From the dead letter office…

Our friend Steve writes:

Subject: Bruno comment
Hi there, I was wondering, could you use ivy vines instead of grape vines?

Yo, Steve!

Not being well-versed in the botanical arts myself, I can’t answer your question. But I will anyway.

Grape vines are woody and thick enough that they are the main support structure for Bruno. If ivy vines have similar properties, then yes, they should work fine. If you just want to use ivy vines because they look cool, then go raid the scrap wood pile and build a frame on which to hang everything.

Kids and little lambs eat ivy, so your scarecrow should be well-fed.

Meet Bruno, grape vine monster, and Grumble’s dad

Category: From The Undead Letter Office, Halloween   Tags: bruno, grape vines, ivy, scarecrow

Allegheny County Sherriff’s deputy Roger DeMarco was treated for minor injuries after a riding lawn mower crashed through the garage door of his Monroeville home, pinning him to the wall yesterday afternoon. According to a police report, the riding mower was driven by a six-foot-tall scarecrow who then ran from the scene.

Although not seriously injured, DeMarco, a reserve SWAT member and competitive shooter, was shaken after the accident. When asked for his account of the event, witnesses say he became incoherent and insisted that he’d been bitten, shouting, “I don’t want to be walkin’ around like that!”

Category: Halloween   Tags: grumble, lawn mower

Once a year the matchbox wagons creak into town and pitch their huge white moth-eaten tents.

Shabby carnival rides, paint flaking, seats patched and re-patched with layer upon layer of duct tape, unfold in a shower of rust and moldy canvas. Their groaning complaints fill the midway to compete with the rowdy barkers loudly trolling for marks.

Garish sideshow haunts round out the tacky, dingy, faded, and grubby. Beyond the fortune tellers and palm readers, past shiny corn dog stands, behind cages of angry, pacing dandelions, the ground turns boggy and the trash isn’t picked up as often. Cinnamon and peppermint give way to cigarette and motor oil.

These are the darker, seedier places behind the hurricane fences, tucked under shadows of musty tarps. Here, one might purchase a dried monkey hand, or peer at flickering wickedness in a clattering polished box. Terrors and curiosities are common, mundane, and can be found sitting on a pineapple crate reading the newspaper.

And still back of all this, residing, and at home, in the muck of the temporary sewers, one final curtain hangs beside a hand-lettered sign. It reads Freak Show.

Momma told you not to come. “That ain’t the way to have fun, son.” Her admonition echos in your head, but you anxiously pay your buck and slip inside.

And you learn, both quickly and too late, that once a thing is seen, it cannot be unseen.

Category: Halloween   Tags: m&m freak show, mutant m&ms

From the dead letter office…
After all the letters over the years, I finally get a reply. And not a word about that Hot Wheels track I wanted.

This just in from “santa” …

Whoa! Santa?

You thinking about getting back at jack for what he did to you? Yikes! I’m pretty sure I don’t want to get into the middle of that war, but I suppose I can at least try to answer your question.

Troubleshooting circuits is easy and fun for the nerdy types who might have a degree in electronics (cough), but it stops being fun if the thing you’re working on basically runs on magic. In other words, if you don’t really grasp how the work of the circuit gets done by its components, then you’re screwed from the start. Luckily, this is a very simple circuit.

Do all the obvious (cough cough) things first.

• Does the light bulb work?
• Is the lamp turned on? (COUGH COUGH COUGH!)
• Plugs are in all the way?

Turn the CD player on and turn the volume all the way up. Plug in AC power and plug in your lamp. Slowly turn the adjustment potentiometer until it’s all the way to the right. Anything? No? Slowly turn it the other direction until it stops. Still nothing? Hmm.

Okay, go get another CD. Try AC DC or Iron Maiden (a personal favorite). Something loud and obnoxious (Sineaid O’connor is too obnoxious, but your thinking’s on the right track.) Repeat the potentiometer adjustment. If the lamp reacts this time, then your audio input is coming from a single channel, but the thunder soundtrack is playing on the other one (for some reason). Swap the channels.

How do I tell for certain that this is a channel issue? Pop the thunder soundtrack back in and listen. Is it only coming out of one speaker? That’s the channel you want to connect to the color organ.

Still nothing? Sigh. Okay…

1. Disconnect AC power so you don’t die.
2. Disconnect the lamp so you don’t die because it’s somehow conducting current.
3. Disconnect the CD player. I don’t think it’ll kill you, but do it anyway.
4. Inspect all solder joints. Is there any slop that is causing a short? Fix it. Are all your solder joints nice and shiny? If not, a cold solder joint may be blocking current flow. De-solder any dull joints and re-solder them correctly.
5. Are all the components installed correctly? (i.e. not upside down) Are any of them loose?
6. After fixing the slop and bad joints, run through the above test again.

Still nothing? Then you might have blown your SCR. This will happen if you try to drive a lamp that’s too large. I don’t remember what the rating of the SCR is for this circuit, but I wouldn’t try to push more than 60W with it. Anything more, and it’ll fry. Yeah, I know; it’s not a lot of voltage. I’ve been meaning to put together a beefier lightning machine for a while now and I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll get there.

So, you’ve gotten this far and the thing still doesn’t work. Bummer, dude. Hire a neighbor kid to stand in the bushes with a flashlight.

Category: From The Undead Letter Office, Halloween   Tags: color organ, electronics, lightning machine, soldering