Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

WHAT: Post-Halloween Parade and Pumpkin Smash
WHO: You, silly. :)
WHEN: Saturday, 11/1, 10:30 a.m. - noonish
WHERE: Meet at Nichols Fountain on the Plaza
WHY: Because it will be funny.

WEAR: A costume of any sort.
BRING: Leftover candy to give away, your jack-o-lantern, any parade props you wish (no weapons please, we'll cover that part)

We'll march up and down the Plaza (on the sidewalks) and hand out candy and stuff. If you have particular schtick that goes with your costume, feel free to do it. If you want to bring signs, flags, musical instruments, whatever, go ahead. I will bring a sign declaring us a parade. Following the parade, we'll go back to the park and do terrible things to helpless gourds.

Who's in?

This came to me in a dream while I was watching the ninja myths episode of Mythbusters at capriciouslass's place on Saturday. I thought to myself, "Self, why don't we have a pirate/ninja tournament of some sort? Why not laser tag?"

So, are you in?

[Poll #980499]

The First Occasional Stupid Cupid Flaunt went off on Saturday with very little doom. What doom there was, was mostly a result of the weather. Someday, I shall remember that most Flaunt costuming does not go well with cold. Or, alternately, we'll all move somewhere warm, and we won't have to worry about it. I don't have any pictures of the Flaunt, because I was Slacking Badly and forgot my camera. We had a lot of fun, handing out condoms and awful valentines to folks in the restaurants and on the street. Lawrence is a very friendly sort of place for a Flaunt, in that most people seemed to think we were as funny and well-meaning as we thought ourselves. So it's on the list to do again, when it's warmer. Another note to selves: Flaunts work better with give-aways. That gives the whole thing more of a TAZ feel, and gets us to interact with other people more. Without giveaways, the Flaunt is more like a bunch of people on the way to a costume party, and doesn't really 'come together'. Games are good too, but it was too cold for much of that.

Also, I seem to have overestimated on the number of condoms we would be able to distribute, so if you are local, and feel that you would benefit from a benevolent gift of condoms, drop a note, and we'll pass them to you. There are some that are the usual size, and some that are larger, if that makes a difference to you. (Our household opted for what seemed like the simplest method of birth control for our configuration -- triadruid got a vasectomy. So it's not like we're going to use them. Somebody else might as well.)

While we were out on the Flaunt, we worked out a mechanism for the merit badge thing. It could work like this: we make a community, and every week, we post a new merit badge with a name, a shiny little picture, and a description of how one might earn the badge. If someone in the community meets the requirements, they post a comment telling why and how (with pictures if applicable), and then they download the picture and can do whatever they like with it. Old badges would be linked to the profile page, so that if you joined somewhere along the way, you could go back to the older stuff and get those too. Badge pictures would probably be posted in a 100x100 format so they could be icons, and in a larger format for other uses (I am not sure what those would be, but I am sure that a lot of people are a lot more clever than me and would be able to come up with something).

I don't think I can do Santa Flaunt after all. We were going to do it on 1/13, but now kittenpants and I have to be in St. Louis that day. The next best day was 1/20, but apparently the Kansas City Mystery School is meeting that night and will need to be fed dinner. That sort of squeezes out the Flaunt, I think. If other people would like to do the Flaunt, they are welcome to do so, but I don't think we can come. :(

It's very cool that we are stepping up our involvement in the greater pagan community and getting to do some teaching in other places, but I can see that this will mean less time for general fun. Why can't we get more weeks in the year, I ask you?

I had a dream last night in which I was involved in a fortress/siege sort of game, possibly in the SCA. My team was constructing a fortress out of hay bales to defend against another team, who were the invaders. This was more fun than seems reasonable. I don't mind the 'beating people with sticks/getting beaten with sticks' aspects of play war, but the whole siege engineering thing, that seems so much more engaging. I spent a fair amount of the dream time trying to work out with a fellow who seemed to be the marshal whether simulated Greek fire would be legal in the battle. Good times.

Speaking of good times, wildnsquirrelly expressed some concern the other day about me, on the grounds that he didn't think I enjoyed anything or got excited about anything anymore. Now, I understand I've been a little stressed of late, but I didn't think I was stressed enough to not be any fun. If that's been true, I apologize.

Also, very soon, Bad Santa Flaunt 3 (Santa's Day Off). Drop me a note if you want to get in on the plans.
EDIT: Actually, if you want to get in on the plans, there will be a thread on flaunt_dev for that very purpose, and I invite you to come on over. Because that's like, what flaunt_dev is for.

