Episode 90-A Haunters Christmas List

Music. And I believe I was kind of caught. You waited until you were done. You did.

This one didn't. I'm polite. Polite might be too strong a word. Nobody's been stabbed. Yet. Like, today? I mean, I haven't seen Alan in the background, so I mean, I'm just. Same. He's downstairs playing video games. He's probably smart. How convenient for you. He's a smart man. And your alibi. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Welcome everyone to the Haunting You podcast. We are so excited to be back with you today. Oh my gosh. It has been a month.

Seriously. Seriously. Clearly, we are a little late in getting our December episode out, but I promise you it is well worth the wait. Because isn't it always? Anytime we get to see Leslie's face. It is absolutely worth the wait. Well, you don't turn your camera on. How are we supposed to see your face? That's because I walk around doing things. I'm holding laundry right now. You know what? That's way more productive than what I'm doing. So, you know, have at it, man. Keep it up.

I'm glad your wife is. I'm glad your wife is keeping you in line. I ain't got time for that.

But yes we are super excited to be back with you finally it has been a month it that's all really all i can say yeah everyone has been following along on the house drama i am very pleased to report we're done kind of mostly as soon as somebody fixing up a bend in a pipe, so i was gonna say the photos you said this earlier would contradict that indeed the construction on the house is done we have fully taken we have fully occupied it I was going to say moved in we're not

quite moved in like we're still unpacking boxes and and things like that but we have fully occupied the house everyone's in their own rooms we have all of our stuff our household goods got delivered a couple of weeks ago we've been unpacking ever since in fact the household goods got delivered the Monday before Thanksgiving which was terrible just terrible timing I mean it was fine it's not like we had big plans for Thanksgiving We were going to go to my brother's house So nothing here.

But as it turns out Wednesday before Thanksgiving Middle of the night my son starts throwing up, So we ended up Not going to Thanksgiving And doing a small Thanksgiving here Which was actually kind of worked out Because we just spent the entire time unpacking And nobody else got sick from it So it worked out okay What's happened?

Who knows there there's some stomach bug that's going around the school you know the kids across the street got it and then walker got it luca has so far managed to not get it which is unusual for him one and fairly impressive because it was kicking people's butts yeah that's something good yeah the dad across the street the kids across the street got it but their dad also got it he was down for like three days all the kids 24 hours and they're right back up it's doing

a number on the parents though whatever it is don't laugh don't laugh too hard i know i know i'm washing my hands a lot more than normal right now cannot do not want to risk it i i don't need that in my life but so all the work on the interior of the house is done and then over this last week we got our septic tank installed as well and oh my god this new tank is not a tank it's two tanks first of all because so like we used to have pipe that ran out of the house all underground

into a concrete structure a concrete structure was split in two and then and uh it would go to a they call it the pit that's all i really know about it the pit and then the pit would distribute the water out to a drain field and it would you know percolate back into the into the ground. I learned some things about my septic system this last week. One, the pit is freaking enormous. Like it is about seven feet across diameter.

And had a concrete cap on top but so it was all buried had no idea this enormous freaking hole that looked like a giant well was under my yard it's not anymore it's been filled in now, is it big enough for someone to be bored into the darkness and molded by it yes it really is.

You should check that then probably on that probably keep it on so that is now buried the old tank has been buried like they collapsed it and filled it in with dirt so it's all still there but doesn't do anything anymore and they put two brand new. Plastic like thousand gallon tanks in the yard so i have four axis ports now. Littered across my yard and then. The new drain field is upslope.

From it so there's a pump somewhere in one of those tanks that pumps things up to the drain field and there's a recirculating system as well because there's a pipe that's running from the second tank back to the first tank to put stuff back and like this thing is complex compared to my concrete tank and pit with no moving parts like this thing's complex so oh so they started this process on tuesday got most of the work done except for part of the drain fields like 90

done on on on tuesday that night as ashley and i are getting ready for bed ashley's like do you hear that okay be good it's a high-pitched tone like like your ears are ringing tinnitus that's what it sounded like not good i'm like i hear it too so it's probably not tinnitus we both hear it so i open up the front window oh it's coming from outside i bet it's one of the you know the septic guys left their digging machines out in our yard because they were going to come back on wednesday

or thursday and so i'm like i bet one of those is just batteries run lower or something like that so i go out and it had been raining all day on wednesday and so they weren't able to dig because it had been raining all day so not no work happened on wednesday but i go out there and it is just a freaking mud puddle. The entire yard is just a giant freaking mud puddle. I'm slipping and sliding like it's on ice and check the machines. The machines aren't making the noise.

I hear it coming from over there. So I go following it over there and the new control panel that they put in for the septic system has a big red light on, Alarm light is bright red is on and it's the red light and it's making the tone. I'm like, well, that can't be good. So there's instructions on it that say, if alarm sounds, press the reset button and call this number. Well, that's, that seems fairly straightforward. At least, you know, I'm, I am an engineer, but I think I can figure this out.

So I pushed the button, push the reset button.

