Frog on the Pumpkin

clean out my car more often. :) I found a bag that has several items in it that I should have mailed in December to my winners. Which seems impossible since I swear I remember making like.....ten trips to the post office, in the pouring rain....in December, how did miss any!!! see more Lolcats and funny pictures Anyway...yeah, it is almost February. So I apologize to both Micheal ( My Two Yens Worth ) and Jason ( The Captain's Ramblings ) - your Davis Graveyard energy drinks went out today, finally (with an extra bonus because I am such a loser)...priority mail. Please forgive me! :) And, I will be sending out the long lost magical pumpkin seeds to Orange and Black also.....I really have no good excuse.....none....not really.......... I do not blame any of you if you never enter another of my drawings again...... But I am going to do some anyway :D BTW - all of them were too nice to say anything to me...seriously people, just send me an email that says....."Oh, frog queen . ....

of the month is . . . . the day the new Hauntcast comes out. :D If you have not done so - stop what you are doing right now and download and listen to #15 - amazing as always everyone, makes me laugh on my drive into work...that is always good! Want more Halloween Hauntcast goodness? Be sure to check out the casts blogs ShellHawk's Nest and Johny Thunder' s Midnight Frolic . Did I mention how much I love Halloween today? :D

not over reacting as far as I am concerned. see more Lolcats and funny pictures You should see how high I jump :D

in the game. I was playing Apples to Apples with some friends and I got the dreaded card........the one that scares me more than any card. 34,000 different species ....really? I did not need to know that. :D I mean, no one....no one at all....needs to know that :D

looking at lots and lots of abandoned places (I have to look at about 10 parks/places....to find one that had an abandoned haunted ride) for hours was getting me down. Very odd, I really didn't think that would happen, so, I am working on getting back my sense of humor and two things lately have brought a smile to my face. (that is a good start) First - Johnny Thunder has a link to the best desktop wallpaper ever. Okay, the best wallpaper for the Graveyard....husband and I LOVE it. Check it out. Second - ShellHawk is one of my favorite bloggers and makes me laugh on a regular basis....always enjoy visiting her blog. She mentioned that she is looking to get 100 followers and she will have a giveaway....personally I rather see her boobs...but she has made that clear that it is not going to happen :D Anyway, check out her blog and become a follower today - you will not be disappointed! (come on people....she only needs 5 more followers to hit 100!) Hey, did you notice that these are ...

I found this picture from an abandoned amusement park in Japan (cannot give you details as it was all in Japanese) and took it as a sign that I need to stop this abandoned park thing. Can't you just hear the frog saying......"will you stop already!!" Yeah, I hear ya buddy :D Not only have my numbers dropped and husband says my blog is boring.....it has completely killed my sense of humor. Odd how something like that happens. I have been trying to work on some lighter blog posts lately and nothing is working for me.....they are more stupid than funny. Not that I was by any means a good writer before, but I made myself laugh....and as Craig Ferguson says, "that is half the battle" :D So, going back to my normal Halloween posts. Thanks for the few of you that stuck around :D I promise not to do that to you again! :D

no good LOLcats lately and husband says that my blog is starting to get boring (and he would be right). I don't think he fancies my abandoned park posts :) I thought I would revive a post that I have been writing and rewriting for a year. So I am going to start with the 2010 Davis Graveyard calendar, it starts with January, as most calendars do. :) Here is the image for January. Ah, I hear that collective mumble....what is the Westerman Abbey? Not that many people know that this last October the church facade at the Graveyard was finally named and reclassified (went from a church to an abbey) this past October during our Halloween party. So most of you are wondering "why Westerman Abbey"? That is a long story and one that we have kept to ourselves for quite some time. For over a year I have been talking through this post in my head and I think I am ready . . . .sit down, boys and girls, I am going to tell you a scary story Kind of a nightmare come true. During the take do...

the inside of the abandoned haunted ride in Kalito Park in Taiwan is "pretty lame" - Just neon painted not very scary stuff. :) I guess it is scary in that "not good" way :D It appears that the park was abandoned in 1999 after an earthquake. Very creepy photos of the rest of the park can be seen here.

this years Haunters Video Award you will get a few goodies too. Husband and I really need to update the website! Until then....we wanted to let you know that we have found that not only do the winners get a subscription to Haunted Attraction Magazine , they also get a pair of VIP passes to the National Haunters Convention. (my friend and marketing buddy Dick Trehune is the guy doing the promo for them....I just love that guy!) This year I will try to work with more vendors to get more prizes donated to the winners for 2010 and maybe a new design for the awards....but for now make sure you get the video or pictures of your haunt into Propmaster before the end of January to make the DVD and be in the running for a Haunters Video Award! Check out the website (which we will update soon), we expanded the awards and categories for 2009. Good luck to all of you!

