Sandwich Champion Retires

There is a humble little sandwich shop here in Orem called Sensuous Sandwich. The building looks ghetto but I like the taste of their bread and sandwiches more than Subway. They have a challenge to all who dare take it. The challenge is called the 24 incher challenge, where you have to try to take down a two foot long sandwich in 30 minutes or less. If you can do this and not die they will reward you with a free t-shirt which is an eternal coupon. Every time you wear your shirt with pride at the store you get a free drink. You also get your picture taken and your picture will join the other champions on the wall of fame in the store. When you spot your picture you can write your time on it as well as anything else you wish to say.

The first time I tried this challenge was on my birthday in 2008. I was so nervous but ate like a horse and pulled off the time of 4 minutes 22 seconds! Do you think that is impressive? When they took my picture I wrote my time, and “I did it for Steve.” (He's my father-in-law who wanted to call my bluff.)

The second time I did worse. It was on my birthday in 2010. I still got the t-shirt but my time was 5 minutes 13 seconds. I didn’t stick with my methods of taking down food in a hurry. I may or may not reveal my methods of speed eating on this blog depending on the interest in the replies.

The third and final time was last month. I brought my brother out with me so he could try this challenge as well. I am proud to say that this last time I did the challenge I broke my own record with a new personal best time of 3 minutes 41 seconds! Now that I have done the challenge three times and have received three Sensuous Sandwich t-shirts and have broken my best time. I am going to retire from the 24 incher challenge unless someone reading this blog can beat my time best time.  I still go there to enjoy a tasty lunch every now and then.

If you think you can challenge my score let me know I always love friendly competition.

Pediophobia, or fear of Dolls

Pediophobia, or fear of dolls, is relatively common. It is believed to be the fear of humanoid figures, or things that look like they have a soul. Some people are afraid of all dolls and stuffed toys, while others fear only a specific type. Dolls that talk or move, made of porcelain, old-fashioned china dolls, or old mangled ones are especially common targets of fear.

Pediophobia is what I believe my family has. Earlier this year my mother was babysitting my daughter while Laura and I were at work. My mother shows love by always having to give things to us. This time she gave my daughter an old Sleepy Time Ernie (Sesame Street) doll.

This doll was an old toy I believe one of my siblings received when they were little for Christmas or a birthday or something like that.  It is animated in a way that it interacts with you. If you sit him up he says the automated phrase in Ernie’s voice, “I feel great!” if you squeeze his left hand he then says, “I am sooo sleepy, I need a nap.” He then sings himself a lullaby and begins his sleep mode, which is snoring noises and a rising and falling chest. Cute huh? Why would this be creepy?

Well, the fact that you can’t turn him off and so if you move him at all he will say, “I feel great!” is kind of creepy especially when he says this when no one is in the room.  I promised Laura I would get rid of him by giving him to my brother on his birthday. I forgot. The fact that this doll talks to you without command or coercion in that automated soulless voice can really startle a person. I was just waiting for it to be in our room someday watching us or having it say something else random like. “I am going to wait until you are sleep so I can strangle you” or “I have a shiv.” Something like that.

Just tonight Laura and I were in the other room working when we heard Ernie spout off again non-stop. No one was in the room with him and no one had touched him for several weeks.

I grabbed the possessed doll shoved it into a DI bag and made a swift delivery to the Provo DI store. So if anyone is looking for a slightly possessed demonic toy doll you are welcome to buy him.

Another situation like this occured seven years ago: I really love Halloween and I love to collect decorations for the season. I once had an automated laughing skull which had glowing red eyes that would look around the room and it would laugh maniacally. When Laura and I were first married, I decorated our apartment with all of my spooky decor and I would make sure to turn everything off--including this skull--every time we went to bed. One night at 3 am, I heard that spooky laughter coming from our living room! A. I had turned the thing off, and B. that skull is motion activated...so what set it off?! Needless to say, that skull also found its way to DI the next morning.

I don't think I have a serious and chronic case of Pediophobia, only with an animated object that has a mind of its own. What is your opinion on this subject?

Who was Emo?

I love the Salt Lake cemetery in the avenues of Salt Lake City. It is full of almost every famous and historical Utah Mormon pioneer, outlaws, prophets, jews, big business tycoons and much more. There are so many stories and legends you can investigate there that could take you decades to cover.