Nothing happens. Tone continues. tone continues sounding the light remains on push the button again no change push the button a third time no change like all right that's a good sign so I call the number on the on the panel and I get an answering machine because it's you know nine o'clock at night at this point so I get an answering machine I'm like well that's not helpful I know they're coming back tomorrow so I'm just gonna So I just went down to the main breaker

panel and switched the power off to the panel. Reasonable. Not necessarily. They told me on Tuesday when they were done with the install, minimize, try not to use too much water because the tanks don't have a place to drain right now because the drain field wasn't hooked up yet. And they had had to fill the tanks up in order to bury it so they wouldn't move around, right? So I suspect the tanks got full. I never actually found out why he was making the noise because I had to go to

work. Ashley was home that day. She didn't ask the question. But I didn't hear anything more about it. So I'm guessing it was fine. I like Ashley's no non-suit approach. You don't need to know that information. It's a bit quick enough. That is pretty much Ashley's strategy. I like it. But anyway, so all of that happened last week. We've had the new system running for a few days now. And today it's now Saturday. Holy crap, it is Saturday. So today, Saturday, we are, you know,

just unpacking in the morning and then it warmed up enough. I'm like, Ooh, I'm going to put Christmas lights up because it's, you know, already halfway through December. We got to have some Christmas lights. Right. And I had finally found them in the garage. Well, you know, just in list the piles of boxes. So I go out there and I'm putting lights up and I get up on the roof and the kids are like, Ooh, we want to come up on the roof too.

Like, you know what? You're old enough. You can come up with a roof now. So I let them come up on the roof with me and just kind of park them in the middle of the roof.

Like don't go anywhere near the edge just kind of stay here in the middle reasonable but i'm you know finishing up my lights and then i go walking around the roof to because anytime i'm up there i'm you know check check the shingles check for damage throw the sticks that have collected off you know all that stuff and i look out across my mud puddle that is now sprinkled with hay which i greatly appreciate they reseeded it and then they sprinkled it with hay so we'll see

what happens come spring but i'm looking down and i see a channel i see a small canyon and it's obvious to me that this small canyon is where water has been running down because the dirt is very very loose from you know although it's just all the dirt they were moving around while burying these tanks and so water has clearly cut a channel through the dirt i'm like well that's odd i go i walk down the slope of the roof a little

more so I can see more of it. And I see that it's coming from just the middle of the yard. Like, oh, that's a bad sign. I was like, I don't know if I buy your storytelling so far. You haven't dropped one F-bomb yet. I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to be good. Way too confident. So I'm like, well, that's a problem. So like, boys, we're done up here. Let's get off. We have to go investigate this thing.

So we i tried to get my son onto the extension ladder he cannot do it and my roof is very tall, for like from the ground to to the roof so the extension ladder is basically fully extended there's no extra space up there to like grab onto it's a little bit awkward so like well i guess you guys are stuck up here i get on the ladder and i go down.

In my defense i had a plan so i went and got the a-frame ladder which is much more stable but not tall enough to get onto the roof here but it is tall enough if i go around the back to where the deck is put it on the second story of the deck and that sticks up great so you didn't try to like help him down or anything oh we tried we tried for several minutes and like this is not working let's let me go get the other ladder so i i go

with the other ladder set it up on the deck and am able to get them off that way so like okay great we're all in we're all in back on the ground now nobody died we're we're doing fine so we go down to the channel cut through the through the grass not grass cut through the mud and i tell tell my oldest luca go in your bathroom turn the shower on just let it run not two minutes after he does that i see water start bubbling

up from underground right where this channel is i'm like oh that's where the. Yeah so it's definitely the sewage line that's coming from the house to the septic tank that's leaking it's downstream from the tank and i've got pictures from when they were installing it you know the pipe comes straight out and then it does like a 45 degree out over to the tanks and from where it is it's got either that 45 degree, fitting is leaking or there's a crack in the pipe going out to the 45 it's somewhere

in that vicinity so I call up the guys who installed it and get an answering machine, because it's saturday and they don't work on weekends like well i guess we're gonna leave just live with this for a couple of days leave a message like hey i have sewage running down my yard please call me on monday bye yeah so thankfully ashley turns out ashley had the email they had their email address from when they called it so

she sent them an email and like 10 minutes later they had emailed they had called her back so we've got someone coming out tomorrow to take a look at it, at least. That's good. But yeah, there's super excited to find out what they're to see what they're going to find when they dig it up a little bit. How much extra will be? How much extra? Are they charging you to fix it? No, this is warranty, man.

They screwed it up. They're fixing it on their dime. As a person who's worked in customer service, you sound very confident. Yes, but I see. What I do is administer contracts. All day long so yeah i'm not paying a dime i'll let you know how that works out next podcast i'm very excited.

Oh so so that's where we're at we've got sewage leaking down the side of the down my yard but we own the house again well we have possession of the house again we're getting moved in things are finally starting to settle ish i'm in my office i have my computer set up i have a desk that is piled high with random shit that i need to deal with there's a skeleton wearing a hunting u shirt behind me and as i have discovered microphone stands that is are great at making skeletons stand up that's handy

right like the even the uh the piece that you put the microphone on you know it's u-shaped so i just hung him on one of his ribs from the microphone stand and he's standing in the back of my room, there you go I mean it works pretty well I mean you you are the Martha Stewart of the hunting world thank you thank you I take that as a compliment, oh I mentioned this one.

Oh my gosh so that was my chaos over the last month Les I know you have been job hunting you're getting ready to start a new job, do you want to talk about any of that at all or just kind of leave it at that we have We have a, we have an out, we are taking it and I am very, very, very happy. Yeah, your, your old job has been a challenge. Let's put it that way. And I am challenges that have been more fun.

I think losing, we were actually just talking about gallbladder surgery and I think your gallbladder surgery was more fun. We used to know what to expect. Yeah, seriously. I got a lot of drugs with that. Now I just get crappy hot chocolate and Del's marshmallows. And pajama parties over Zoom, apparently. They're cringe in high school. Leslie just threw up a little in her mouth. Listeners, you couldn't see it, but I could. Wait a sec, hold on.

