Halloween music playlist tips

Your house may be decorated to give even those with nerves of steel the hibijibis; your costume may be as lifelike that even your family doesn’t recognize you; but if you’re playing happy, carefree music, the Halloween spirit you are trying to create will go right out the window.

What you need is a Halloween music playlist, tunes so creepy, so blood curling, they will scare the pants of anyone attending your party.  The following is a small selection to consider.

Thriller - Michael Jackson

From the first note, this song will indicate that you mean business.  Whether your guests are dancing or stand around talking, when Jackson starts his dialogue, hitting off with “Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour close at hand”, all of them are sure to feel their neck hairs rise.  Not to mention Vincent Price’s laughter concluding the song.  That will rattle a few bones.

The Monster Mash – Boris Picket and the Crypt Kickers

Whether your guests were born in the fifties or nineties, everybody loves The Monster Mash.  Although scary and as such suitable for Halloween, The Monster Mash is perfect to end all conversation signalling it’s time for your guests to start kicking up their heels. 

Black Magic Woman - Santana

Of course, wild dancing can only last so long.  Every now and then you’ll have to throw in a slow tune so your guests can catch their breath and smooch a little without leaving the dance floor.  Rely on Santana and Black Magic Woman to do just that. 

I Put a Spell On You – CCR

Keep the slow pace without losing any of the Halloween atmosphere.  Spells and potions are right up there with ghosts and witches.  Put a spell on your guests with the help of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Soundtracks

If you don’t like individual songs, how about some movie soundtrack music?  Think Psycho, think Poltergeist, any of the Freddie Kruger movies or even some Resident Evil tunes.  All of them are guaranteed to be bone chilling and if your guests have seen the movies, the music will bring back some memories.

Alternatively you can go for the soundtrack of the classics such as Dracula or Frankenstein movies.  The visuals were scary, but it was the music that had many on the edge of their seat and gave them nightmares.

Whatever you decide, mix up the fast with the slow; the old with the new; and give your party guests a Halloween to remember.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Halloween decorating ideas for the office

While you can go all out decorating your house for Halloween, you might have to tone it down a bit with Halloween decorating ideas for the office.  After all, the office is a place of business where management meets clients, customers or patients.

That is not to say that you cannot bring a little atmosphere in your office or cubicle.  In fact, a few tasteful ornaments might gain you popularity.

To start off, you might want to decide on a good place to decorate.  This can be a corner of your desk, the top of a filing cabinet, a windowsill, or even some floor space.

To create the right setting, start off with either a black or an orange piece of cardboard.  If you mainly want to use decorations such as ravens, bats or spiders, black is your best choice.  If on the other hand you are thinking of using or pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, or other colorful items, then orange cardboard will be better suited.  Creating contrast is key.

A word of advice though, be sympathetic to your colleagues’ feelings.  If you know of someone who has a phobia for spiders, best not to use them.  You don’t want to give someone heart failure when coming face to face with a lifelike tarantula. 

However, if nobody in your area is afraid of spiders, they make for great decorations.  You can have them sitting on your desk, crawling on walls, dangling from the ceiling, whatever you fancy.

Alternatively you can use witches and scarecrows.  Nobody is likely to go screaming when they see a witch or scarecrow in your office and they make for great, colorful decorations.  Along with witches you can add little details such as cauldrons, poison bottles, broomsticks and apples.

Other Halloween decorations for the office could be a touch of the sinister.  How about some coffins or headstones?  To jazz things up bit you could add a ghost or two. 

Then there are the ever popular vampires.  Whether you work with dolls or pictures, nothing says Halloween like a blood sucking creature.  To give extra character to your display, you could make use of a few bats and goblets filled with some type of red liquid. 

If management doesn’t allow creepy Halloween decorations for the office, you could just stick to pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns.  Providing you have the space, you could have the real thing in your office or cubicle, or you could have pictures or a banner.

If you don’t overdo it, most offices will have no problem with having a few decorations.  Keep it simple, keep it tasteful and be considerate. 

www.connymanero.weebly.com

5 Cheap Halloween decorating ideas

If you’re planning on having a family gathering or throwing a big Halloween party, turning down the lights and playing some scary music is not enough, you need to create the right atmosphere.  Halloween night belongs to ghosts and goblins, when the dead rise from the grave and crows, rats and spiders are there to welcome them. 

To party with them or at least be sympathetic with their plight, your house needs to be suitably attired.  The following are some cheap Halloween decorating ideas.

Ghosts

You will need two or more white balloons for this trick.  Fill the balloons with helium, attach different lengths of string and secure the string with weights so they don’t float to the ceiling.  Cover the balloons with a white curtain or bed sheet.  To get some movement in the balloons, enlist the help of a fan turned on to the lowest setting.  Your ghosts will gently sway in the breeze.

