Just recently a digital album was released by a friend of mine on bandcamp.
“Direct Lines” is the 22nd album created by “The Slums of Mediocrity.”
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It is experimental electronic music.
Allan of The Slums of Mediocrity said this about the album he made, “A somewhat live, somewhat improvisational set of songs that came out of my jamming with a touch-pad Korg synth.”
It’s a calming, collage of harmonies and music soundscapes that you can trip out to on headphones. I highly advise that you take the time to listen to it yourself.
U2 Cover by Slums of Mediocrity and DJ COLA
We made a track together once called “Slave2$.” You can listen to that track on BandCamp, too
Jason Werbeloff is a sci-fi and cyberpunk writer living in South Africa. I took the time to catch up with him and ask him questions about Star Trek, the craft of writing and then veered into self-publishing and marketing his books on Amazon. Read on below to find out more about him and his books!
What part of South Africa are you in?
Iâm in Johannesburg⊠We have different types of capitols, but itâs our financial capitol.
When did you start writing your shorts, your novels, your novellas? When did you start writing sci-fi?
I wrote my first book when I was 19. I was in the second year of university and it was a terrible book (laughter) I never did anything with it. I wrote and put it in the drawer.
Really?
Yeah. I think thatâs generally good advice is never publish your first novel. What happens, your first novel is generally autobiographical. It wasnât about me specifically, but there were lots of autobiographical elements and I think for a lot of writers they have to kind of get that out of their system and once thatâs out of their system then they can start writing properly, so that novel wasnât science fiction it was mainstream fiction, literary fiction, and then I wrote my first science fiction book when I was 29.
You donât think you can re-write that first book and make it into something good, huh?
I had a look at it a few months ago. I called it back up again and I thought maybe I could rework it or massage it into something more useful and itâs just terrible. Itâs totally unusable, so no. No. Generally I think one shouldnât publish your first novel. I mean there are amazing first novelists, debut novelists, I mean theyâre some phenomenal debut novels out there, but I think for the most part, thereâs a lot of stuff that you have to work through, emotional stuff and writing technique stuff that you have to get through before you can start publishing good literature.
âIâm a philosopher, so I have a PhD in philosophy and what philosophers do a lot of is thought experiments,â
Iâm a fiction writer too, so I want to keep talking about this. When you write where do your ideas come from⊠You said basically auto-biographical doesnât sound like what you do, so you never put anything in your life in your fiction book to write a story?
I mean I do, but I guess it would be more unconscious than conscious now, so I never write a whole person that Iâve met. They never become a character, but I do take part of a person⊠If I meet someone or if thereâs an important person in my life, theyâll often have a trait, which Iâll use, but I wonât use their entire character, so I wonât replicate themâââLook, Iâm not sure whether itâs ethical or not to use a whole person, but for me itâs not about the ethics of it. Itâs about the creativity. People make great characters, but not as they are. What makes a person a great character in a book is often slightly different from what makes them work as a person in real life. People are not that interesting. I mean they are interesting, but theyâre not interesting as they are. Often with a slight change theyâre more interesting, so in terms of characters Iâll often use parts of characters and in terms of situations. Iâm a philosopher, so I have a PhD in philosophy and what philosophers do a lot of is thought experiments, so we think about what the world would be like if it was exactly as it is now except for one change, so what would it be like âifâ and then we fill in those dots, and all my sci-fi stories could be seen as thought experiments, so we take the world as it is and make one change and I think the same applies to characters. You can take characters as they are and make one change and see a very interesting person on the page come alive.
âI love Star TrekâŠâ
Whatâs your favorite sci-fi movies and sci-fi books? I read a post about how you like âStar Trek Voyager.â
I do. Yeah. I love Star Trek and Iâm watching the new Star Trek Discovery as well. Not quite as good as the old Star Treks, but itâs good and itâs going in the right direction I think. Yeah, so I donât know if youâve seen Altered Carbon?
No.