That part I don't recall. Yeah, because you weren't on the call yet when we were talking about this. Yeah, that group of grown adults throw a pajama party, eh? Over Zoom. Yep.

Cool they did pretty cool and then had people share holiday traditions, and they've had so much turnover that nobody really knows each other so yeah tell me how that's not awkward a bunch of strangers awesome yeah hell yeah yeah they're holiday approved work appropriate, sounds like it so, there's no good response to this no I just think to myself I've only been a part of one of the pajama parties but it wasn't at the job I'm working at now

I think the problem is a lot of people have a broad spectrum of what pajamas involves, and that doesn't always work out my pajamas are definitely not work appropriate.

Yeah 9th are mine even though yeah they're still not work appropriate yeah, yeah i do not own any pajamas that are work appropriate so if they asked me to come to work and work appropriate pajamas i don't own anything that meets the mark oh and like we we had people maybe i'll come in sweats we had people basically what you do like yeah if you have work appropriate pajamas you come in yoga pants and a hoodie yeah i don't have yoga pants either well you don't got come on dude

i know that they have an entire men's side of the store that would work but the first thought is still not that i did not know that first of all but second uh can you imagine this ass in lululemon well now i can thank you for that this is what i mean this is what happens when you bring up pajama party exactly happens exactly we we have most people and we know each other very very well yes it's okay for us to make these jokes i know we it was a lot of people showed up to the firm

and like in actual pajamas you know with cartoons and stuff some people show up with literally like a bathrobe white t-shirt and some shorts on it's like, I mean, it's not what we're going for. Not what we're going for. It could be worse. It could. It definitely could. It could, but we don't want it to be. This is an accounting firm. Come on. Again, accounting firm. Yeah, seriously.

I think if I had to choose between, if I'm even having a conversation in my head about work appropriateness, i'm just gonna wear normal clothes and forget and pretend like oh no i forgot damn it next time it gets even better considering you know military so like i can't even imagine how this would go for us show up like some someone just walking through just no clothes me like yeah that's about right yep that checks out,

the poor HR person it was our HR department's person's idea which again tells you everything you need to know about my company that just feels like they like extra work, sounds like it oh my gosh yeah, so let's get into our actual topic actually no no no before we do that let's take a break hear from our sponsors and then we will actually get into our topic, I thought you were going to go a different direction Let's talk about something

a little more Penguins of Madagascar Let's talk about birds, maybe pelicans And now for something completely different. Music. You are absolutely wonderful. And what would we do without you? Besides not have nearly as many awesome Halloween things. We would definitely not have nearly as many Halloween things, which is kind of what we want to talk about, like what we actually intended to talk about on this episode. So it's December. It's the holiday season. And what are most of us doing?

We are trying to figure out what things we want to buy for our loved ones to show that we care and appreciate them and all of these things.

And for all of you who have haunters in your lives honestly if you're listening to our podcast you probably are a haunter in your life but maybe you can drop some hints to your significant other so we wanted this episode to be a haunter's christmas list so we have assembled some of our favorite products to that we use that we have that we adore and we think could help any haunter do what they do just a little bit better because there are so many freaking products out there we tried to

limit ourselves although i've got one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 tabs open on my browser right now with different things to talk about you want your christmas presents too does that would it take so for those for the when you're talking about those gifts would it help if i told you that it's very interesting to see mckenzie blackwood in normal abs jersey but with a shark's helmet would that help no just confused now oh he's

still he's still wearing a shark's helmet well i think i haven't had time to make him a new one yeah that's hysterical that's our new goalie it's like a long time that's our new goalie less. Oh, okay, to go with Wedgwood Did you know I'm still calling him Antilles Well.

So This is gonna So I'm gonna say a sentence I know what I'm saying I know what I'm saying, but I'm going to do it anyway The Avs have all the wood, The Avs have all the wood They have Mileswood, they have Wedgwood And they have Mackenzie Blackwood, They have all the wood They have all the wood I'm still calling Wedgwood Antilles, that's legit that's fair i would do that as well but back to our christmas shopping we have broken up what about rogue reader,

I'm cutting all of this out. No, you're not. You say that all the time, and then you never do. That's not true. I cut. You rarely do. I rarely do. That is accurate. I do rarely do. When you guys left to do your stuff, was it recording also? Oh, yeah. Whole time. Whole time. Fantastic. And I am absolutely cutting that out. You should. We'll see. We'll see.

After a long commercial break i'm excited for a text whenever you hear that oh god anyway, so we have assembled some of our favorite products that we think any haunter in your life would appreciate getting as a christmas gift and we tried to keep it reasonable but so we've broken it up into a few different categories we have our stocking stuffers which are things like under 20 bucks small appropriate for for that we have just normal gifts that you would like to give to to your

loved haunters and then we have i'm going to say splurging gifts that costs most of our presents are under a hundred dollars if it goes over that we're calling it a splurge i don't know what your budget is for halloween or for christmas my budget for christmas tends to be much smaller than my budget for halloween so trying to keep things under a hundred dollars here but we definitely have some splurgeable items that we'll be talking about as well so yes we

do as we are going through this john is going to be you know les and i will be pitching different things as potential presents and then john is going to tell us whether he would keep it for himself or regift it so quality of the present have it or have it or huck it i like that leslie what did Would you say hunting use Halloween Halloween? Oh, hunting use holiday hunter hall. Hunting use holiday hunter hall. Hall it or huck it. Hall it or huck it.

