are the only thing you had left over
from Easter.

16. Answer the door dressed as a dentist. Angrily give the trick
-or-treaters a two hour lecture on tooth decay.

17. Answer the door with a mouthful of M & M's and several
half-eaten candy bars in your hand. Act surprised, and close
the door. Open it again in a few seconds, and insist that you
don't have any candy.

18. Hand out cigarettes and bottles of aspirin.

19. Put a crown on a pumpkin and put the pumpkin on a throne on
your porch. Insist that all of the trick-or-treaters bow
before the pumpkin.

20. Dress up like a bunny rabbit. Yell and curse from the moment
you open the door, and angrily throw the candy at the
trick-or-treaters. Slam the door when you're finished.

the past week


monday: survival training conducted by the feared commando training wing - some people took the precaution of writing their will first. actual subject matter rather more prosaic - solar stills, improvised water filtrating, edibility tests, show-n-tell edible plants. chicken and snake killing still pending.

and i'm joking about the wills.

battalion outing to big splash in the afternoon. boring. there's a limit to the number of times you can go down the slide before getting bored. ( mine is about 4 ). before long people started trying stunts - going down standing up, hopping from slide to slide etc etc, blatantly flouting the signs saying "on your bum only." ( <-- paraphrased, obviously ).


tuesday: off to marsiling for section battle course. bleah.

the start of 3 days of combat rations. bleah to the power of a zillion.

a durian fell on someone's signal set and broke the antenna off.


wednesday: river crossing. river water is smelly.

we were supposed to do a crossing at night but it was called off at the last minute because a croc was spotted in the water.

bloody croc. the least it could've done was come out before we did the first crossing.


thursday: the second-worst feeling in the world has got to be sleeping in wet boots.

the worst feeling is humping around marsiling carrying 20+ kg of gear ( and occasionally your 60+ kg section mate ) in wet boots.

did our first real mission - a raid on an enemy rebro site. tiring! especially when we had to do it three times because we screwed up the first two.


friday: my platoon commander just told me he wants to send me for the most shag ( for that matter, the only shag course available ) course available in my next phase of training. i hate him. either he thinks i'm good, or he hates me and wants me to go there and suffer. either way, i don't want to go.

in marsiling, there are always choppers flying around now and then throughout the day. being on the ground, hot and exhausted, looking up - depressing.

booked out at 6.40pm. have to book in by 7pm saturday. this is the 4th consecutive week, out of 5 weeks total, where we've had parts of our weekend burnt with no compensation. at least 2 more weekends will be fucked up. for a total of at least 6 out of 9.



well. that was a good week, wasn't it now. i'm loving it!

[matt nathanson - laid]

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the " torment" of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

Q: Are you sexually active?

A: No, I just lie there.
__________________________________
Q: What is your date of birth?

A: July 15th.

Q: What year?

A: Every year.
______________________________________
Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?

A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?

A: Yes. Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory? A: I forget.

Q: You forget? Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?
_____________________________________
Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?

A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.

Q: How long has he lived with you?

A: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning?

A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"

Q: And why did that upset you?

A: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult?

A: We both do.

Q: Voodoo?

A: We do.

Q: You do?

A: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
_____________________________________
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
______________________________________
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?

A: Yes. Q: And what were you doing at that time?
______________________________________
Q: She had three children, right? A: Yes.

Q: How many were boys?

A: None.

Q: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?

A: By death.

Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
Q: Can you describe the individual?

A: He was about medium height and had a beard.

Q: Was this a male, or a female?
______________________________________
Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?

A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?

A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
Q: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?

A: Oral.
______________________________________
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.

Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at! the time?

A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.

______________________________________
Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
______________________________________
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for blood pressure?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for breathing?

A: No.

Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

A: No.

Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?

A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

so bloody much to do and so little time in which to do it.

'american wedding' was great! better than you'd expect a sequel to be, really. i think it was better than american pie 2 and on par with the first one.

i hate talkative taxi drivers. i feel like telling them, "look, i'm already paying through the nose for the dubious pleasure of sitting in your odd-smelling cab, do i really have to put up with both your chinkychong songs and your bad english?".

but no. instead i say, "haha, is that so, uncle." and so i learn far more than i want to know about random taxi drivers' sons and their jobs and how tough life is these days and how easy it used to be to get hdb flats in the past and how tough ns was way back when.


[now playing :: fever for the flava - hot action cop]