Itâs a recent series thatâs come up on NetFlix. I think they released it about a week or two ago and itâs based on a book by Richard Morgan, by the same name⊠I actually read the book recently. Reread it. I read it a few years ago and reread it recently, so that genre of fiction was called cyberpunk and thereâs a number of great authors in that genre, so Philip K. Dick is just phenomenal. William Gibson, thereâs a few very good authors I like to read in cyberpunk.
âI created a whole lot of stories in the universe called the âbubbleâ and I alliterated all the stories and Iâm still writing in the bubble, but Iâm popping the bubble and moving off planet.â
Why do you use alliteration in your titles?
I needed something to tie the stories together to indicate to people they are part of the same universe and thereâs various ways authors do that. Sometimes they use single word titles. Sometimes they use the same prefix for every story title, so like Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Discovery, theyâll have Star Trek at the beginning of every title and one way I hadnât really seen done out there was alliteration, so I started doing that and readers liked it I think, so Iâm now done with alliteration. I created a whole lot of stories in the universe called the âbubbleâ and I alliterated all the stories and Iâm still writing in the bubble, but Iâm popping the bubble and moving off planet. Itâs the same universe just it afterwards and Iâm no longer alliterating. Iâm using the Star Trek style, minesâ going to be called Star Phase⊠Does that sound alright to use Star Phase?⊠I always want feedback on these things.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Well, youâre just going to be labeled a âfanboyâ thatâs all! (laughter)
I suppose. Yeah, I suppose so, which is fine. I donât mind.
How many words do you write a day?
I donât write everyday. Firstly I write five days a week and secondly I donât write every week. I write one month and then another month is editing, so I alternate my months and on months when Iâm writing I write between two and 3000 words a day and on months when Iâm editing I edit between four and 8000 words a day depending on whether itâs a first edit, second or third, so first edit is a lot more intense⊠but by the third edit Iâm doing six to seven to 8000 words a day.
Iâve tried not with Dragon specifically, but Iâve tried other voice to talk recognition and Iâm not very good at it. Maybe I need to persevere. A lot of authors like narrating. I see value in it. Itâs fast. I just struggle to enunciate my stories. I feel so much more comfortable writing themâŠ. Do you use that technique?
No. I have a version that hasnât been opened that a friend gave me because I just donât like it and i see other people using it and itâs like you have to correct things and thatâs enough to make me not want to use it, so itâs really silly that I have a version sitting here that I could use, but I just donât like it! (laughter)
Some authors swear by it. They love narrating, but I struggle.
I do have a voice recorder that Iâll transcribe like Iâm going to transcribe this interview because Iâm recording it, so Iâll do that.
The new Dragon can do transcriptions too.
Wow, so I should open it up and look at it basically (laughter) since I own it and then Iâll get back to you on how it works?
Try transcribing this interview and see how, whether it works.
Iâm going to ask you some straight up marketing questions because thatâs what I like to talk about anyway.
Well, thatâs what I do most of the time.
When did you start putting your books on Amazon and self-publishing?
I self-published when I was 29 and Iâm now Iâm 33⊠2013 I started self-publishing and I self-published as I wrote, so with each story that I finished I then self-published it. I didnât create a backlog and this year Iâm doing it a bit differently, so Iâm creating a backlog before I publish. Iâve had a period where I havenât published since October last year and readers are getting a bit impatient, which is difficultâŠ
âYeah. Itâs nice to have readers that are impatient,â
Thatâs great!
Yeah. Itâs nice to have readers that are impatient, thatâs true, but I feel a bit guilty about it. What Iâm doing is, Iâm using a strategy called rapid release, so Iâm writing a whole series of books and then releasing them rapidly and that seems to work very well in terms of the algorithms
The Amazon algorithms?
It hits Amazonâs algorithms well. What happens traditionally is that when you publish a book, you hit whatâs called the 30 day cliff, so for the first 30 days Amazon promotes your book quite strongly for you. Your keywords get priority over other people with the same keywords if their books are older than 30 days and you get put on to the âhotâ new releases list⊠Itâs very good for your book and as soon as you hit day 30 your book falls off this cliff of visibility, Amazon no longer promotes it and suddenly your bookâs dead, so thereâs a Facebook group run by a guy named Michael Anderle and itâs called â20 books to 50kâ ⊠Their ethos is that the best way to market a book is to publish the next one, so they try to write very quickly and release rapidly. Their goalâs one book a month.