So John, we're going to put too many more H's in there. I'm going to get all aged out. Exactly. John has decided, John will get to decide whether he would haul it or huck it. Well, John, where do you want to start? Do you want to start with the presents, the stocking stuffers or the splurge? I say we go from smallest to largest. Let's go smallest to largest.

We'll start with stocking stuff stocking yeah i think stocking stuffers is the perfect place to start i'll kick it off with my absolute favorite go-to for because it costs four bucks, that is phillips head bits for my drill harbor freight carries a 10 pack of these phillip head bits that snap into my impact driver and you can get 10 of them for four bucks like i don't know about the rest of you i break these bits all the time irrelevant of

the quality like i buy really expensive ones i buy really cheap ones i still break them because and i go through so many of them in a season now i only go to harbor freight and buy their 10 pack for four bucks and then just when they break i toss them this is the perfect stocking stuffer for anyone handy in your life hunter or not and of course check out our show notes because we will have links to all these products that we are recommending how

about you les what do you have for uh stocking stuffers, so a little bit on the higher side but project backfire which is one of our all-time favorites has a number of little small creepies kind of my favorite right now are their mini Moth Larva Poofs.

Mini Moth Larva Poofs Uh-huh What might have to I'm constructionally obligated to say Poof Bunny, Buddy Go Poof.

Definitely would be a great uh great top for your stocking stuffers just based on the size and the shape but in general project backfire always has some absolutely amazing things so john there's two things there are you gonna haul it or huck it so i i like the harbor freight for the four dollars it's a good brand it's a good price but yeah i'm not handy i'm going with that that sounds a lot that sounds like a little more much speed,

fair fair but the only reason you're hugging is because it's something you personally would not use I mean it's a real good value it's just I mean those anything in my head like that is just not a good idea unless you're going to tell me I'm wrong, no comment no comment power tools before you're that's right, can be to use those that would involve me using power tools and no one wants that okay is there a is there something you can do with those that doesn't involve

power I mean, you can put them in a bag and hit someone with it. Fair. That's reasonable. My next stocking stuffer got to jump over to Purgatory Props and the Ammon Duo, which is their two channel prop controller.

It is super powerful it has really great audio and it only costs 50 bucks fits perfectly in your stocking what what do you what are you pitching for against that less i am pitching see if i can't find it again i am pitching some awesome stuff from for fx makeup to make prosthetics, so much better when i find the freaking is that all you're gonna give us yes that's all i'm gonna give you there's so many options but truly though there are so many options out there.

That you know there's a lot that you can do i mean here here's an extra flesh from mayron at 750 and essentially again it's use it to build up on your face to do to help do prosthetics solid solid so john what are you gonna haul what are you gonna huck i think on that one you you sold me with the size for that that level of power for that amount of money and you say you can fit your stacking. It's hard to pass up. It's hard to pass up.

But it got me thinking. I turned down the first one because I'm not very handy. What do I do here? You're the comic relief. I don't know. Next. Next is. The next is one of the coolest tool holders that I own.

It's called holstery it's a super strong magnet on a belt clip so i can clip it to my belt it is strong enough to hold my hammer it will hold pliers i've even gotten it to hold my drill not great if i jiggle it around too much it definitely falls off but for 25 bucks clips right on your belt and you can throw anything on there i love it like holding screws when i'm up on a ladder trying to attach, you know, trying to build anything, it's perfect for something like that.

So the Magmaster Magnetic Tool Holder from Holstery. What did you say was? Okay. $25 for a super strong magnet that goes on your belt and holds tools and screws and shit. I have a comment. Fair. Less? I'll save you that and I am going to do again, if you are somebody who's getting into airbrush makeup or somebody who wants to, I highly recommend the Pro Air makeup. It's designed for airbrushing. It can also be applied just directly to skin, even without using airbrush.

And bottles are usually about $20. And they definitely are stocking size. How much makeup can you do with one of those bottles? You could do quite a bit. Because especially with airbrushing, you are using so much less of the product to get the coverage that you're looking for.

And because it of how it goes on and how it stays you don't have to build it up the way you would say traditional makeup interesting so you can get quite a bit out of one of these little bottles yeah sounds like it and they have a ton of colors so john what are you hauling what are you hucking. I'm having a hard time because I feel like yours, I think, would be a little more up my alley.

That said, you kept calling it a tool holder, you kept saying jiggly, and you kept saying other things that made it sound like an ED drug. What ED drugs do you know that keep using the word jiggly? I don't know. He kept saying tool. Jiggly? I don't know. It made me uncomfortable. That's all I'm saying.

Dr. Horrible's musical blog. I love that. Great. So now I've set myself up so that if I choose K, I'm now choosing the Evie drug. Fantastic. Yep. I win. Yeah, I'll pick it up. I'm going to pick Leslie's the big winner, honestly. Fair. Damn it. John, are you keeping track of the score? How many you choose from Leslie? How many you choose from me? Sure. Yeah, do so.

I think i'm leslie's up two to one no i picked you oh you picked me because i'm up to one unless the technical winner even though leslie now has that on tape so leslie i'm pretty sure wins overall fair fair okay the next stocking stuffer i've got is we call the screen box it is a motion sensor activated doorbell that runs on batteries it's about the size of a deck of cards and you plug it into your computer and you can treat and treat it like any usb stick

you just put sound files on it and every time someone walks past it it will activate and play whatever that sound file is i use these all over the haunt for adding sound effects in random places because i a little bit of double-sided tape stick it to the wall done and it costs 22 dollars they They are amazing. Okay. Intriguing. Alrighty. I am going to have mine as the other one is thermoplastic pellets.

