How to put no "real" effort into your Halloween costume while still being creative

I don't really want to spend a bunch of time, money, and effort making an elaborately creative Halloween costume. Hell, I didn't even dress up when I went to Revenge of the Sith. However, I'm more than willing to put imaginative energy into a costume.

For example, one year I wore a Hawaiian shirt with the top two buttons open and said I was a bookie. On Saturday I wore my peace sign shirt and said I was a Berkeley student. Tonight I might wear a Titleist hat and say I'm my dad. And then there's the old Craig Kilborn joke: "Guy shows up at a costume party with no shirt on, somebody says, 'What are you?' and he says 'Premature ejaculation: I just came in my pants.'" That's good comedy.

So put a little imagination into a costume that requires no effort at all. Keep a cigarette in your mouth (even if unlit) and say you're a Bingo player. Wear a stocking cap the entire time and say you're a person standing outside. Really, the possibilities are endless, and you just might get to make offensive jokes in the process.

Any other ideas?

Sven Sundgaard in Lavender, energy-saving lights, and Halloween candy

Sven in Lavender
Sven was featured in Lavender magazine's Fab 50. The Fab 50 features "queer and queer-friendly people, places, organizations, and events that make the Twin Cities our kind of towns—and yours." Sven is featured as the local TV personality, and it is said that "He’s Svensational!" Are they aware of the good people over here?

I enjoy Lavender magazine, but every time I read it I am usually disappointed. This summer one issue of Lavender featured a crossword puzzle, and now the first thing I do when checking out a new issue is page through in hopes of a crossword. I haven't found one since that magical summer issue.

Energy Bulbs
For some reason, after putting in some energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs, my house now reminds me of the 1980s.

The meaning of Halloween
Halloween is like reverse Social Security. When you're a kid, you get to free-load off of society's willingness to hand you free candy. The understanding is that when you are older, you will willingly allow kids to mooch off of you. You get candy when you're a kid, you give candy when you're an adult. The system works.

Daylight Savings Time? More like Devil Savings Time! .... No, "Daylight" is better.

The Consumerist reminds us that this weekend is the end of Daylight Savings Time. I've always thought that changing between Daylight Savings and Standard Time is evidence that human beings are bored and we need things to think about. But now I see that when Daylight Savings time gets pushed back 4 weeks, the nation will save about 1% on energy costs. Why not just abolish it altogether? By winter we'll be driving to work in the dark anyway--what possible good comes from making it get dark earlier? I hate Daylight Savings Time and everything it stands for. Wait, no, I love Daylight Savings Time and I hate Standard Time. The Consumerist gives us and links us to other energy saving tips that we will immediately begin to follow.

The commercial life (or, I am interested in this "Head On" product, but I am not sure exactly how it works)

And now, back to our raison d'etre. We don't want to spend money, so then we end up watching too much TV to entertain ourselves, and then we comment on that TV, with an emphasis on local TV (like Sven Sundgaard).

Political season can be a brutal time for the television enthusiast. It's very difficult to avoid the bombardment of advertisements. It is likely that no matter how hard you've tried not to know, you know that Amy Klobuchar's mom takes Lipitor. You really can't not know these things if you watch a TV.

When watching these political ads, try to learn things about yourself. For example, if you've watched TV in the last few months and you don't think Mark Kennedy is a total dick, well, then consider the possibily that you are yourself a total dick. Because you probably are. If you find Michelle Bachmann attractive but then feel bad for finding her attractive, you have difficulty separating images from ideas. If you don't find Michelle Bachmann attractive because she has crazy eyes, then you are correct: she does have crazy eyes, and is probably crazy. If you find Michelle Bachmann attractive because of her crazy eyes, then you probably like crazy people. If something bothers you about Mike Hatch's teeth, but you're going to vote for him anyway, then you just might be me. If you see commercials for state auditor, and you don't say, "Hmmm, what does a state auditor do, anyway?" then you should probably run for state auditor the next time you get the chance (we need people like you in the auditor's office). And if you've changed your mind about who you are voting for based on these commercials, then you are probably paying close attention to commercials: could you just tell me how "Head On" works?

(note: We do have political views that are not trivial. We will vote, and we care deeply about who wins. But there are enough political blogs out there. Here, we will always attempt to be trivial)

Frugality and Humanity (3)

I know--we're at serious risk of this becoming "Kitten Watch 2006." After this week, mentions of the terror that is Sue Ellen Mischke will be limited. Once again, the content of this blog will focus on Sven Sundgaard (and the raccoon living in his work space), local TV, Twin Cities life, and frugality. To keep our focus somewhat relevant, I will tack on the Sven thoughts I've had recently that I haven't yet deemed worthy of their own posts.