Oh my God!
Yeah, so theyâre writing one book a month. Iâm writing one every two months and I feel like thatâs slow, but compared to how fast I used to write itâs a lot faster since I joined the group.
âIâm going to be experimenting with that with the next Star Phase series.â
Thatâs really interesting⊠Iâve heard of that. A lot of people try to sell a course âWrite a Book in 30 Days,â but recently I heard this great podcast on Joanna Pen and this woman being interviewed said write fast and publish slow, so she goes against what youâre sayingâŠ
Well⊠their strategy is that, because of this 30 day cliff, you must be publishing at least once a month⊠each new book that you publish advertises your previous book⊠I canât do that. I feel like personally Iâd burn out if I wrote a book a month and secondly that my brain doesnât keep up with my hands. I canât think of ideas fast enough to write them and lastly I need to edit, so I take a month for writing and a month for editing, but I do think if you write fast and you edit and you save up all these books and publish them rapidly one after the other, so that the technique is to publish book one, publish book two two weeks later, publish book three two weeks later and then after that three weeks to a month apart. I think that works really well and Iâm going to be experimenting with that with the next Star Phaze series.
How much does it cost you to put a book up on Amazon when you pay for the art work, for the book cover and everything else?
It depends. For short stories I use pre-made covers and those cost me anywhere between twenty and fifty dollars a cover⊠His website name is goonwrite.com and heâs excellent. You can buy bundles of credits, so he has thousands of pre-made covers⊠If you buy one cover itâs fifty dollars, but it gets a lot cheaper if you buy a whole bunch⊠When Iâm really stumped for a cover I use an excellent designer called BookFly and heâs just superb. The problem is he has a very long waiting list, so you have to book him out up to a year in advance, so you really got to know what you want and he costs a lot of money⊠but then thereâs middle of the range designers as well that I use like CoverMint. CoverMint costs in the middle between pre-mades and BookFly and that cover will cost about one to 200 dollars a cover. BookFly will cost five to 600 a cover.
Tell me what âStar Phaseâ is about?
I guess in a way itâs kind of a stock standard idea⊠that the earth is dying and weâve to get off planet and itâs about this ship that takes this select group of people off planet, but things are not quite what they seem and theyâre some nasty characters on board and some people that shouldnât be on board and there are some un-likely heroes that are going to save the day.
Thatâs a great logline! If I was new to your writing what book would you suggest to new readers to read first?
Defragmenting Daniel⊠It started a universe. It started the bubble and then after that I wrote a bunch of short stories, which I compiled into a book called the Crimson Meniscus and the Crimson Meniscus has all those short stories plus the first book in Defragmenting Daniel, so they could buy that or buy Defragmenting Daniel directly.
So I donât have any more questions. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
What kind of fiction do you write?
I was told I write magical realism. I have a short story collection that goes all over the placeâââthereâs steampunk, thereâs fantasy⊠When I was grad school I would write a lot of comedy and humor, so I have some stories that have just human elements that are not necessarily anything other than literary⊠I veered off into genre after grad school because I kept meeting all these people on Amazon and you naturally meet genre people when you venture into Amazon, so Iâm pretty open minded.
Right⊠I have a degree in English Literature as well, so I do understand your initial push to literary fiction. Itâs interesting because I think if you look on Amazon you wonât find magical realism as a genre.
Thatâs funny.
I donât think itâs a category listed. It would probably fall under urban fantasy or under literary fiction.
Well, thatâs great youâre helping me with marketing! Thatâs awesome!