So if you're the hunter in your life is somebody who really likes to design and build on, especially on a smaller scale, absolutely. Any thermoplastic pellets are going to be a fantastic way to give them something that is very, very workable and moldable and very, very stable once it cools. I have never used them, but I want to. They seem really cool. Yeah, these are definitely on my list because I mean...

Pieces can be very, very flexible. So, you know, as you're doing art pieces to go on a costume or something that you want, that's going to look really, really cool, but be flexible. So you're not damaging yourself or your fellow actors. These definitely seem pretty high up there is very, very fun to play with. Yeah. John, haul it or hug it? Pick him in a haul. Haul Leslie's. I like that better.

Because that's honestly if i'm being here that sounds like a fantastic addition to any thought, yeah well they both do but the main thing i was thinking of was i suppose i have to scare my toddler for what you were saying reasonable reasonable which i still may do so that's damn close to a tie honestly, well that's a towel keep it a both i like it all right my last stocking stocking stuffer that i have is a laser and this laser is like it doesn't do a dot it does a line and so

what i've used these for is making laser swamps where you put fog out into an area ideally low-lying fog and then you just shoot the laser over it and then you get a complete blanket of laser everywhere that it's hitting the fog it just gives you and then you can put stuff underneath it that emerges up out of it it looks super cool and this laser costs 32 dollars, like that's it to do a laser swamp effect 32 dollars on amazon.

So for mine it's kind of what every makeup artist and actor is going to need spirit gum remover, yeah because anytime you're sticking things to your face and your skin with spirit gum it'll stay dear lord you're going to want help getting it off so absolutely that's kind of like the battery's not included, spirit gum remover should always be included.

Well played, because that is a tough one but because I'm largely irresponsible I you're going to say okay you had me at lasers I knew I knew I would, that's not really fair spirit gum remover is critical do not get me wrong, that's not fair you put anything up against lasers yes 100 okay on to the regular presence i think and the first one i have is kicking off at just 13 from harbor freight a dolly,

and i'm i'm not talking like doll dolly i'm talking about four wheels pieces of wood connecting them, for moving heavy things around your hot i love these dollies because they're a thousand pound capacity they cost thirteen dollars i have it i have them all over the place like underneath my coffin right now in storage i have two dollies underneath that and i just roll it under the workbench and that's where it's stored for the rest of the year i will roll it out next year and,

That means the coffin can be filled with props and I'm storing stuff in the coffin too, but because it's on Dolly, it's super easy to move around. I love these things. We're practical, but sexy, but practical, practical and cheap. Hard to argue with. So for mine, it's a little above our a hundred dollar kind of basis, but if you are looking to get into airbrushing. And doing it at any sort of larger volume, you really want to get a compressor. And Pro Air has a mini airbrush compressor.

Usually retails for about $180, but you can find it on sale. And it really does do a fantastic job. And it's a great way to kind of get into using an airbrush and gives you that baseline to practice. This is the compressor you own, Les? Yeah.

Oh okay how portable is it very you said mini okay she's holding she's holding it up like it fits in okay i mean that it's one of the dimensions of that box did you say it's a bread box basically, i mean it's eight smaller than a bread box eight by eight by nine yeah there you go it's it's super portable okay it's not even a foot square and that's with its packaging the the the starter pack comes with everything you need and then like i said the the paints are relatively inexpensive and you

can get a lot of use out of them and you can and the cool thing about that is you can pick it up and take it with you to the haunt or if your guest do you know doing makeup for at a guest haunt whatever you pick it up take your gear with you or if it's a case of i can't do makeup airbrush makeup in my house because I will make a mess. I can pick it up and take it outside to the garage. Yeah, exactly. Which is exactly what I do.

I'm going to go with Leslie's. The portability part makes it seem like it would be a little bit more invaluable to the haunt. The dolly seems pretty good, but you can also just, you know, with people who, you know, you can just force them to carry things. The dolly can be a stocking stuffer if you have a large enough stocking. Can I choose the big stocking as my answer? I'm going to go with no. That just sounds awful and hilarious.

No, I'll put the compressor, especially at that price for that level of portability.

That sounds pretty amazing. Reasonable. Reasonable. So next thing I have, which probably could be a stocking stuffer, replica skulls from Panic Mechanics. They come in a wide variety of animals. You know, they've got bobcats, raccoons, beavers, black bear.

Fox oh foxes do i hadn't seen that one before muskrat turtle like they have a ton of different options they are made out of resin they're very hard they don't break easily but they look absolutely freaking realistic and they start at just 55 actually i see a couple the turtles are only $30, like even less. So yeah, replica skulls, panic mechanics. You can use them on costumes. You can use them on props. You can use them just to decorate. Sorry. Picture that for Christmas. All right.

All right. We are going to go back to Project Backfire to our all-time favorite, the Richard. Ah, the Richard. We have talked about this in the past, but the Richard is one of their top seller, most amazing props. And I'm not actually finding it on her webpage right now, which is really, really weird. But absolutely can highly recommend the Richard.

We have one. I love it. and one of the coolest things that tayin did for us was she customized the one that we bought to look like the character that is going to be using it so our porcelain doll character is the one that that carries the richard and so there's a doll mask right in the center that lights up and has the cracks like a broken porcelain doll our doll is in a white dress with a red bow in her hair.