Today I will talk about my encounter with Emo. Emo is the one of the most popular attractions in the cemetery because as a child I was told that Emo is the grave of the first wizard and devil worshiper in Salt Lake City. They say he would curse the neighborhood with hexes and other forms of witchcraft, you could hear demonic cries and incantations coming from his home at odd hours of the night. The local residents killed him by burning him at the stake. After completely cremating him they put his ashes in the caged window of the stone monument shown below. Around the 1950’s the urn was cracked and broke into two big pieces spilling the contents of the urn all over Emo’s grave and all around him as well. Some say it was vandals, some say it was Emo himself.

They say if you go to this grave preferably after dark and walk around the headstone three times chanting “Emo Emo Emo” once you have completed this ordeal quickly gaze into the broken urn and you will see the horrid scowling face of Emo himself staring back at you with his eyes glowing red! This is pretty much Utah’s version of bloody Mary.

I read a disclaimer from The Salt Lake City Cemetery do not try this. Anyone caught after hours in the cemetery will be arrested and prosecuted. The grave is located on the south side of the cemetery just east of P street very close to the public road. 

Crimson Eric from findagrave.com states:  Who can say why the story of "Emo" became associated with his grave? Whatever the origin of the fable, the truth is that Jacob Moritz was an honorable man, a respected contributor to the life of Utah."

Jacob Moritz was a German immigrant that moved to Salt Lake and started a very successful brewing business. He was very sociable in society and did a lot of charitable things. When he realized his health was declining he wanted to travel to Europe hoping the fresh air would do well for him. He died while in Europe of stomach cancer in 1909. Some rumors say he is buried there in Germany. Some people say that his wife brought his ashes home to Utah; some people say that Moritz's grave in Salt Lake isn't a grave at all, just a monument erected by his family in his honor and that the urn is just a place for flowers arrangements.

Whether it’s a grave or not I was dieing to see it. Finally after searching the cemetery for a few years I was able to catch the cemetery office open at one of their inconvenient times and sheepishly asked the secretary where Jacob Moritz. “Who?” She said I repeated the name less timidly.” Oh you mean Emo! He’s right over there.” I found the “grave.” My personal reflections were that this place had definitely seen a lot of visitors. The urn was hard to reach since it is stuck behind a steel gated window. I noticed that other visitors had tossed things into the broken urn stuff like a finger nail polish bottle filled with some sort of a liquidy substance and a ton of dimes, nickels, and pennies. I don’t get the connection between so called devilish site and excessive pocket change. If anyone can enlighten me on this I would appreciate it. I didn’t try the chant, one, because it was day light, and second because I’ve seen the movie “Candy man” one too many times. Other than that my whole Emo experience was somewhat boring. Have you seen “Emo’s Grave?” I would love to hear about your story as well.

Inspiring T-shirts #1

I know a guy who is a t-shirt designer, and if you give him a t-shirt design or idea and it sells than you get five dollars for every shirt he sells that you created. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of t-shirts that are sold in your local convenient stores that have funny and unusual things illustrated and/or written on them.

Every time I come up with a new design I will post a picture of it here and you are welcome to tell me what you think. Here is my first masterpiece you can wear.

Batman News Continued

Okay, so I wrote this continuing blog for my anticipation for the Dark Knight Rises movie a year and a half ago and never got around to publishing it. Obviously it's a little outdated now. I am still extremely excited for the movie to come out on July 20th. Instead of boring you with continuous outdated facts about it just enjoy this attached trailer of it.

Special thanks to youtube.com for providing the latest trailer

(old blog post)
Fact #6 Christopher Nolan announced that his new Batman movie will be called "The Dark Knight Rises."
Fact #7 The Dark Knight Rises will not be filmed in 3D.
Fact #8 The Dark Knight Rises will not have the Riddler in it as the main villain, the Riddler will most likely not be in it at all.

The Haunted Legend of Kiwanis Park

 

Another segment I am starting on this blog is my research and travel log on busting urban myths and legends in Utah.

My first one for you today, my beloved readers,  is the myth of Kiwanis Park.

Last summer my wife had a goal to stay in shape by going on a hike at least once a week. She always tried to find people to hike with and she would usually get her younger siblings to accompany her. The first obstacle is getting them to commit to a hike. The second obstacle she faced was getting them to commit to where they were going to hike. My wife, Laura, wanted to hike up to a beautiful waterfall in a Pleasant Grove canyon. Her little brother said “I’m not going with you! It’s already dusk and that hike goes through Kiwanis Park and I refuse to go there after dark.” Laura asked “Why is that?” “Because of the skin-walkers that roam around there.”