Sure, sure. Look, Iâm not an expert on this. I havenât tried to market a magical realist book, but I havenât seen it as a category. Also, if you have a strong female protagonist it might be considered womenâs fiction or if you got a strong male protagonist it might be considered menâs fiction⊠Itâs always difficult to market your books if youâre writing multiple genres. I write in a combination of genres which makes it difficult,
What are they all?
They combine all these elements⊠thriller, science fiction and horror and that makes it difficult because when I try to market to horror people they arenât familiar with the sci-fi elements. When I try to market to sci-fi people they are not really familiar with the horror elements, so it can be difficult.
I spent about a year learning how to upload my own creative writing to Amazon and one day I realized I was finally ready to get my hands dirty and join the revolution myself.
There was one problem though. I had everything ready to go, but the book covers.
I happened upon a group I discovered at Meetup.com and it was mainly about how to put you book on Amazon. The consensus was you needed about w $500 dollars to pay an illustrator to get a book cover done..
The book cover seems to be most important aspect to self-publishing your e-book. Itâs one of the main deciding factors on whether someone will buy it.
I was short on cash, so I spent some time scratching my head about this problem.
I decided, since I didnât have a novel done, Iâd put some short stories up that Iâd finished. They were only fifteen to twenty pages each, but it would help me get my feet wet with the KDP Select program on Amazon. (You can check out my short stories on Amazon by clicking here!).
First I used KDP Selectâs own eBook cover creator. It was real easy to use and the covers I made, in the early stages, didnât look too bad.
But low and behold I discovered something totally better ! I found Derek Murphyâs website www.diybookcovers.com, and downloaded free templates.
Whoâs this Derek Murphy character? youâre probably wondering.
Well, heâs a book cover designer and author among many other things. On his website he says :
âI believe the purpose of our lives is to create something unique that entertains, instructs, challenges or helps others. . . More specifically, I help authors and artists produce, promote, and sell more books and paintings.â
Derek has made gorgeous covers for literally hundreds of self-published, indie authors, but when you read about him on his website the most interesting thing he says is that he wants to buy a castle one day. Cool!
So I started working with the free templates in Microsoft Word software. I have Microsoft 2007, so this or higher is recommended.
If youâre used to using Microsoft Word you will have no problem working on the templates. If you need help learning Microsoft Word 2007 you should watch Derekâs videos or search Google and YouTube for instructions. You can read my article about how to use Google and YouTube here.
Once inside the template I added my own image and then typed in my title and name on top.
Then I was done!
That’s how helpful Derek’s videos were. I also suggest you check out his books for sale on Amazon.
I highly suggest you visit Derekâs website to learn about making book covers on your own. Itâs a great resource!
Now that youâve read my blog post would you like to buy my e-book for 99 cents? Click here to read my short story collection on Amazon!
I guess all the bloggers got tired of talking about positivity, but crying is good for you, too.
But I still donât know why crying needs to be advertised.
If this âhot,â ânewâ subject interests you I can tell you a lot about crying .
I did a lot of it through the years until I decided to stop and try other things.
It mightâve just been âgrowing pains,â but mostly it was over girls.
A long time ago I read a statistic that the #1 profession for depression was being a poet.
I won first place in a poetry contest when I graduated from college.
One time I told a therapist I cried alone by myself, when I woke up in the morning, in the shower⊠She told me I shouldnât be crying like that because it meant I was unhappy.
I donât do that anymore, but I still donât feel âhappy.â
A week or two ago I read one of the richest men in the world said money doesnât make you happy in a headline.
He would know since heâs rich!
I donât know if he should be talking out loud in public, honestly, since heâs going to make everyone whoâs not rich hate him!
Apparently you have to âdoâ or âexperienceâ something to feel happy.
Fruits and vegetables mixed up in a blender or juicer can help you feel happier.
Exercise will help you feel happier if you can make yourself go to the gym.
Talk to someone who cares about you and go on a walk together.
I remember times when friends told me to cry and sometimes I did and sometimes I didnât because I thought it was funny they were being so serious for some reason.
Iâm a man.
I cry at movies.
I remember once my dad found me crying in my bedroom.
I was trying to write a screenplay about a girl who broke my heart and I started crying.