The Richard has a red bow above the mask. Like, it's spectacular how well she matched our character. Hey, I thought you had me in turtles. Honestly. It's hard to go against the Richard. That's reasonable. That's a solid pick. I'm gonna have to go with that. Yeah. Same, less, I'm not finding the Richard, but the handheld hog very, very similar. So we can talk about the handheld hog. All right, so that actually puts Leslie in the lead four to three.

Well, I am going to have to make a comeback here. And I'm going to try to start that with one of my favorite Amazon products. They're black lights. These are floodlights that are very thin. They're only about, I don't know, half an inch deep. They can be mounted anywhere. They're super cheap, run off regular electricity. And you can get two of them for 23 bucks. That's not bad. And it's on Prime, so you can get it in one day.

They've got a good throw and we use them for our, the spider scene on board our last haunted ship. And two of them filled up an enormous space there. They were much more impressive than I expected. Okay. All right. Not bad. Okay. Alrighty. Well, if we're going to be an Amazon, I have to recommend books. And one of the ones that I would absolutely recommend is masters of makeup effects, a century of practical magic.

This is all about talking to makeup artists, special effects artists from film and television, and how they have put together some of the most classic and iconic characters in film industry. Behind the scenes photos, discussions of how all of these iconic images came to being, and absolutely fantastic.

Okay i'm sorry i'm going cool book hello he wandered off he's just coming back now oh cool so he missed like the last half of that whole thing, i just realized i'm not actually on the moon there you go it was for a good reason i promise didn't involve rescuing the cat no it did not i had to go grab something because you inspired me.

Did john talk about did john make his selection already yeah okay good cool book reasonable, on that note i did so leslie gave me the idea and i hadn't thought about this before but since she mentioned a book i had to go grab one of my favorite books that is one little spark by marty sklar mickey's 10 commandments on the road to imagineering i know like these are the 10 commandments imagineers use as they are designing stuff for disney and this is this has become like my bible for our

own designing this is also where we learned about weenies and it's why it's john's favorite book i cannot recommend this book enough it was it is phenomenal one little spark by marty sklar, For their own sales, Kay. It's a family-friendly book, yes? It is, in fact, a family-friendly book. Despite the fact the episode we did on it. Despite all the weenie jokes. It is family-friendly. In fairness, I think it was a fairly family-friendly episode before you got in there in the editing.

No comment. Man has a point. All right, Kay. She's up by two, man. All right. That was my next pitch. oh that book that book is my next pitch i guess this is up by three now i don't even need to hear it.

Uh well as we're talking you know again great things to bring people in to your haunt masks are usually very very expensive but the horror dome has a number of fantastic looking masks most of them at or under a hundred dollars so they've got some really really cool stuff that i'm looking at here on their website so the horror dome has some pretty spectacular stuff that's uh under that hundred dollar mark that you could get for your haunter okay i'm sorry i know you

will always vote against that book i i understand it's still a fantastic book irrelevant of what you say uh my next pitch is the new me atom 4k which is a tiny media player again about the size of a deck of cards but it can accept triggers so like motion sensors or beam sensors or or whatever or button presses whatever it will start playing a video when the trigger is activated and so you can use this for making props or incorporating digital effects.

Into your haunt it's a great way to do that and at 65 bucks for this media player it is for a triggerable media player it is far cheaper than anything else you will find that can do the same thing okay that does look pretty cool all right new me adam 4k and it's in 4k now fancy all right i'm gonna have to go with these eba master alcohol palettes from stage and screen effects alcohol activated makeup which has much better lasting ability than regular makeup and they've got a whole bunch

of different color color palettes so like how would you say like long-lasting like i'm assuming can you can get through the whole night i assume without any touch-ups or anything like okay that's handy, All right, Kay, I think I'm going to go. Have one called Autopsy Master. Just in case you haven't fully made your decision, John. Autopsy Master. I like that. Damn it, that did it. Don't I know it. No, Kay, I think that sounds incredibly useful. I think I'm going to go with that. Huzzah!

You're still down by two.

Well we're moving into the splurge section so i think this is where i'm going to really make my comeback it is i don't have nearly as many splurges well for starters i have to talk about von sharon productions who make the standard in straight jackets we're talking like the straight jacket that alice cooper wears on stage is made by von sharon productions it is, the highest quality you will find anywhere so when you really want them to stay put when you really want them to stay put but you

know what they start at 150 bucks like that's not bad and i was digging through their their store just because i love this kind of stuff and they have the super cool like doctor's coat that has the buttons down one side it it looks super cool they call it the dissection smock which just warms my heart is that awesome.

But yes vaughn sharon straight jackets are are my first pitch for a good splurge, okay that's solid i kind of want to get one just to put our that plaque we got from arkham on it, yeah yeah i'm gonna have to bring in cfx oh and their masks oh, And their masks are full head and chest, silicon masks, and they are spectacular. I can't even argue they are spectacular. They also start at $500 and up. That's why. They are splurge. Definitely splurge.

They've got this amazing, one of their lines right now is Zodiac. Oh my gosh. And they have all of these Zodiac masks. I have to say, listeners, go check out our YouTube because they started rolling out the Zodiacs at Fear Expo last year. And so when I did an interview with Tabitha, she showed us a bunch of them. And oh, my God, they're amazing. Honestly, the Libra mask. I desperately want it because Libras always get short shrift.

