Bougainvillea of Death!!!

It's funny that in this family we have gardeners who want to plant stuff all the time, but never want to cut any of it.  That job gets left to people who could care less about gardening.  Namely, me.

Someone had the bright idea to plant a giant bougainvillea plant/tree/bush right in front of the house.  Normally I wouldn't hold a grudge against such a plant, but this one has giant thorns on it that makes me think this thing was bred from an angry cat and a rose bush.  In other words, you come near it, it's like an angry black woman.  It's gonna cut you.

Really, I knew a woman who lived in a bad neighborhood, and planted these things in front of her windows so burglars couldn't break in.  She actually had a burglar try to break in, and he fell into the bush, and started screaming in the middle of the night.  Yes, these things hurt that bad.  But to finish the story, no, he never made it in the house.

So it comes down to me to deal with it.  This is what I'm talking about:

Yeah, it's a little out of control.  First up.  Protection.  No, not that type.  This type.

And my trusty shears.  I think these things are older than me.  But that's good.  It means they were made with good metal.

I guess the one redeeming quality of this plant is that, it does have some nice flowers.

Anyway, onto the haircut!!!

So, I end up with this:

I even cut out some room for the butterfly rock.  What's a butterfly rock you ask?  Well, it's like a bird bath, but the rocks are piled up higher than the water.  That way, the rocks can be wet, but a butterfly could still stand on it.

Next, I filled it up with water. 

So, here is the finished project.

There were a few spots that I needed a ladder to get to.  There were also a few times I had to lean in close to cut a few branches.  I only managed to come away with one scratch.  That's what good gloves will do for you.  I know the lawn waste guys won't be happy with me in the morning.  But hey, at least I put it all in one can for them.

So now I leave you with this.  A song about the bougainvillea.  Or least it has bougainvillea in it's title. 

Scareboarders: This Year's Bad April Fools' Day Gag

I always try to do something stupid for April Fool's Day.  It's the prankster in me.  Three years ago I said that my girlfriend at the time and myself were adopting a Chinese baby named Ling Long.  Some people got really mad in that, they believed it.  So I skipped pulling a prank the next two years because of it.  Yes, I really made some people mad with that one.

So this year I was back at it.  But I wanted to do something so stupid that no one would really believe it.  But it couldn't be too stupid.  That would give away the joke.  So I needed something out of left field that would make people say, "what?"  But I needed it to be real enough that they would think about it before discarding it.

So my first thought was, "Let me do something like "Ghost Hunters."  You know, these guys:

What if I said I had a show like, "Ghost Hunters" that was being looked at by the Sy-Fy channel?  But it couldn't be a total ripoff.  It had to be "one louder."  It had to have a little "Jackass" in it.  You know, these guys:

That's when it hit me.  It had to be "Jackass" meets "Ghost Hunters."  It was all about skateboarders and other extreme sports type of guys who venture into haunted places.  I would call it, "Scareboarders!!!"

To pad the joke, I also decided to ask local music artists for permission to use their music.  Namely, since Sy-Fy is on a budget they wouldn't want to pay for national artists.  So yes, I threw the hook out there to all my musician friends. 

So to finally sell it to all my friends on Facebook I posted that a couple of friends and myself were developing the with the Sy-Fy channel to bring it to TV.  That's when I also mentioned the need for local music bands. 

I did get a whole bunch of likes.  Of course, I don't know if they got that it was a joke, or that I was really trying to get a TV series.  I did manage to snag one friend.  She even tagged a friend of hers' so that he would let me know what music I could use for the show.

At the end of day I did come clean.  Everyone thought it was funny.  So no hurt feelings like when I said I was adopting a little Chinese girl.  I'm really proud of what I thought of this year.  And on a side note, if Sy-Fy really does like the idea of a show that's described as "Ghost Hunters" meets "Jackass" let me know.  I think we could work something out.