Birthday of a severed head!

Above: I was one lucky drunken severed head the year Coffin Joe (or is it Coffin Ray?--I can never remember) helped me celebrate my birthday!

As today is my birthday, I feel free to post on anything I feel like sharing. Well, I feel like sharing photos I took on a window-shopping outing I took last June--though it wasn't on my birthday. Among other places, Jane and I went to Mars and visited a costume shop! (Click on the pics below to enlarge.)

Mars, Pennsylvania, that is--and the surrounding area. Here's the front of the costume shop we visited:

Here's the side:

A sign on the door that made me laugh:

Cool costumes, props, toys and masks awaited inside.

A severed head greeted us:


Below: Boney McPirate screams, "Avast, ye mortals!" (Or is that "'alf-assed, ye mortals"?):

The same picture is more dramatic with the flash off:

Legal aliens:


Jane the Voodoo queen finds a toy to play with!

Some very lonely-looking Frankenstein Monster masks from the movie Van Helsing:

After the costume shop, we went back to Pittsburgh and visited Big Lots, where I took a photo of a cool monster figure that I successfully resisted buying:

We saw a giant leprechaun on the way back. Thank God he had his gold (and a few mellowing beers), or else he might have been dangerous in the high traffic area:

Then we saw a giant eggman (John Lennon would have been pleased):

Once we reached Pittsburgh, we drove around, and saw buildings that made us think even more of giants:


Across the street, an axe for a rockin' 50 foot woman:

And next to the credit union, a closed and forlorn, possibly abandoned warehouse for a wholesale toy and novelty company, with interesting but lonely faces in the windows:



I went to the front door, which was painted over, mostly:


But I got the camera up against a hole in the paint and found, amongst piles of junk, a mysterious message written on a column:


All of this would have been enough to make my day great, but waiting at home was a package from my good friend Jim Bertges. Inside, an old Aurora guillotine model with a figure that had my face on it! Good for hours o' head-choppin' fun! Hoo-hah!


Today can't be any better than that day. But with the great birthday wishes I've already seen posted online, and with ones sent to my e-mail inbox, it's gonna be just as good. I couldn't be happier!

Happy birthday wishes to anyone out there born on this date, and happy non-birthday wishes to everyone else!