I haven't seen that yet. I just sent it in the chat. the libra mask always get short shrift when it comes to well you know anything i mean how do you make scales fun but this is so cool like i wish that i had 750 dollars of spare cash lying around i mean there's another way you can get one but that's not the spirit of the, no and certainly not from cfx they do so many just amazing are you looking at this thing oh my gosh that's so freaking cool isn't that amazing,

like sliver stuff is just kind of shit but this is I wish I had $750. Okay so what if you instead of stealing the mask what if you just stole $750 and then used it for the mask I mean it's an option certainly yes oh my gosh do you see Virgo uh-huh yeah oh that's freaky, Wow. Oh, we can do cool stuff with that. Like, yeah. CFX. If you want to splurge. It's a good place. It's a good place to splurge. It's a good splurge, right?

All right, John. The straitjacket is a little more near and dear to my heart. And then I can get two of them for that cost. You can get three of them for that cost. Oh, check out Aquarius. It's totally based on a Nautilus. All right. I'll go straight jacket on that one. Straight jacket it is. See, I'm making my comeback. Oh, my God. Aquarius is terrifying. It's a Nautilus. Isn't that the general idea? Shit. I think you're right. Yeah, I see the Nautilus. Oh, my gosh. That's craziness.

I need to stop looking at these oh cool okay next up that's i i met my i don't really that was your only splurge yeah fair i have to talk about vfx because i love vfx and everything that they do but specifically bungee heads it's a decapitated head on a bungee cord you attach the bungee cord to your wrist and then you can throw it at people and it will snap back to you, Ideally, you don't actually hit them with it Just saying, it's a startle prop I love their bungee heads They're only $225,

Considering what they do The quality is phenomenal I own one of their light-up jack-o'-lantern Bungee heads They're fantastic I love them $225 is a reasonable price For what you're getting, And then, since Les doesn't have another one Let me throw out another Another, monsters alive makes some just absolutely freaking ridiculous stuff. They have absolutely gorgeous rotting corpses, 350 bucks. It's a good smudge. It's a good smudge. It seems like a contradiction in terms though, well, no.

Alright, thought about it. I think I'm going to have to go with less on this one. The nothing? Mostly, not because those products don't sound amazing because they do, but mostly just to sabotage you. Because if I choose you, then it's a tie. Fair. Fair. I got to throw one more out there. Alright, fine. You can have it. I got to throw one more splurge out there. The Harbor Freight carries a variety of compressors.

They're relatively inexpensive compared to anywhere else you could get, but they're They're fine. They're not great. They're not terrible. They do their job. They do it reasonably well. And when all you need something is to create compressed air for your props, they're perfect for that. So like a 21-gallon compressor, oil-free compressor, so you don't have to worry about maintenance with it, $279. And just as a note, this compressor, not interchangeable with an airbrush compressor.

Not an airbrush compressor. Do not try to airbrush with one of these compressors. This will fill up the tires in your car, and it will run all of your props. Do not use your airbrush with it. That is a good piece of information. That is a critical piece of information. Absolutely. Safety is a factor. Well, unfortunately, that looks like that gives you a tie. You know what? I'm kind of okay with that. I am, too. There's a lot of good stuff there. We're not trying to beat each other.

We really did want to throw out just stuff that we really like, and we hope that will help fill the shopping list for the hunters in your life. Yeah, I think there's some good choices there. Well, we have gone on very long. So much longer than we intended. I don't feel bad about that. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation that we had because I certainly enjoyed the conversation that we had. It was a good time. It was definitely a good time, and it's been a while.

And we're definitely not going to be doing this again until New Year's. So I hope you all enjoy your holiday seasons in whatever form it takes. As far as the length of the show, I think if they're looking for us to not deviate topics, I think perhaps you're just going to be disappointed. Wrong show. You were listening to the wrong show if you do not expect deviations. No. Avocados. I mean, whale sharks. Whale sharks are the best. Those are Ezra's apparently his favorite sharks because, quote,

they're nice sharks. They are nice sharks. Speaking of. Love that. Yeah. So check out the show notes and you will find links to all of these products that we just talked about. And good luck with your holiday shopping. Les, John, I think it's a good time to wrap it up. Maybe a little.

Keep forgetting it's quite late there it is quite late here it's almost 10 o'clock john will you do a quick run through our social media you know if i'm being honest i already did but you can find, you can find us at on instagram at hunting university at facebook.com slash hunting you podbeat.com what's the podbeat one again no just hunting you.com just hunting you.com okay, Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

You can find the podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, anywhere where you can get podcasts. We should be available. So it should be easy to reach. Exactly. Exactly. As I said before, we will not have another episode out before the new year. So we hope the rest of your 2024 closes out very nicely. You enjoy your holiday seasons, get to spend some time with your loved ones, and we will see you all again back in 2025, where we will begin planning for Halloween 2025.

I just have one quick, not even half-shade again, I just have one quick Christmas one for you. Oh, sure. Eggnog, yay or nay? Nay. It's the candy corn for Christmas. I don't hate it that much. You had homemade eggnog?

Homemade eggnog is amazing. I have not. Totally, totally different i am open i will drink the store-bought stuff because it's the easiest and convenient true but homemade eggnog is fucking magical i am open to the idea but in general i have not found an eggnog i like try it this is gonna sound crazy try a little seven up in there solid i know it's gonna say i know it sounds weird give it a try okay since we brought this up my neighbor, had a not 7up bourbon I've also heard bourbon.