so we are going back to the Rocky Point Haunted Ride - House of Horrors Seriously breaks my heart to see these pictures.....if I could have rescued one of these cars....I would love (as I am sure many Halloween lovers would) to have it my collection. Too bad these things go to ruin before they have the chance to find a deserving home. Pictures courtesy of Opacity

is very hard to just post the pictures of the abandoned haunted ride when the other pictures of the the park are so magnificent. This is a perfect example. Here is a photo of what I am guessing was a haunted (or scary or funny) ride from the now defunct park called Dadipark in Belgium . It has a very unique history and a sad ending. But it has made for some spectacular and quite sad pictures. This guy has taken a rather large amount of photos of the whole park that I think are worth the few minutes of your time. It is creepy to see how nature has reclaimed this area....just creepy. Out of respect for the photographer, I don't want to post any other pictures on my blog, but I encourage you to take a look at the rest of his great photos here.

video making ordeal. We disagree more about the video than creating and putting the display up - it is crazy :D Whether I like it or not....the offical 2009 Davis Graveyard video is done and off to Paul for the DVD collection. Husband even posted it on YouTube and the lovely, talented and generous ShellHawk even posted a link to it on her blog before I did!! Thank you!! Anyway, it was the usual ordeal. Husband grabbed all the footage and I complain that there are lots of things missing. Next year our "new prop" will not be new at all :D After two years of running the full "Preacher" effect, we still do not have any footage that is complete. Most everyone has seen the ghost come out of the door....creepy, spooky....but did you know that through the magic of EFX-TEK prop controllers and some UV lights from Minispotlights and the actuator mechanism for a car door lock, the second part of the effect is the sound of footsteps as he is walking.....when he fades away, y...

Silent Hill. It is an abandoned amusement park in on the top of a hill in Rome, Italy called LunEur or Luna Park . Built in 1953 it was closed in 2008. I cannot find many pictures of the park now, and after finding the few I did, I would really love to see more. This first one is of what I am guessing is a haunted ride (from reading about the park, it appears they had several of them.) Very creepy entrance. The next one is of the Ferris wheel to give you a look at the slight amount of decay that is happening. I still cannot get over the fact that there were several haunted rides.....wow, if a park even has one I am thrilled. The pictures are from this site and there are several other shots worth looking at.

that the streets in this amusement park were the inspiration for the abandoned amusement park in Spirited Away (if you have not seen this movie....do so, it is amazing) It is very hard to find many pictures of the inside of the park....something about security guards chasing out photographers :) Nara Dreamland was a theme park near Nara, Japan which was built in 1961 and inspired by Disneyland in California. On August 31, 2006, Nara Dreamland closed permanently. This brave soul ignored (what hero!)the security guards long enough to grab a few shots from inside the park, from his shots I found the only picture of a ride that I can only find referenced on an old map as "haunted house" - so I do not know if it had a name. This picture gives you an idea of what the park looks like now and if you have seen Spirited Away, you can see why it is likely the area that inspired the park for the movie. He has a lot more great pictures to check out .

in general, but purse shopping is painful. Being vegetarian I also try not to buy leather...so I have usually ended up with a microfiber all black bag...and I used it until it fell apart. But I really wanted was a handbag with skulls on it....but most of them were pink. Honestly, why would run a perfectly good skull idea with pink bows, pink rhinestones or pink glitter....that is just scary in the not good way. So if they were not pink....they had flowers on them....I like flowers....just not with my skulls. Or those dreadful Ed Hardy bags....they look like biker tattoos....also nothing wrong with that, just too busy and colorful for me. I wanted just a nice plain black and white bag with skulls on it. Finally found one on Etsy. Husband got it for me for Christmas - had it made with a custom red lining (red is my favorite!) I just love husband! :) So I am changing out my Etsy store listing to Mimi's crafts in Florida. All kinds for cool skull bags for those of us that fear...

but it looks nothing like Thomas Moore describes :D Here are pictures of a medieval themed amusement park in Japan called Utopia, which included water slides, a bunch of kiddie rides, a roller coaster, a haunted house, a huge Ferris wheel, and many various buildings. I had a hard time tracking down any information on why this park closed. It appears to have been open between 1987 (?) and closed in 2005. In 2005, a lot of stuff was still left in the haunted house. Here are some great pictures

than more wine! I also got this bottle of wine from my friend Angie for Christmas - It is called Ash Halloween Headless Red from Ash Hallow Vineyards . Cannot imagine why my friends keep giving me Halloweenish labeled wine :D

Here is what Phantasmagoria at the now defunct Bells Amusement Park in Tulsa Oklahoma looks like. It was closed in 2006 by the county for past due rent. The park had been owned and operated by the Bell family for more than 50 years. The bottom photo is of the facade in its heyday, hard to imagine it is the same place. Check out this blog for detailed information on the history of this ride . (photos courtesy of the Secret Fun Blog .)