All my feelings on Sue Ellen Mischke have been confirmed by a veterinarian. When discussing her surgery over the phone, the doctor told me, "Honestly she's acting rather evil in here." This is to be expected on the worst day of her life. But those of us living with her already know that she bites, scratches, and generally gets her way.

Perhaps she will come back a little more mellow. She's actually scratched holes in three of our weatherproofed windows. She continues to try going for them when we're around even though she knows she's going to get sprayed with water (she just wants attention--there's no evidence she's doing any such thing when we're not there).

The Raccoon
What are we to make of the raccoon living in Sven's work space? How many other people are forced to work with a raccoon on their work spaces? Shall we admire Sven for his treatment of the raccoon? Is the raccoon a glory hog?

Belinda and Sven
What does Belinda Jensen think of Sven Sundgaard? It's possible she holds him in complete contempt. More likely, she sees him as her younger male counterpart: somebody parlaying a pretty face and bland personality into a lucrative position as a local celebrity who reads the weather.

(photo from here)

Frugality and Humanity (2)

note: I'm not going to allow this blog to be a place to incessantly share pictures and stories about my cat. I'm not going to become "that guy." This blog is primarily about four things: Sven Sundgaard, local TV, Twin Cities life, and frugality. I will only mention Sue Ellen Mischke when it is relevant to those topics.

Sue Ellen Mischke is all full of piss and vinegar right now. She has already scratched a hole through our weather-proofing (it's now taped), and she repeatedly attempts to escape the house where she then crouches with her stomach to the ground like a weirdo and freezes.

But she's not going to be so energetic when she's getting her overies scraped out.

Yes, folks, the time has come for legendary cheapskate Pacifist Viking and his not-quite-as-cheap wife, Possible Flurries, to pay $188 to have Sue Ellen Mischke spayed and vaccinated. Let me tell you how excited I was to hear that I'll be paying almost two dimes (see? gambling lingo) to calm my damn cat down. Not at all. This will most assuredly be the worst two days of her life. Unfortunately, I actually care about this furry little annoyance and don't want her to go through with it. But I also don't want her bleeding all over the house, running outside, or having kittens. Even PETA says we should spay our pets.

So alas, take my $188 veterinarian, and give me back a sterile but still happy cat.

Frugality and Humanity

Sven was back to soothe us this weekend. Sunday night, we needed it, after the Vikings got our blood pumping fast fast fast.

We winterized our house this weekend, with the help of my dad (translation: he did it); just a few more things to get done. This means that we put plastic over our windows. It's a necessity in an old house to winterize in order to save on energy costs and to keep the house warm. In the process, we probably gave our cat, Sue Ellen Mischke, the worst day of her life. We believe it would be inhumane to declaw Mischke, so we let her stay potent in her meanness. However, these claws would certainly ruin all the work put in to winterize our house. So for the entire afternoon, she was locked on the porch. This isn't awful--she still had her litter box, food and water, soft places to lay, things to play with, and lots of windows to look out of--but she thinks she's people and wanted to be with us. And then we purchased these little plastic things to put over her claws so that she couldn't damage things and would learn to live without clawing things. In order to put this on, I had to hold her tight (including keeping her head away from Possible Flurries) while Possible Flurries placed these plastic contraptions onto her claws. She whined, pouted, hissed, and twisted about. It was a lousy day for her.

The weekend got better for her, though. Possible Flurries bought and carved a pumpkin which led to much amusement, she had a pleasant time tormenting me, plenty of guests were around to amuse her, and she was easily able to twist around the awful Halloween outfit Posssible Flurries bought for her. She's coming around to forgiving me for her awful day.

Infamous

If you look hard enough there is always something to do in the Twin Cities area. Well actually you don’t have to look that hard at all. Living on the East Side of St. Paul, we get the East Side Review nicely delivered each week. Last week the front cover had a story about the Smooch Project that was going on during the annual art crawl downtown. So a bit more humid and I decided to check it out. It was a free event, therefore keeping nicely within our budget. We had to do something cheap since the pervious night we attended Mystic Lake Casino. I lost all my money (well I only spent $20) and like always A bit more humid came out ahead (well he gained $2.45). The weekend was pretty full. Since my home only has the cheapest cable package and a bit more humid has none, we went out to a friend’s house with ESPN to watch the Gophers vs. Badgers football game on Saturday. Anyone who doesn’t know the score already, just know that I was pretty timid watching among the Wisconsin fans that I was surrounded with.
Anyway we went to the art crawl Saturday and participated in the smooch project, which is a photography art exhibit. Check out the website. Not only may we be on the website or in the photographers future exhibits, but we might be in the the East Side Review. So soon we are sure to be famous!!

