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.