My dad arrived home, ran up the stairs, and held me. He told me that the girl was just a âdoll.â
I still donât know what he meant by that, but we all got slang we like to use.
Maybe he meant she wasnât real, so there was nothing to cry about.
âIf this is a mental health emergency call 911.â
This is what every psychiatristâs machine says when you leave a message.
Most of the time when Iâve made an effort to see a shrink it was over a girl.
Instead of exercising, juicing and talking to friends I laid around in my bed in the fetal position.
If you can help it⊠donât do that.
Itâs a waste of time. Really.
There are people out there who will be nice to you if you look for them.
Ultimately, we are human and crying will always be a trend.
It wonât go away.
Those blog posts shoved into our faces on our web browsers.
Stupid.
But donât worry.
Those bloggers will start blogging about a new subject soon.
If you like reading my blog posts consider buying through the links in them. Iâm an affiliate at Amazon and will get a commission if you choose to buy through it. Thanks!
If you purchase through our partner links, we get paid for the referral at no additional cost to you! Visit our disclosure page.
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Which Juicer should you buy?
Havenât you seen those YouTube videos where aliens are warning us that all the food we eat is poison?
But seriously, fruits and vegetables are healthier than fast food and everyone knows this logic, but rarely do we practice it.
pPlus, thereâs no limit to the amount of information there is to becoming healthy online. How do you sift through it?
Not too long ago I saw a great documentary, through my Amazon Prime account, that showed how people get amazing benefits from juicing and cleansing for long periods of time.
I felt like I could see more clearly, breathe better, had more energy
Then the only reason I stopped juicing was because I got tired of not having the sensation of putting food into my mouth to chew. Lame but true.
After a day or two juicing I didnât feel hungry and I kept doing normal daily things. Like at the time I was DJ-ing at night and there was no problem. I had energy.
The only thing that sucks about juicing is cleaning the machine
Today Iâm drinking cucumber, kale, ginger, and applesâââall juiced in my machine. If the apples are small enough you can put the whole apple in this particular juicer I have.
Itâs the New Year (at the time of this writing), so maybe this is something youâre interested in starting for your health routine.
Disclaimer: Go see a doctor if you have health concerns and ask them if you should start juicing. Do your own due diligence. Lotza Marketing, LLC and Evan Hundhausen are not making any health claims and are not responsible for anything. It is understood that this writing is for entertainment and educational purposes only.
Amazon owns everything so why not your TV, too? GoshDarnBlog.com 2022.
In the town where I live there is a Whole Foods, owned by Amazon, and Google literally built a huge HQ office across the street from it, so if youâre wondering who owns the world⊠think no further.
I bought an Amazon Fire TV Stick in December and Iâve been really enjoying it.
Ultimately, with the Amazon Fire Stick, your TV turns into a movie and app super-station and itâs a fun time!
You can literally talk into the microphone inside the remote and say like âJean-Claude Van Dammeâ and you will get a list of all things JVCD like Jean-Claude Van Johnson, a new comedy on Amazon Prime.
You can buy lots of movies if you want or you can sign up and pay around ten bucks a month for Amazon Prime. The selection is not bad and they have original programming. Plus you get free shipping and discounts when you shop on Amazon.
Itâs easy to see this is much cheaper than cable, like if you subscribed to just Amazon Prime and Netflix that would be around 20 bucks a month. There is an initial fee of 39 bucks to buy the physical TV fire stick set-up. It works over your wi-fi internet connection.
The only real problem with the Fire Stick and Amazon Prime is you sometimes pull up these awful movies made by amateurs (like when you pull up crappy books with bad reviews on Kindle). Itâs a free-for-all, so if youâve made a movie, by all means go upload it on Amazon Prime so I can watch it!
You should know when you turn on your TV and then press your Fire Stick button the movie you paused from the night before will start running instantly from where you left off. Convenient.
If you like games you can download them, but you have to buy a joystick to play some of those. Some can be played on your Fire Stick remote though.