A weekend without Sven

We didn't see Sven this weekend. Like "60 Minutes" for Elaine, Sven is a part of the weekend routine that keeps us calm. We may have mixed feelings about him, but we also have mixed feelings about the fact that our cars pollute the environment. We still drive them.

Lousy Movie that's kinda sorta good.
I think my new Saturday night routine will be to drink gin while watching a lousy movie that's kinda sorta good. This Saturday it was Stick It. It shouldn't have entertained at all, but it did. Even though I spent the first twenty minutes reading Animal Times, and we did discuss at what point Jeff Bridges wrote the letter that he mailed in during this movie. It was not what one would expect.

Decorating the house.
While notoriously cheap, we still decided to spend some money on Halloween decorations so that our neighbors would know we are festive. We've purchaseda few decorations to scatter about the house and yard, highlighted by a purple glowing pumpkin in the window. Why purple? Well, besides the fact that I'm also a notorious Viking fan, using a color other than orange means that it can serve as a decoration for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's Day.

Weathermen and bluster

I long ago took an interest in George Orwell's pleas for good English usage, and more and more I'm critical of overused, misused, or meaningless cliches. I now turn my wrath on the weathermen.

Last night on WCCO (sorry, Sven, for the disloyalty...wait, we've got mixed feelings, I don't have to be loyal...alright, screw loyalty), Paul Douglas described why the roads were suddenly so dangerous. There's snow, then the snow melts, then the snow freezes: a combination of factors converges, and the result is a dangerous situation. Of course, the cliche for this is "the perfect storm." And Paul Douglas used this cliche.

I suggest weathermen (and women...sorry that the term "weathermen" is gendered, but I can't use weatherpeople comfortably, and I won't call them forcasters, I don't have to play their game) never use a cliche that has to do with the weather. In this case, Douglas said the snow came, melted, and re-froze, creating "a perfect storm" that caused the traffic issues. But it wasn't a storm. Moreso, it wasn't a perfect storm. This was a cliche from weather that is used for non-weather situations being brought back in and used as a cliche for weather--but NOT the weather phenomenon being described. It makes it confusing and meaningless.

The weatherpeople (OK, there, I did it, and it's a hopelessly ugly word) should avoid cliches in general (though in their attempt to be folksy, it's not bloody likely), but absolutely MUST avoid cliches that originated in weather. Do you see the confusion?

1. A term from weather is used.
2. That term from weather is then used for non-weather phenomena, used to illustrate the nature of the non-weather phenomena.
3. the term is now brought back into weather but used for a weather phenomena that was NOT the weather phenomena that originated the term.

Levels of Cheapness

Although this blog is intended to discuss living cheaply in the Twin Cities (and Sven) there are defiantly differences among the writers. The level of cheapness has a spectrum. Pacifist Viking is by no contest the cheapest and I am pretty sure I am the least cheap of the 4 of us. Although I am trying to live on a budget, I really can’t stop myself from enjoying life. Shopping is one of my favorite pastimes, so this is a problem with a limited budget. I am always on the look out for a great sale or clearance! And window shopping does work sometimes. Unfortunately for my pocket book I am one of those people who shops and buys to make myself feel good. The end of a bad week, the mall is a perfect place to start a great weekend. This is my confession to our readers. But always know I do try to keep the purchases cheap. Once about a year ago, realizing my closet was full and my wallet wasn’t, I cut myself off from buying clothes. I kept to it for about 6 months. What I ended up find myself do was buying other stuff instead, like jewelry, purses, and shoes (since it wasn’t actually clothes). So I do spend my money much to Pacifist Vikings dismay.
So last weekend I went to the free Alpaca Farm. This weekend I might actually pay for some entertainment.
On a side note, the heat has been turned on! Thanks Pacifist Viking

Alpacas and more

Looking for a cheap and fun fall activity? How about check out an Alpaca farm. This past weekend A Bit More Humid and I went to one with my family. Not only was it free, but surprisingly fun. It was basically a petting zoo. The only cost was gas to get there and 25 cents to but food to feed the animals. Although the Alpacas we saw were quite a ways away I am sure there are plenty of local petting zoos in the area. Aren't they cute?

