Yesterday morning, we drove out to God Knows Where, searching for some New Jersey farmers’ market I remembered visiting last year. I swore it was only twenty minutes away, but Sunday’s events proved otherwise.

Eventually, we found it. And, hell yes, they still had the same assortment of insanely hot peppers from last year. Lots of pumpkins, too. I even found enormous sweet potatoes. Honest to God, each was as large as a two-month-old child.

Somewhere in the middle of that, I saw the Venus Flytraps.

I know I wrote about them years ago, but so what? It’s not against the law to write about Venus Flytraps twice. Don’t tell me what to do. The last person who tried is now in me.

I guess we can blame a steady diet of grade school plant sales and VHS rentals of Little Shop of Horrors, but I never considered Venus Flytraps as normal plants, or even “plants” at all. To me, they’ve always been animals. They have emotions and personalities. They feel pain, and they appreciate those who keep them from experiencing it.

As you could guess, I bought a few new Flytraps.

After leaving the market, we ended up at some really bad strip mall’s really bad sushi joint. Their spicy tuna rolls had a mouthfeel comparable to Elmer’s glue, and the whole place reeked like a tackle shop. But that’s neither here nor there.

The point is, I spent the entire awful dining experience complaining that Ms. X wasn’t eating fast enough. I was unreasonably worried about leaving my Flytraps in the hot car. I really do view them as “pets.” Read More…

My adventures in idiot blogging have brought many pumpkins to their doom.

There was the time I hammered Lite Brite pegs into one. Another time, I turned a pumpkin into the Trix Rabbit. Then there was the afternoon when one grew a clay face and Yoda arms.

This year, I hope to bring the total number into the triple digits.

On the other hand, this kit doesn’t really kill pumpkins. It just makes them look like gooey clowns.

Made by Pumpkin Masters, it’s the Kid’s Sticky, Squishy Pumpkin Parts kit — a title so cumbersome that I’ve already made the concrete vow to never type it again. You probably know Pumpkin Masters for their traditional “knife and scooper” sets, but I remember ‘em more for the kickass Pumpkin Hatchers I found last year.

Though there’s no way a bunch of jellied body parts could ever top that, I think it may come close. Read More…

Just put up a new feature, detailing the evolution of Count Chocula across eight different cereal boxes from the 1990s. I’m especially fond of the holofoil wolf box.

I don’t like these little notices about new features to go to waste, so I colored you a Halloween picture.

See the little grey guy? That’s a haunted castle come alive. I don’t know why he’s so tiny. Maybe the other monsters are just really, really big.