Bourbon really good quality since we brought this up my neighbor threw a Christmas party last weekend and it was a cookie exchange so everybody made different cookies and then I bagged them and then we could go through and take one of each cookie at the end and bring them home, So two things One, somebody made a pecan pie cookie That was ridiculous Shell and I were looking at making one of those They were so good Oh my gosh, Highly recommend If you find a recipe, go for it If you like pecan pie,

amazing Amazing Pecan Both, It's a pecan Unless you're talking about the pie Then it's pecan pie I don't know why, but that's a rule in my head. Nobody says pecan pie. Pecan pie, I do. Pecan pie, bro. You're both weird. Yes, we're friends. I feel like if I say pecan pie, I have to try and say it. I have to try to do that. Pecan pie just sounds like pecan pie. I have to... Pecan pie. I have to very deliberately think about it before I can say pecan pie.

Is it raccoon or is it raccoon? It's raccoon. Exactly. Exactly. Is it John or is it Juan? Depends on the day. Juan Moore. The other thing that they had, though, was... Oh, a spice... Shit, what was it? Is it a spiced eggnog cookie? No, no, no. It was like a hot spiced rum. Ooh, nice. Oh, buttered rum. That's what it was. It was buttered rum. I got so hammered off it. I had buttered rum coffee today. It was amazing. Did you?

Yeah, they used a spiced rum. to make the buttered rum. It was so freaking good. Buttered rum is really good. I had a recipe. I have a recipe for it somewhere. Yeah. They served it out of a crock pot. It was just wonderful. That reminds me. I've been meaning to send Leslie buttered rum coffee for like six months. You realize that you're flat on your ass. Yes. That's exactly what happened. Thankfully, they're two houses away. So I just stumbled home. Stumbled home. Exactly.

It didn't help that I hadn't really eaten that day. So it was really the snacks at the party and then lots of hot butter rum. Nothing wrong with that. It only happens once a year. You got to get your fill. Exactly. Exactly. All right. We need to wrap up and I need to go to bed. Actually, I need to eat dinner. I haven't even eaten dinner because of how the scheduling worked out. Anyway, happy holidays to all of you. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah.

Whatever you are celebrating this season. Hope it is magical. And we will see you next year. Happy Life Day. Happy Life Day. And if you're not celebrating, have a fantastic December and enjoy your time by yourself. Yes. Amen. See you all next time. Music. Bye, everybody. We are incredibly grateful to all the sponsors who make this show possible, especially our premium sponsors, The Chamber of Haunters, Fear Expo, and VFX.

You can learn more about our premium sponsors by checking out their websites, That's ChamberofHaunters.com, FearExpoLive.com, and VFXCreates.com. Check out our website, haunting you, for more information on everything that you do. Music. We'll be right back. Haunting You is a production of the Rocky Mountain Home Haunters, LLC. All audio clips and sound effects are used under a Creative Commons attribution or public domain license from Purple Planet Music,

planet.com or the sound Bible at soundbible.com. Please see the show notes for more information on all the clips used in this episode. Give me a high five. That's a good girl. Les, do you need to feed a puppy before we go on? I need to feed a puppy, two puppies and two kitties. So, okay, go, go feed. I'll fill up my water. We'll meet back here in like five minutes. Okay. Okay. Not hang that there. That sounds like a terrible idea. It is a terrible idea.

I left. I think they assumed that I wasn't going to leave, but I'm still here, guys. We'll take some calls. See if anybody has any questions. So lines are open. Yes, indeed. It's a toll fee number. We'll cost you a thing. Lines are open. I know it's kind of a later time. You certainly don't have the numbers to give you drive time. So it makes it a lot harder to get a lot of those good calls. But yeah, lines are open. Anything you guys want to talk about? It's haunting related.

We can still talk about the musical. I can give you my two cents. It probably will not be nearly as educated as what they did. But yeah, let's do this. Let's chat. Let's have a good conversation. How are you? How are you doing? You out there. Jeff, doing okay? Did you call your mother recently? She'd love to hear from you, Jeff. All right. Anyway, keep it going. Lines. This is unfortunate. I did have kind of a lot of chores to do.

Unfortunately, I completed all of them during their conversation about WIPID, which I didn't see coming. So now I sort of find myself without anything to do. So we're pretending to host a fake radio show for the podcast. So that's kind of where we find ourselves. I truly thought my head would have died by the way. Okay, when you go back and listen to this, when you ask why, when you ask yourself, why is he doing? I don't know. I have nothing. I got nothing. Just seemed like the thing to do.

So yeah, like I said, lines are open for our week show. Oh, he's back. Oh, he's back. We're going to pretend that he happened. Oh, no, he left again. Okay. So now the audience can get some kind of play-by-play. I see a viewing listening audience. Ah! Wasn't a spider. Okay, we're good. It doesn't even have to be about hunting. If you guys want to talk, you know, we can talk about some current movies out there. We can talk about some sports.

I don't want to talk politics. That's too divisive. Let's not do that. Let go there. Traffic. What's in the news? For those fans out there listening to this, you need to tag Keone Hutton and the rest of the Haunting You team at Haunting University on Instagram, facebook.com slash Haunting You. You can also go to our website, hauntingyou.com. I can't remember if that's right. Okay, let us know.

Have you just been talking continuously since i left what makes you say that well i walked in twice and both times the green box was around your your video feed uh saying that you were talking that's probably background noise ah there's no screaming oh i mean i can't hear him screaming well no close the door anyway.