Leaf Me Alone!

I have two pine trees in my backyard (or "conifers," as my 5-year-old likes to call them), so I don't get the joy of raking leaves into piles every fall.

Yes, faithful readers, you heard me right. I said joy. I loved raking leaves as a kid because 1. It meant Halloween was close and 2. It meant I would soon be jumping into piles of leaves.

I remember climbing up a tree in my grandparents' yard after placing a huge pile of leaves below and jumping from the seventh-highest branch on the tree (I was a bit of a chicken). I loved feeling the leaves crunching below me as I descended into the crispy pile -- even if I always thought the inside of a leaf pile smelled like cat poo.

My grandparents' had a bunch of trees in their backyard, and I always thought that my leaf piles were huge. That is, until, I saw this video:



Impressive fellas.

But what did you do with them afterwards?

I Can Mash Potato

Now here's a twist on an old favorite. Remember a while back when I told you about the cupcake vending machine and the meat vending machine? Well, apparently there are mashed potato vending machines.

Take a look.

Mmmmm. Looks. . .vendy. . .

I will admit that I have been disappointed by unusual vending machines before. There was that vending machine that dispensed hot pizza -- I was so excited, but the pizza was way too small and it tasted just like microwaved pizza rolls. And something about this video of the machine at work just doesn't seem right.



It just seems so. . .watery and icky.

Maybe it's just because it's the Thanksgiving season, but I'd probably still try it. Mashed potatoes and gravy, after all, are almost my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal. If I had to rank them it would be 1. Turkey (white meat followed by dark meat) 2. Mashed Potatoes and gravy 3. Rolls 4. Pie 5. Sweet Potato Souffle 6. Everything else 7. Cranberry-related items.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Would you try it? Think how easy a vended holiday meal would be! Hit the meat vending machine, grab some potatoes for a side and then hit the cupcake vending machine on the way home. Boom! Saddest. . .Thanksgiving. . .ever. . .

Yikes. . .

Please don't vend Thanksgiving, faithful readers. If you don't have a place to eat real Thanksgiving food, just come on over to our celebration. I'm sure my mother-in-law won't mind.

LEGO My Batcave

Nerds, get your saliva glands ready. This one is drool-worthy!

So there are two things almost every boy likes when they're young: LEGOs and Batman (girls and bacon come later). Well, apparently Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey never grew up, because they combined these two childhood favorites into one. No, I'm not talking about the LEGO Batman video game, I'm talking about an amazing LEGO Batcave!

Check it out:

Not impressed enough? Ok. Let's take a closer look.

And just in case you want to know how big this thing is by comparison, here are the artists who created this masterpiece.

Carlyle and Wayne spent over 800 hours and used over 20,000 pieces on this LEGO Batcave. It even features lighting and moving parts. You can see more images and even some video on their Flickr page. Genius, fellas. Pure genius -- now get back to your wives and children; I bet they miss you.

Until next week, faithful readers! Same Bat-time! Same Bat-channel!

When You Wish Upon a Star Wars

This week the news was dominated by Hurricane Sandy. For once, weather people felt like their choice of profession was validated. News anchors warned east coast residents to be prepared for the incoming storm, and reporters braved the horrendous conditions to show first-hand the devastation. Sandy took over the radio, the television and social media. Nothing could steal Sandy's thunder (pun intended)!

That is, until Disney bought Lucasfilm for 4.05 billion dollars and they announced Star Wars: Episode VII would be coming out in 2015.

Suddenly Twitter was back to being ruled by the rage-filled nerds it was intended for. Fanboys everywhere wept with joy and terror at what might happen with their beloved franchise. There's been a lot of speculation about what might happen with the future of the Star Wars franchise. Well, faithful readers, I've got some big news -- I used my connections over at Disney and Lucasfilm and got the inside scoop on what is to be expected in Episode 7. Get this -- Since it's a Disney movie it's going to be a musical! Plus, I have an EXCLUSIVE CLIP of the upcoming sequel, sent in by, alert reader, James.

Here's your special exclusive never-before-seen super-secret clip!



I got a bad feeling about this.