Paradox? We don't need no stinking paradox!

In a new local political ad, former governor Jesse Ventura criticizes politicians for name calling. He calls them "name callers."

Twin Cities TV, Twin Cities Cheapness

--Two lines I loved on "The Simpsons" syndicated episodes yesterday. The episode when Homer becomes a food critic is especially funny.

"We have to stop Homer Simpson. He gave my restaurant a bad review. I had a friend put a horse head in his bed. He ate it, and gave it a bad review. True story."

"I have a saying: 'You can't teach a manitee any tricks.'"

--For some reason, those incessant ads for "Desire" and "Fashion House" are starting to intrigue me. I'm afraid someday I'll accidentally watch an episode and be hooked. I must prevent this from happening at all costs.

--For cheap good food, you can't beat the 99 cents sale for the KFC Buffalo Snacker. Even the regular $1.19 price is pretty good. It's the best idea since General Tso first whipped up his special chicken. My vegetarian wife doesn't appreciate me eating at KFC (she doesn't criticize me eating meat, but her PETA readings give her a particular distaste for KFC). I eat there anyway. I don't respect non-mammals; I feel bad about eating mammals, but figure we've beaten the non-mammals and get to eat them. Then again, we also have opposable thumbs, so maybe we should just not eat the animals with opposable thumbs. Sometimes I taunt my cat with my thumb. I make fun of her because my relatives are monkeys and her relatives are tigers. So don't eat any apes or monkeys. And if I'm not eating mammals or fish, can I call myself a vegetarian? Some vegetarians eat fish, after all. I'm not eating the fish because of the mercury. Frankly, since we've made it out of the sea and evolved lungs, I think we can eat them too. We've beaten them, too. Viva Evolution!

For your amusement

So a team that has already clinched a playoff birth spends a Sunday afternoon/evening partying and drinking like it just won the World Series, and less than 48 hours later it loses a playoff game. Coincidence?

Sven has blogged about his marathon experience. Be sure to check it out.

If you haven't had a laugh yet today, check out Marmaduke Explained.

If you don't like me (and frankly, I don't blame you) and would like to see me insulted, scroll through the comment section here. I get called a "Child," a "Dick," and worse, a "Republican." I am accused of "ignorance" and "self-insulation." So far, this has been the highlight of my day.

cheap and proud (and let me drink cheap)

When people call me "frugal," I assume they don't understand me. When people try to compare ways they save money with ways I save money, I assume they don't understand me. When people talk about living cheaply, and then I hear them say the things they are actually doing, I assume they don't understand me.

You see, I'm cheap. I'm capable of operating at levels of cheapness most of you can only imagine (it's called grad school, bucko). I can live off the cheapest food and stay fat. I can sacrifice almost all pleasures and entertainments that cost a dime (I've been to a movie theater three times in calendar year 2006). I'm willing to be cold, be dirty, be poorly dressed, even be hungry (yet I'm still fat). Most of the little things that other people end up pissing money away on, I'm able to avoid (and when I do make decision to spend the money, I'm willfully aware of the decision).

I brag in order to introduce a complaint, and to let you know that frequent such complaints will be coming, and why.

I heard a stupid suggestion on the radio. It was suggested that to curb binge drinking among minors, the price of alcohol should be raised. Let me hide all the swear words I would like to throw at anybody who subscribes to this idea behind %!@# &*&% $#@!!@! &*$. So to prevent minors from doing something that is legal for adults, we should raise the prices to punish the adults. Enforcing the laws that do exist isn't enough, apparently (there are stiff fines for minors who drink and for adults who buy booze for minors). We need to raise prices. The %$!@ with you and you're stupid %&#@#&#!@#ing idea.

Athletics are Fun (or, "I choose not to run")

According to the Twin Cities Marathon's official website, Sven Sundgaard finished the race in 4:08:18. Good work, Sven.

Our official favorite football player Bart Scott had a big game in the Ravens' 16-13 victory over the Chargers. Bart led his team with 11 tackles and also had an interception, which he returned 24 yards to the SD 22, setting up the Ravens' first touchdown. Good work, Bart.

If you watch local TV, you got to see the Twins getting drunk, grab-assing, and pouring booze all over each other. For some reason these festivities were deemed worthy of wall-to-wall coverage. Good work, Twins and local TV networks.