You can also search the web through an app but it is cumbersome typing in website addresses, so you may need a keyboard.
If you havenât gotten the Fire Stick yet you should consider buying it today to enjoy all the movies!
Like my blog post about how amazon owns everything so why not your TV, too?
Then consider buying through the links in them.
Iâm an affiliate at Amazon and will get a commission if you choose to buy through it. Thanks!
Hemp fashion is all the rage when it comes to summer festivals or even 420 events. You can read all about the benefits of hemp in the book “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” by Jack Herer or “Hemp Bound” by Doug Fine, but maybe you already own those books because you’re a true hemp activist and only a hemp fanatic like yourself is going to find a way to make hemp part of any get-up for that costume party you’re going to or even for Halloween, right? Some of these ideas are sure to be a conversation starter at any hemp harvest party you go to, so check them out below.
1. Hemp Model
If you want to look hot this Halloween then be a âHemp Model.â Hemp is âinâ and by no means should you shy away from flaunting these fashionable hemp items. If you donât believe us just Google âhemp fashion showsâ and see what comes up!
Hempys.com sells some nice clothes items like their hemp festival vest, hemp jeans and also they have a hemp chain wallet so you donât lose it while youâre out partying.
At e4hats.com you can order their brimmed hemp hats and at headcovers.com you can get a fedora if you would like.
For women you must check out hempest.com and see their sexy, stylish dresses like their 37% hemp fabric mojito dress and hood dress to make you more witchy or fairy like, take your pick. Donât forget to order hemp leggings from recreator.org or if you really need to go all the way look up âhemp underpantsâ at Etsy.com!
A company called Rawganique has all sorts of hemp clothing available for sale and even shoes.
Can you dig it?
2. Hemp Jesus
Nothing could be more righteous than being âHemp Jesusâ this Halloween. Maybe you could carry around a bottle of CBD oil to bless people with a dropper full, but remember, CBD is not a âcure allâ no matter what people be saying about it on the Facebooks! But that thought shouldnât stop you because itâs Halloween and being Hemp Jesus means you can make miracles happen.
You could sew your own costume for that authentic look by getting some hemp fabric at a textiles company like hemptraders.com or you can just order a hemp bathrobe at rawganique.co.
To be a hip and sexy Hemp Jesus check out The Hemp Cooperativeâs bone colored, unisex, 100% hemp poncho to show off your fit torso.
For your feet go to Etsy.com and search âPure Hemp Flip Flop.â Also try rainbowsandals.com to get an authentic hemp look for the footwear part of your costume.
3. Shower Curtain
You can be a hemp shower curtain for a costume party thanks to Rawganique, a “trusted name in hemp since 1997!” Don’t fear. This shower curtain is PVC-free, sweatshop free, eco-friendly and it’s organic hemp from Europe, not China. There’s no chemicals or toxins in this bad boy so when you’re done wearing it at the costume party go home and hang it to make your shower look very nice.
Just go buy a Noordic Parka from us.hoodlamb.com and dress up like Paul Watson, marine wildlife and environmental activist and also the Captain on that show âWhale Wars.â Heâs also founder of The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society a non-profit, marine conservation organization from Washington State on San Juan Island.
The shell and the lining of the parka are partly made of hemp and if itâs cold this Halloween night then it will surely keep you warm. Plus it has secret pockets for your stash! You could also sport a menâs or womenâs Sea Shepherd T-shirt, too.
Part of the sales of these items goes to support The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
5. Pajama Party Costume
This costume idea is cozy. Try on some hemp long johns over at hempest.com then buy yourself a hemp plush stuffed animal from Times Hemp Company as an accessory to your outfit.
If you add some fake blood and white make up you can be a Zombie in their PJs, which should creep out just about anyone and could possibly win you a costume contest prize!
6. Hemp Farmer
Doug Fine is an amazing author who’s written extensively about agricultural and even hemp. He’s written “Too High to Fail,” “Hemp Bound,” and “Farewell my Suburu” about how he got “off the grid.” If being a hemp farmer or building tiny houses made of hemp is in your future then go buy some hemp clothes made just for that!