Spiders

Fill a black balloon with Helium and let it float to the ceiling.  Cut eight pieces of black streamer and attach one end with tape to the black balloon and the other end to various points on the ceiling or walls, thus creating the look of the spiders’ legs.  If you want you can give the spider a face by using white or silver paint to paint eyes and a mouth on the spider.  A word of advice though, this is not a good idea if any of your guests are afraid of spiders.

Coffins

If you have a couple of shoeboxes, you can paint them black or brown and decorate them to look like coffins.  For an open casket, place a skeleton on top of a pile of cotton wool or Kleenex tissues.

Tombstone

Get some Styrofoam and cut it so that it’s flat on the bottom and rounded on top.  Paint the Styrofoam grey with the letters R.I.P. in black with your guests’ names and a message.  That will creep them out.

Cardboard

Get some black cardboard and draw various sizes of bats, rats, birds and cats on it.  With a red pencil or paint, give the animals eyes, a mouth and whiskers.  Cut out the drawings and attach them with sticky tape to the walls or windows.

On orange cardboard you can draw pumpkins and jack o lanterns.  After cutting them out decorate them with leafs drawn and cut out from green cardboard.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Getting to know Charlotte

It seems that lately it’s been all about Holly. Holly being good, Holly being naughty, Holly being cute, etc. etc. etc. It’s easy taking pictures and writing stories about Holly, she’s always up to something and as such is a constant source of inspiration. Charlotte is the complete opposite. She’s a beautiful cat too, and a very good kitty, but if I had to rely on her for inspiration, I might as well pack up. Charlotte is a scared cat. We’ve had her since she was an 8-week old kitten, so he’s never suffered abuse, but she acts like she has. Everything scares her. If someone knocks on the door, she goes running. If a cooking pot falls to the floor, she goes and hides. And if the vacuum cleaner gets switched on, she hides under the duvet of my bed. Charlotte doesn’t do much during the day. She sleeps, she sleeps some more, has a little something to eat, and goes back to sleep. And when she sleeps, she snores. And I don’t mean that she purrs, no, she snores, loudly. When I go to bed at night or lay down for a nap in the afternoon, and Charlotte joins me, I might as well forget about sleeping. Her snoring keeps me awake. Charlotte also has very good hearing. All cats probably have better hearing than humans, but Charlotte has better hearing than most cats. On Saturday afternoons, the cats get a treat. When I open the packet, Charlotte comes charging from wherever she’s been sleeping with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. It’s a case of … “Get out of my waaaaaaay !!!” The others will come too for their treat, but Charlotte is there long before them. Other than that, there’s really nothing to tell about Charlotte. Still, a few pictures to get to know her a little better. 0 Comments Leave a Reply.

Holly's story

 

HOLLY

Two years ago, this little kitten came into our lives. She and her three brothers were left in a box on a ground floor balcony of the condo building where we live.

I had gone down to the management office to hand in our maintenance fee cheque, when I overheard a woman talking about kittens.

Kittens? The conversation immediately had my full attention.

To cut a long story short … I went to the woman’s condo, and there they were, four little kittens playing with a ball. That’s to say, three of them were playing while the fourth one sat on her own.

The playing kittens paid no attention to me, but the sideline kitten come closer, looked up to me and peeped a pitiful “meow”.

Well, that was it, this little one had found a home.
From here on, I'll let Holly herself tell the story … 

SOMEWHAT SCARED I EXPLORED MY NEW HOME.

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, I GOT A BATH.

AND THEN I GOT SOMETHING TO EAT

UTTERLY EXHAUSTED, I CURLED UP FOR A NAP

THE NEXT DAY I WAS TAKEN TO THE VET FOR A CHECK UP AND RECEIVED A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

I FOUND ALL KINDS OF NICE PLACES TO SLEEP, SUCH AS A COMFY CHAIR

A DESK

DAD'S LAP, AND LOTS OF OTHER PLACES

I EVEN GOT MY VERY OWN BEAR TO SLEEP WITH

I HAD TO GO TO THE VET A FEW MORE TIMES FOR MY SHOTS, AND TO KEEP ME WARM, DAD PUT ME IN HIS JACKET

AS I GREW UP, DAD PLAYED WITH ME

AND SHOWED ME PICTURES ON HIS CELLPHONE

BEDTIME I STILL HAVE MY BEAR FOR COMPANY

ALL TUCKED UP FOR THE NIGHT

THIS IS MOM'S FAVORITE PICTURE OF ME

AUGUST 21, 2014 WAS MY FIRST BIRTHDAY

I ENJOY FLOWERS INSIDE

AND OUTSIDE

WHERE IT COMES TO FISH, I'M UNDER STRICT INSTRUCTIONS THAT I CAN ONLY LOOK, NOT TOUCH

RECENTLY I CELEBRATED MY SECOND BIRTHDAY

SO THAT'S MY STORY

FIRST I WAS A LITTLE KITTEN

AND NOW I'M ALL GROWN UP

By the way, my three brothers found loving homes too.