Thanksgiving: check. triadruid's family is generally so much lower drama than either kittenpants' or mine. Also, it was unseasonably warm in Iowa, which made the trip so much more pleasant than it could have been. As a special bonus, I had what was almost certainly the best cup of tea I'd ever had, from the Gong Fu Tea shop in Des Moines. I never really believed in the existence of Des Moines before, but I think I have to, now.

Now, on to the next thing.
Winter Bazaar in: 6 days.
Holiday Cards out in: 14 days.
Gaia Community Yule in: 21 days.
Going to Key West in: 24 days.

Lots of little countdown tickers going on in my head. I have to, or I'll forget it's holiday season. It feels nothing like December yet. I'm delighted that we pushed Santa Flaunt back to January (Santa's Day Off) -- it can be a lot of fun, but it's kind of oppressive to have so many things pressed up against each other, and anything you can push out of the Zone of Doom makes everybody happier.

8elements reminds me that it's nearly time to think about Santa Flaunt again... So here we are. One thing is for certain: We need more Santas this year! So, potential Santas, what sort of things should Santa do this year? Where should we go? When should we plan for? (Yeah, I know, it's Pirate Day. But this is a post about Santa. I'll try to make it up with a pirate post later.)

EDIT: Oh yeah, and you know what else? Santa Flaunt will definitely involve Giving Stuff Away this year. Timing and venue will partially determine theme of giveaways, but all clever ideas are desired.


[Poll #824946]

2005 Santa Flaunt is in the books. I didn't take any pictures, but I think triadruid did, so go bother him about it.

The costuming was lighter than I'd like it to be -- must work on getting people more on to the dressing up part of the Flaunt. I farmed out my Santa suit (zylch got the jacket, and triadruid got the pants), and went as what niveus_tigris dubbed "Santa's Busty Helper", but which somehow looked more like Oscar Wilde as a Christmas elf.

Went to Barley's Brewhaus, which has managed to work itself down my list of restaraunts from "Yeah! They're great!" to "Eh. Don't bother" largely on the weakness of their customer service and their continuing inability to serve me an Irish coffee. Of course, nobody in Kansas City seems to be able to serve me an Irish coffee on the first go-round anyway, so maybe there are larger forces at work and Barley's is not to blame at all.

Followed it up by doing some Bad Santa Bowling, which was every bit as stupid as it sounds, but a good deal more funny, and a good time was had by all. Simpson was particularly a star, as we convinced him to put on the Goat Pants (doing double duty as Reindeer Pants) for this portion of the experience. The Goat Pants, if you have not seen them, are exactly what they sound like. They are large, plush, and padded, with hooves, and a little tail. Simpson astonished us all by not only being able to bowl in the Goat Pants, but also by bowling better in the Pants than he had previously.

Retired to Haven for some further company, consumption of beverages, and a viewing of Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton. This was also a good deal more funny than it had any right to be. We had some discussion of dropping by starwyse's party at some point, but by the time we finished the film it was quite late, and we figured there wouldn't be anybody over there still anyway. Maybe next time.

In upcoming Flaunt news, at some point in the Spring, we'll be doing a Rock Star flaunt. Comments and suggestions on that should go to me or to sxypaganmom.

Preliminary announcement:

Bad Santa Flaunt will be December 3rd this year! We don't know what we're doing yet, but will know soonly. Forward any juicy ideas to me and niveus_tigris.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

It's getting warmer, which means that it's just about time to start another season of public stupidity in the name of entertainment. So the other day, possibly yesterday, but certainly on some day in the past seven (but that's not important right now), triadruid was declaiming a list of famous people's birthdays, as listed in a calendar that I got free from Half Price Books a couple of months ago (which is a different story). And lo, it came to pass that we discovered that Sigmund Freud's birthday happened to occur on May 6th, which happens to occur on a Friday this year, and also happens to be in the area of when I would have otherwise tried to put on a Hedonism Flaunt for Beltane.

So I was thinking, instead of, or in addition to, the Hedonism Flaunt, we might do a Freudday Friday Party... I was kinda thinking we could all go out to dinner and make dick jokes, sling innuendo, and talk about our mothers. Or, you know, other people's mothers. You could bring your mother, even. The venue would ideally be, of course, the Cigar Box (provided that they're open during dinner hours).

Anybody up for it? Suggestions?