Patagonia has lots of hemp clothing to wear for your hemp farmerâs costume. Try their fishing and travel shirt, a button down thatâs super light and breathable or try their multi-functional pair of shorts made of 55% hemp. To top it off check out their M’s Iron Forge Hemp Canvas Ranch Jacket, M’s Iron Forge Hemp Canvas Double Knee Pants and then add theTin Shed Hat, all the color brown, to really get that Hemp Farmer authenticity.
7. Yoga Instructor
Check out these Women’s Juniper pants by Prana. They are an “organic cotton hemp stretch jersey blend.”
Then carry your yoga mat in this hemp carrying bag. Look cool with this thing no doubt!
8. Carry your treats in a hemp bag!
If you are a hemp freak you will want a hemp bag to carry your candy haul with. Hempyâs and Hempmania sell some nice bags for you to tote around on Halloween Night as you walk the streets of your neighborhood.
Or you can use the bag when you go to that nifty hemp convention you have marked on your calendar. You know you will need it to carry home all those CBD oil, lotion and chap stick samples you’re going to get for free there! For real.
9. Hemp Baby
Dress your baby in hemp clothes and make them look more cute than creepy this year!
Check out the website earthcreations.net and buy a âsnappieâ made from 55% hemp and 45% organic cotton or go to Etsy and look up âHemptots Natural Hemp Teeâ to make your babe look adorable.
Look up âMustard Hemp Coatâ on Etsy to see a cute coat that makes your kid look like an Elf with its pointy hood and big wooden buttons.
10. Hemp Candles
Youâre definitely going to decorate your house with jack-o-lanterns to scare the trick or treaters when they come knocking on your front porch door this year, so why not use hemp candles to creep everyone out?
At Hempyâs they hand pour and make them in San Diego, California. Their Rainwater candle contains Jasmine, Tuberose and Essential oils and then they also have available their Egyptian Amber and Sandalwood hemp candle. Fragrant and made with a hemp wick and hemp oil they burn 20-25 hours.
11. Samue Set
Look great in a traditional Japanese Kimono!
12. Martial Arts Gi
We imagine you could pass yourself off i as your favorite martial arts hero in this “Hypnotik ZenRoll” Hemp Jiu Jitsu Gi. Chuck Norris maybe?
13. Medieval Outfit
Last, but not least, if you’re going to a Renaissance Fair, check out this hemp medieval shirt below.
14. Pets
Walk your pet around with a collar made of hemp.
Or maybe you just want some hemp pet toys for your favorite dog or cat? They deserve a treat like this, don’t they?
Have Fun!
This is just a smattering of what you could do to make yourself more hempy this year. Now, go use your own imagination and creativity to brainstorm about how you could show your support for hemp culture this Hemp-o-ween.
When I was a kid I went to Niagara Falls a couple times with my family for vacations.
Once there we would go to seafood restaurants and play mini-golf after, but also, at some point, we’d visit the haunted house, the wax museum, the torture museum and even the “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” museum.
If I remember correctly I think there was even a Houdini museum.
Yeah, we saw the falls, too, and went on that boat wearing hooded orange ponchos like everybody else, but all those weird, haunted, elaborate attractions definitely left an impression on me.
Nowadays, if I wanted to, I could take a page from Niagara Falls’ book and make my own house into a haunted one and you can, too, because some of the same gimmicks I saw at the Falls as a child are now for sale on Amazon!
Here are 13 examples you can go check out for yourself to decorate your home this Hallow’s Eve.
The Haunted Mirror
Check out this Motion Activated Haunted Mirror on Amazon.
Nothing could freak you out more than staring into a haunted mirror waiting for an animated image to scare you pants off! Stuff like this frightened me as a kid and made me question what’s real and what isn’t!?
$18.99 on Amazon!
Bringer of Death
The Grim Reaper is the bringer of death.