have thought of this. I love wine and I love graveyards (real and pretend.) Here is a gift from some of our wine tasting friends that go wine tasting in California several times a year. When they found this winery they knew they had to get us a bottle of the Tombstone Red....and a nifty wine stopper - even though they know we will never use the stopper....I mean once I open a bottle of wine, I am pretty committed to getting to the bottom of the bottle :D Check out Graveyard Vineyards . Husband and I are going to have to make a trek down there some day!

by a "trailer" ride from Europe. That is the latest word on the final demise of the "Haunted House" in Adventureland in Long Island. I imagine this is all but gone now. I know that the prefab rides are cost effective now, but it seems sad to me that the custom designed and hand built rides are going away. But on the positive thing is that those trailer rides do scare me....in that - "I think I am going to die because the ride looks so cheap kinda way" :D

the name "Rocky Point", as a haunter, I immediately thought of the the famous (and also defunct) haunted house in SLC . I found that there was a much older park in Rhode Island also called Rocky Point Amusement Park (more info here ) it was a highly popular landmark on the Narragansett Bay side of Warwick, Rhode Island. It operated from the late 1840s until its close in 1995. It has a very sad story as that it appears the park only failed because of some bad investments in some other businesses. :( It was so famous and so missed that there was even a movie made about it called " You Must be This Tall " and there was even a comic book created. Very cool and sad. . . . why did I start doing these posts? This research is getting a bit depressing. :D Upon researching their haunted ride called (actually it had several names) "House of Horror" that was a traditional dark ride with cars that lead you through an extensive haunt. ( click here for a lots of his...

on our video for 2009 husband took a small diversion and created the video I had mentioned earlier that shows how the got zombies poster came to be. I am sure the dance team is going to love it. It will go on the 2009 Davis Graveyard DVD that we give to the team and all the helpers, and we will eventually have it on our website. But until then, you can check it out on YouTube .

I love about blogging is supporting the blogs of fellow blog friends. So here are two things I am going to share. #1 - You know when you are checking your blog updates and you see an update from a blogger that you must click on immediately, cause you know it will be good. Geoff over at Enter the Man Cave , is one of those blogs - a great blog - he has a wicked sense of humor and I he is always entertaining. Anyway, check out his blog and his current contest . #2 - Some of you have been following me almost since the beginning....wow, and you are still here....hum, you are my kinda crazy! :D One of my oldest and favorite blog buddies, Dawn from the popular Nicolas Manor blog, has another blog....for her other personality (that is the only explanation I can think of :D ) It is called Wackey Whimsy , it is the Ying to her (and her hubby's) Halloween blog Yang. Who knew she liked bright colors? :D I still like her anyway :D Glad to see the otherside of her creativity....you bloggers ar...

"It is like Buffy, but with a male lead." Yep, that just about describes the basics of the BBC show Demons . I have only watched two episodes....and I was wondering why I was just not that impressed.....then he said it, and the light clicked on. I have seen this before...Joss already covered it the story in Buffy . It is different, and definitely a bit darker, it takes place in (rainy) London and not (sunny) California, and has little humor. (And is sometimes seems to go so far as to take itself too seriously.) Don't get me wrong, I like it, just not that original so far. The coolest thing I like is that one of the characters is this priest that has lived in a old church for 100's of years - how did he do that? He is a zombie. Really? A zombie priest...that made me smile.

you really like me! :D I was pleasantly surprised when one of my favorite bloggers over at Who Wants Taters? (cool name, huh?) featured my little blog as one of five blogs to check out . He has good taste in blogs and I was honored to be on that list. Thanks for all the support and kind words!

picture on the LOLcat site. So, of course, I had to post it - even though it is kinda lame, not near as funny as a cat :)

Clara on The Guild. Her character cracks me up....so imagine how happy I was when husband got the Xbox hooked back up to the internet so I could catch up on The Guild episodes and discovered they did a Halloween episode ! WoooHooo!! Very funny, if you have not seen it check it out, each episode is only a few minutes long. BTW - as not to confuse anyone :) - any more that I already do - that is not Clara in the picture...that is Felicia Day (Codex), she is the writer and star of the show - she looked very Halloween there with her ToT pumpkin. :)

You are going to need it, because part of the abandoned haunted amusement ride is now under water. I would so love .....no, not to go diving myself...who knows what could be down there....no, I am not worried about sea monsters - that would be cool! It is more about the bacteria and stuff....eww! What I want is for someone to take an underwater night vision camera down there!! If there are props were still there wouldn't it be weired to see a skeleton or a witch all submerged in murky water.......would that not be so awesome!! Okay, I got a little carried away there...but it would be sooooo awesome. :D Anyway, these great pictures are from Woncheon Lakeland in Suwon (a small town of 1 million people that lies about 30 minutes south of Seoul.) There are few pictures of the haunted attraction, what Dark Roasted Blend shows here is all there is, but if you go to the link there are a lot of pictures of the park, including a odd shaped frog-thingy :) The first one of is of door, ...