Category: Holidays

Armistice Day – The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month of 1918

The sign on the front of the truck reads, “The Kaiser’s Funeral.”

26 September 1918

“We are in a camp near Auzeville and the big drive is to start. In fact the one that finished the ‘Boches’. Then the morning of the 26th dawned but dawn was preceded by a terrific barrage which was as loud as thunder and lighted up the whole skyline for miles. We were not flying ours but were held in reserve.  Hundreds of “planes” were now flying over head. One bunch had over 150 in it.

Along about 8 a.m., along comes a boche plane and he burned three of the balloons all observers landed safe but one and his parachute burned and he fell to his death.

A fellow by the name of Barnett and I started out to see the fun.  Put our guns on and started for the front line trenches which were about 5 miles north.  After a short while we hit the trenches but of course our boys had advanced and were chasing the boche for a fare you well.  We hit several mine craters where the boche had mined the roads but already our engineers had started to budge them.  After another hour’s walk and dodging a few pieces of shrapnel we hit the town of Varennes and were keen for souvenirs.  The boche were still in one side of the Varennes and we were in the other.

Machine guns were crackling with a steady roar and long streams of ambulances carrying away the wounded.  Dead Boche were laying every where.  The roads were filled with them.  Long about then a Boche 77 took my ….. but never touched us. Then we started going through the dugouts and it was there that I got the general’s helmet.  Also was almost lucky enough to capture a Jerry but a doughboy beat me to it.  He was hiding in a dug out.  Looked like he wasn’t as old as “Bugs” and he was scared almost to death.

After monkeying around a while we hopped an ambulance and rode back toward Auzeville.  So that finished the day’s fun.  But you ought to have seen the dead Huns.  Some had legs blown off.  Some had their heads and shoulders off and some were in pieces only.  A great many had been burned by mustard gas and were burned to a crisp.”

PFC Walter Myers, age 19, US Army Signal Corps.

Día de los Muertos

Always Remember: There are more of them than there are of us.

[Image found here.]

Halloween. Do it like a boss.

[Found here. More Halloween-flavored posts here.]

Abandoned, Derelict & Spooky

[Found here.]

Mistress of the Dark Hot Links

Halloween Stories For Children includes “The Hairy Toe” but I never heard of it. It’s similar to “Der Vinder Viper” without the punchline “I’m Der Vinder Viper man, come to vipe der vinders.”

The first link above says there’s a pun in the story title, but I didn’t catch it. All I could come up with was “Jarritos.” It means “little jugs” in Spanish, and its anglicized pronunciation is “hairy toes.” It’s one of the better soft drinks to come out of Mexico, and Jarritos Tamarindo is the best.

1978 UFO drone. “The problem was not getting it to fly… The problem was getting it to land.”

Here are some examples of skeuomorphism.

Here’s jaw-dropping evidence that President Trump colluded with Russia to throw the 2016 election after a year of investigation by the DNC, DOJ, FBI, CIA, MSM and others.

The greatest voice in cartoons: Mel Blanc described the business to David Letterman in 1981. At 03:28, Blanc described how Porky Pig’s voice came to be – he went to a pig farm and listened.

A kilowatt hour is the distance a kilowatt can travel in 60 minutes and it’s faster than a cheetah. (Okay, it’s not, but it is because I just said it is.)

From the Hoodathunkit Dept.: 47 year-old Filipino man was rescued after living three years in a coconut palm. His body was covered in blisters and insect bites, suffers from muscle atrophy and his spine became deformed after so much time spent crouching in the tree. He exhibits symptoms of psychosis, including delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.

[Top & bottom images: Cassandra Peterson, (aka Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) is ending her long-running Halloween show at Knotts *Scary* Farm at the age of 66.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 507 – Día de los Muertos, I Saw The Light & WTF Pumpkin Head Dude

dia-de-los-muertes

Yeah, I know we’re a few days early, but so what.

[Found here, here and here.]

Barbie’s Halloween Costume Is Awesome.

[Found here.]

Yeah. Cute idea, but… No.

[Parentally-forced costume fail (PFCF) found here.]

Ghost Fish Rodeo

ghost-fish-rodeo

[Found here.]

Shine.

costume-idea-shining

From the “Wish I’d Thought Of It First” Department.

[Found here.]