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Nothing to say 'til I have something worth saying

 

Halloween Countdown Day 23: Roll the Bones

The Witch Finder of Lilburn recently acquired a sinister looking fortune-telling game. If you have a set of gaming dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d%), you should not download and use this at your party or gathering under any circumstances.

Not without proper social distancing and other pandemic safety measures, I mean.

Halloween Countdown Day 21: Dr. Scooby

 

Scooby Doctor would probably be the least appropriate and ironically best children's cartoon ever.

Ri'm shrorry shrir, rut rou rave runreatable rancer.

Happy Rirthday, Rister Romas. Rime ror rour rolonoscopy.

Ruh roh. Romebody ridn't ruse rondoms.

Rundergraduate rollege rudents roften ruffer hrom ralnutrition.

Halloween Countdown Day 14: Jack O'Lantern Rings

 

If you ever shopped around for a jack o'lantern ring that has a bit more mass and style than a pumpkin stuck onto a band, then you know the options are limited. Short of having one custom made, which is pricey, here's a roundup of what I've found online.

Monkey Edge produces what they call a puncher size (2 oz.) silver ring. This one has more character than your average design.

Sterling Assault has one that is a respectable classic, available in multiple metals, with large and small varieties.

Ross Simons has a sort of elegant looking band that's 14kt gold, if that's your thing. Currently sold out.

Artifactoria has two somewhat Burtonesque options: one with bat wings and a very solid looking one, both in silver or brass.

AFJewelryStudio is an Etsy shop with this nice ring, a bit more petite, but also kind of Tim Burton-influenced.

UnevenCreations has this one which at first I mistook for a napkin holder. On the right hand though, not bad. And like the other rings here I like that they considered the entire ring in the design.

Jewelrywax has one that is a little more like a biker ring, and looks awesome. Limited supply.

Honorable mention goes to ShyamJewlesjewelley (sic) with this wood-grain skull ring, almost pumpkiny and pretty cool.

Halloween Countdown Day 5: The Strange Changing Vampire, 1974

 

An image used to come to my mind every so often, so vague from the years gone by that it seemed it could have only been my imagination. A fearsome vampire in a casket would somehow change to a decayed skeleton if you closed the lid and reopened it. Whenever this image came to mind, I'd Google every search term I could think of, without any success. I was ready to write it off as a dream or an invented memory, but a very persistent one.

Then accidentally one day I ran across the words "Strange Changing Vampire" on a model kit site, and the clarity started to rush back in. Another search promptly yielded a boxtop image and then suddenly I remembered Dad putting this together when I was about six.

I then remembered being amazed by Dad's careful and precise detailing, and the fact that he mixed paint colors to get exactly what he wanted. It was a combination of exactness and flexibility that had an influence on me, though the memory of him making the model was dormant for so long. I can't describe the emotion I felt when I found one some time later on eBay and snagged that sucker.

Assembling it was bittersweet. The pvc was slightly warped, and some of the moving parts had weakened over time and eventually broke. I tried several fixes including molding parts from polymer clay and making a casket lining from cloth. It didn't work as well as it did 1974 but it looked pretty good I think. Pardon the photos, taken with my phone in 2009.

Just a few years later, this kit was rereleased by a company called Round 2 Models, and I got one just in time for my kids to put it together. I think since then the kit has been discontinued.

Halloween Countdown Day 4: Spooky Illustrated Maps

 There's a lot of quaint and creepy goodness out there for the cartologically enthusiastic.

Chorographia Transylvaniae

Cemetery Map from 1868

Assorted Maps for Dante's Inferno

T.A. Barron's Haunted Marsh by Ian Schoenherr

Lovecraft's Dreamlands

https://www.flickr.com/photos/83344804@N00/6871812047/

https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/7whb5r/hp_lovecrafts_dreamlands_older_version_by_jason/

https://medium.com/@jasteele/h-p-lovecraft-the-hidden-narrative-d6d9bb141349

Over the Garden Wall Map (fanart)

https://illustratedmaps1516.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/allen-hiu-the-unknown/

https://www.deviantart.com/ladywitchfox/art/Map-of-the-Unknown-643404242

Map of Disney's Halloweentown

I could include maps from video games, but one has to draw the line somewhere. You could make an entire website of those.

Halloween Countdown Day 3: Over the Garden Wall Tarot Deck

 QuarterPress is an Etsy shop (not mine and I don't know them) that sells 5x7 Over the Garden Wall Tarot Cards. Yes, seriously, and they are perfectly executed. I don't know if they sell a full deck.