She was still able to get them to go with her and they took a few pictures. The idea of Pleasant Grove being haunted with something called skin-walkers fascinated me. I had to visit that place the next day and do some investigating.

There was a monument at the park called Battle Creek to remember the fallen in the first Native American and white settler battle in Utah County.

(Side note: Pleasant Grove was originally called Battle Creek.) When the Mormon settlers first came into the valley there was a rumor that spread around the Salt Lake Valley how a band of savage Indians had stolen some horses from Brigham Young’s property. A posse was formed to hunt down the accused.There was a rumor that a messanger tried to send word to the posse that the horses had been returned so it is uncertain why a battle took place. The Mormon settlers killed all the male warriors of this accused tribe and brought all of their women and children back to live in the Salt Lake Valley. Most of these accounts are not valid sources and so we really don’t know why this Mormon posse persisted in this slaughter. Brigham Young always tried to go out of his way to make peace with the Native Americans and encouraged his people to do likewise. He always said, “it’s easier to feed them than fight them.” That still didn’t stop the individual bloody fights among some settlers and other groups of Native Americans.
I welcome any other history buff to correct me on this research if it appears to be inaccurate.

Now that I knew the history behind Kiwanis park I researched skin-walkers. The definition I found was this: In some Native Americans legends, a skin-walker is a person with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal he or she desires, though they first must be wearing a pelt of the animal, to be able to transform. Similar lore can be found in cultures throughout the world and is often referred to as shape-shifting by anthropologists.

With further investigation I found the actual haunted myth behind the park on  the Haunted Utah website  http://www.utahghost.org/Main%20Files/haunted_utah.html

It states:

“Pleasant grove - Kiwanis Park:

Years ago there was a battle between Indians and pioneers. There is a memorial there for all the lives that were lost. Many things happen there. If you go up at night, some have said that they see shadow's running around them. A few accounts say that there is a arch way of tree's that are almost like a spiritual pathway. people that have walked thru the pathway say that instantly they hear screams and smell horrible horrible smell's.”

After hearing about my wife and siblings' adventure and how they took pictures of the hike I took the photos and “improved” some of them by simply picking some with just them in it and then with the help of my six hundred dollar software called Photoshop I added some ghost-like apparitions in the background and then burned them a cd with all the photos and gave it to them. Their reaction was first shock, which lead to skepticism. Since they know me and my crazy nature they knew the photos were a hoax. I added them to this blog for your own personal enjoyment.

Have you ever been to Kiwanis Park? Was it spooky? Please I highly encourage fellow myth sleuths to post their experiences on here as well. 

Cats Doing Stuff

Hello everyone, I have come back from a year and a half spectacle.

Blogging is a new hobby for me. I kind of started one about a year ago but I neglected it. Now that I have the time to start it again I have to admit the fact that I am a novice to blogging. So I heard some advice from an expert and that is when you blog on the internet you have to write about something that grasps your readers' attention. He said a surefire topic that always gets viewers is to blog about cats doing stuff.

Face it, of the top three things that internet surfers look for on the web, number two would be cats doing stuff. So here you are: cats doing stuff:

I just graduated from Utah Valley University in Digital Media and for my Senior Project I got to assist in helping redesign the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter (SUVAS ) website. A girl in my group thought of the idea because she loves cats. I joked about how when we showcase this project I could bring in a cat trap. She didn’t think that was very funny.

Part of my project was to help produce a welcome video for the new site. My crew wanted to get a shot of a customer being assisted by a shelter staff member at the desk. They wanted the customer to be holding an animal. Because I was the manager and like to stay on task and I noticed that our time was dragging on, I went up to a random cage grabbed a cat and said, "I’m ready." Someone in my group asked, "Isn’t your wife allergic to cats?" I said, "Yup but I don’t care anymore." We got in about five takes before the cat’s clawing into me became nonstop and deeper.

A shelter employee showed me his scars from past cat claw gouges and told me that he thought cats were more dangerous then dogs to bring in off the streets because they fight dirty.

The anticlimactic part of this story is that once we officially turned the revised website over to the shelter the lady in charge of maintaining the site removed the video (probably because she was the main feature of the video and probably didn’t want it viewed by the populace). You can still see the revised website that my skilled designers made at SUVAS.org.

Special thanks to Kyle Siemer for allowing me to use his shots from the SUVAS film shoot.

Do you think cats are one of the three most searched items on the internet?