Would you pity her?

Soon my blog will celebrate its sixth anniversary and over the years many readers have asked me where I find inspiration for my posts. One word … Facebook. Whenever I’m short on inspiration, all have to do is scroll through the Facebook posts and something is sure to jump out at me.

Take today for instance. Someone posted a video of a 22-year old African American woman that was aimed to gear up sympathy for the woman’s "dire" situation.

She works at McDonalds at minimum wage, she had a young kid, and has to make do with what she earns, plus what she gets from child support, plus government assistance.

After seeing the video, I got to thinking and watched it again and again and I found quite a few interesting details.

She complained that she only earns minimum wage at McDonalds. Well, at least she has a job. Millions of people don’t and for one reason or another are refused unemployment benefits.

My neighbor also used to work for McDonalds, but he didn’t stay there. He went to night school, put himself through college and obtained a government job.

The woman lives in a two story house with a beautiful big kitchen. Now it so happens that I have friends and acquaintances who are not exactly well off and I can tell you, none of them live in a two story house. One lives in a cheap apartment, the second shares an apartment with a roommate, the third lives in a trailer and the forth rents one room in a house.

None of these people have children (they can't afford them) so they don’t have the benefit of child support and when they applied for government assistance, they were turned down. Subsequently they turned to The Salvation Army, United Way, and other charities and were sent packing.

The woman in the video states that she only buys frozen foods (as fresh food might spoil and be wasted). Not very smart in my opinion. Frozen food is the most expensive. Take carrots for instance. A tin of carrots costs 65 cents, a bushel of fresh carrots costs 99 cents, while a packet of frozen carrots costs $2.45. If she’s worried about wasting food, she can go to the market on a daily basis for what she needs.

She complains that she had to have a tooth pulled because she couldn’t afford root canal. 

I have news for her, I know quite a few people, working people with medical insurance, who can’t afford root canal either. As for me … I wouldn’t want root canal if you offered it to me for free. 

As for the woman herself … she is African American, yet she has long glossy hair. This indicates a) her hair is straightened, b) has extensions, or c) is a wig. Either way, an expensive look.

As for her clothing … she is seen wearing a GAP T-shirt. Anyone who has ever shopped for clothing knows that GAP is an expensive store. Her jacket I recognized as Tommy Hilfiger (designer gear). Some might say that her T-shirt and jacket are knock-offs, but knock off items are still more expensive than no-name clothing.

All in all, my less than rich friends would trade places with this woman any day. She has a job, she lives in a furnished two story house, she receives child support and government assistance … what exactly is she complaining about?

Why Use the Plus Sign When Searching the Internet

With the arrival of the Internet, the world is your oyster.  Unfortunately, it’s not just your oyster, it’s anybody’s and with a pearl of information, you find a whole lot of junk.  Along with reputable companies, advertisers, spammers, bloggers, and other Internet users all vie for your attention.  If you’ve heard of the plus sign and you’re wondering, why use the plus sign searching the Internet, your life is about to become a whole lot easier.

The problem

If you’ve never used the plus sign when searching the Internet, you probably shake your head in frustration wading through pages and pages of useless information.  You know what you want, you formulated your request in your favorite search engine, but you still have to put up with bogus sites, websites with misleading ads, link farms, and false listings.

The solution

Next time when you use a search engine, start you search with the plus sign (+).  As an experiment, say that you’re looking for information on owls.  Type “owls” in the search engine and you’ll be presented with 72 million listings.  Now type “+owls” in the search engine and you’ll only get 71,000 listings.  The plus sign removes all the rig raff.

What does the plus sign do?

The plus sign removes (almost) all undesirable info from your search.  The plus sign tells the search engine that whatever you’re looking for has to include the word that you specified.  If you’re looking for owls, the search engine will only bring up information on those birds and will ignore pages that link themselves to info about owls.

Broaden your search

In addition to the plus sign, try broaden your search for a particular item.  For instance, if you’re looking for sugar free drink, don’t type just drinks in the search engine.  Typing “+drinks” produces about 8,660 results, while “+sugar free drinks” generates only 2,300 results.  Try to be as specific as possible.

Where it goes wrong

Clever advertisers know that subjects such as “love”, “employment”, “pets” and “cars” are hot topics.  They link their marketing pages to those popular sites and as a result you get flooded with millions of search results.  Fortunately, a few search engines are on to those advertisers and eliminate their ads automatically.  Still, it doesn’t take long to type a plus sign before the word or term you are searching for, letting the search engine know that you are not willing to put up with useless pages.

When it gets worse

You might find that, at certain times of the year, you get presented with more and more junk pages while looking for valuable information.  The problem is obvious, annual celebrations such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother and Father’s Day bring on a stream of advertisers all trying to lure you to their sites.  

Wonder no longer about why use the plus sign searching the Internet, try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and save a whole lot of time finding what you’re looking for.

www.connymanero.weebly.com