2. Prextex 5 Ft. Animated Hanging Grim Reaper Skull with Shackles Chains Best Halloween Decoration Prop
The porch to your house will just be barren without a Grim Reaper there. It has a skull with blinking red eyes to freak out trick or treaters. It’s 5 foot tall, makes, scary sounds and the hands shake.
$25.99 on Amazon!
Lights
You are going to need lots of lit up attractions in order to make your house look really cool.
3. 2017 Night Creatures Halloween Red Blinking Eyes Scary Decorations Outside Lights Props Animatronics
Buy these blinking eyes to light up your walls, the front porch or your garage. They look like a bunch of creepy creatures in the woods just waiting to pounce!
$24.99 on Amazon!
4. 7 Pack – 9ft Neon Glow Light El / Electroluminescent Wire Variety Color (Blue/Red/Green/White/Yellow/Orange/Purple) – 3 Mode Battery Controller – Party Decoration Wedding Halloween Music Festival
Everyone needs some glowing light strings. Click here to see examples of how people outline their Halloween masks with this stuff for a cool effect!
$28.99 on Amazon!
Projections
Digital effects and projections are all the rage and here are a few you should check out to scare or “annoy” your neighbors. Take your pick!
5. AtmosFearFx Witching Hour Halloween DVD Projector Kit with 1900 Lumen LED Video Projector, Reaper Brothers High Resolution Window Rear Projection Screen and AtmosFearFX Witching Hour DVD
If you don’t own a projector or screen you can order this full package deal to really go over the top this Halloween!
$249.99 on Amazon!
6. AtmosFEARfx Phantasms Digital Decoration
You can play these scary DVDs on your flat screen TV continuously if you don’t have a projector.
$39.99 on Amazon!
7. AtmosFEARfx Ghostly Apparitions Digital Decorations
You could have the projection screen hanging from two trees in your yard or just hang it right in front of a window, like in your attic, pointing out onto the street to make it look like it’s haunted up there with a real live ghost!
$39.99 on Amazon!
3D, baby! Yeah!
Get creepy in 3D this year and really wow the kiddies who come to check out your haunted house for tricks or treats.
8. AtmosFX 3DFX Form
You aim the projector onto a “human-shaped inflatable vinyl form,” standing over 5 ft tall, to make this attraction creepy as hell!
There’s also sound so you can really present something unique that everyone in your neighborhood will be talking about for days.
$59.99 on Amazon!
A Window Wonderland for Hallow’s Eve, Thanksgiving and X-mas!
If you want to be ready for Christmas after your Halloween fun is over, then check out these projection devices.
9. New 2017 Star Shower Window Wonderland by BulbHead Includes 12 Original Movies for Christmas (6) and Halloween (6) (1 Pack)
You just plaster the screen against the window of your choice, aim the projector at it and now you got movies for people to see from the street for both Halloween and Christmas!
$59.99 on Amazon!
10. New 2017 Slide Show by BulbHead – Includes 12 Full Color Slides for Christmas (6), Halloween (2), Other Holiday/Celebrations (4)
$39.99 on Amazon!
Props and Decorations
If you need something simple and not complicated try these wall, window and yard decorations.
11. Amscan Halloween Trick or Treat Asylum Party Scene Setters Mega Value Wall Decorating Kit (Pack of 32), Multicolor, 65″ x 32 1/2″
People can see them from your windows or inside on your walls. They won’t be like CGI. More like how they used to do it in the olden days for those 50 and 60s movies. Think a big painted backdrop for the background. You know what I mean, scary bean!
$9.45 on Amazon!
12. Smartcoco Broken Finger Hand Foot Scary Bloody Broken Body Parts Halloween Prank Props Decorations
Nothing is creepier than having body parts lying around your living room or “panic” room this season.
Rest in peace this year with your very own graveyard in your yard! It’s a simple, cheap, yet effective way to decorate.
$24.99 on Amazon!
Celebrate Halloween in style!
Whatever you do this Halloween makes sure it freaks you out, but be safe. Halloween is fun for the whole family and with some of these gadgets and props your “homemade” haunted house will look amazing!
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