Do You Know Jack?

 Most people know that pumpkins weren't the first choice of items to carve faces/designs on, that honor would go mainly to root veggies like beets and turnips, but what about the name Jack O' Lantern?  According to a centuries old Irish myth there was a character named Stingy Jack  a phantom who roamed the countryside around harvest time. Stingy Jack was drinking with the devil but refused to pay his share of the tab when it came due and convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin which Jack trapped in his pocket. Jack finally agreed to release the devil with the promise that his soul would not end up in hell but the devil was one step ahead when he accepted Jack's terms. When Jack's life ended he didn't go to heaven or hell but was left to wander the earth with a piece of coal inside of a carved turnip thus the name "Jack of the Lantern". Happy Halloween! 

Picture This

Earlier this month Atlas Obscura asked readers to send in photos of places that gave them the chills and the following are a few of ones they selected with the number one entry winning a trip to Romania including a visit to Dracula's Castle. 

1st place

Nicknames

 When most people hear the iron lady they think of Margaret Thatcher but there's another Iron Lady that is aka the Eiffel Tower. She (yes the tower is of the feminine persuasion) has had several nicknames before locals settled on the Iron Lady. The Sydney Opera House was designed to look like the sails of ships but the locals affectionately refer to the building as "Nuns in a Scrum" because it looks like a huddle of rugby players and the white coiffes worn by Catholic nuns. The Sydney Harbor Bridge also has an  interesting nicknames, the Coat Hanger and the Anzac Bridge also in Sydney is known as  Madonna's Bra. 

Black Facts

 For the most part the color black in modern times is associated with evil but that wasn't always the case in fact before the middle ages black symbolized positive notions of dignity and respect until the black robe wearing Benedictine monks called out the Cistercian monks for being prideful because they wore white. Once the Renaissance kicked in black became officially evil in Christian religions. Even though black isn't really a color but an absence of light there are still various shades of black. The blackest of black shades (so far) is vantablack which reflects only 1% of the light it absorbs, so it's almost as black as a black hole. Vantablack is used to calibrate light sensitive instruments. 

Florida as Florida

 Florida is finally coming clean and owning their weirdness with the Florida Man Games. The competitions will be geared to the Florida Man reputation as beer loving, gator possessing, rap-sheet heavy, mullet wearing, gun toting and a nod to drug use. Among contests for the event are: Evading Arrest Obstacle Course where contestants jump over fences and run through yards while being chased by real police officers, the Category 5 Cash Grab where participants grab money in a wind booth, and Beer Belly Wrestling. Tickets for the event are $45. No, I'm not making this up. 

What They're Wearing

 Going to add a few more costumes just in case anyone needs some last minute ideas...or laughs! 

Magic 8 Ball 

Pixelated Flasher 

Venus Fly Trap 

Charcuterie Board 

Caution Tape 

An Impressive Immigrant

 For those of you who tend to paint all immigrants with the same brush maybe this 14 year old Ethiopian boy will give you pause. Heman Bekele has been interested in science since he was in elementary school and had an hour  free time to play with his ideas, now it has paid off in a big way for him and people with skin cancer. He recently won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and $25,000 for his Melanoma Treating Soap. He always thought that people getting over exposed to the sun without knowing the danger wasn't equitable nor was the cost of the treatment so he set out to make his soap so it would be both affordable and accessible. He hopes to use the prize money to get his cancer curing soap approved and ready to help people by 2025 and to further his education. 

The Other Halloweens

 There are several holidays in different countries that are similar to Halloween in the US though not on the same date and mostly for different reasons. In Denmark kids dress up and go door to door for Fastelavn which is celebrated in February. In the past traditions included riding a horse at full speed to put a lance through a ring, yanking a goose's head off, smashing a bat while blindfolded, and knocking a black cat out of a barrel, thankfully today they use a painted cat on a pinata type container. The basis for Fastelavn is a feast before fasting for Lent. 

Dance Party

 An Utah man caught the attention of the law when he placed his pole dancing skeleton display using a street sign for the pole and the police told him he had to take the decorations down by 9 p.m. Instead of just packing the decorations away he moved them further into his yard and got another pole he also got the attention of the neighborhood when the police posted about the unlawful display on Facebook. The neighbors joined the man and helped add to the display featuring the purple wigged skeleton on the pole with other skeletons watching with money in hand, the neighbors brought in music and lights for all to enjoy. When the man was asked about the display being inappropriate for children he said if the kids understand what they're seeing maybe the problem is not the skeleton on the pole but something else. 

Holiday Line Up

 Most of these costumes are fairly obvious though the ones that are questionable I will supply a brief description. Even if you don't find something you'd wear most of these are at least giggle worthy. 

Utility poles, aka pole dancers 

Chicken nugget and dipping sauce

Enough for you to consider for today, I may add more next week. 

Rules of the Name

 The freedom to name your offspring varies from country to country and the list is a little surprising. In Denmark, Hungary, Iceland and Poland names must be selected from a list of government approved baby names although they do allow parents to apply for exceptions. New Zealand doesn't have a list but they will not accept names that reflect a title (like King or Baron) or that have symbols or numbers. Germany denies names that are also inanimate objects or surnames. In the US it varies by state but several states ban obscene or derogatory names while other states prohibit numbers, symbols and even accented letters. It makes a person wonder how would a name that was symbols be pronounced? and imagine going through life having to explain your name. 

Poe's Parrot

" Quoth the Parrot 'Nevermore'", just doesn't have the same eerie vibe to it as Raven does in the iconic 1845 Edgar Allan Poe poem. A year after "The Raven" was published Poe revealed his creative process in an essay stating that a human muttering "nevermore" didn't really work for what he wanted to convey so his next thought was an unreasoning creature capable of speech so his first thought was a parrot though that didn't quite supply the tone he was going for either, then the raven came to mind and he knew that was a good fit with it sporting its shiny black feathers "upon a midnight dreary". 

Forgotten Five

 For the National Toy Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary one of the forgotten five toys that have been religiously left out will finally gain entrance to the Hall of Fame and you can help. The forgotten five that have been finalists many times but always tossed back into the toy box when the votes were tallied include: the pogo stick, the Fisher-Price corn popper, My Little Pony, Pez dispensers, and Transformers. This year the panel will select 3 toys out of the finalists as usual but fans will be able to submit one vote per day through October 24 for their favorite of the forgotten five at the website for the  National Toy Hall of Fame. The other finalists for the 3 spots for this year are: baseball cards, Battleship, bingo, Bop It, Cabbage Patch Kids, Choose Your Own Adventure game books, Connect 4, Little Tykes Cozy Coupe, Nerf, slime, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Barbie's boyfriend, Ken. 

Hot Enough For Ya?

 The hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper hot pepper which is hotter than most pepper sprays has developed a pepper 3 times hotter. He calls it Pepper X which was named World's Hottest Pepper by Guinness World Records on October 9th. Peppers are measured on the Scoville Scale with zero being bland, and a regular Jalapeno about 5,000 units, a habanero around 100,000, a Carolina Reaper scoring 1.64 million units and Pepper X easily winning the hottest pepper slot at 2.69 units. To put it in perspective pepper spray carried by the police is 1.6 million units. Hot Stuff.