H looks like a goalpost, doesn't it?

Or a part of a ladder. Whatever works.

What am I thinking? I had great prospects with this little series until I realized that I had to actually blog every day. 26 is a lot of letters. I'm only...8 letters in?! I must not stop now! I have my tens of readers to share my geekery with, and they'll be slightly off-put if this should end now!

With that out of the way, here are some things that start with H.



"Hot" Crayons: This is the term I referred to all of the bright, fluorescent colors in the Crayola Crayon box. With names like "Electric Lime," "Shocking Pink," and yes, "Hot Magenta," these were the best and brightest colors of the 96 color bunch. After "Silver," "Gold," and those limited edition crayons that had glitter in them, the "Hot" colors were the most sought after during Coloring Time. They were mostly used to color lights, the sun, or were just used because they looked so much better and brighter than the other colors. As we all know, bright colored things are awesome. I was surprised to read that most of them were created in or after 1990, way beyond the time of Day-Glo's heyday. Then again, I wasn't born yet when Day-Glo was popular, perhaps I'm lucky.

Horse Racing: The third race in the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, was run this past Saturday. For my fellow Long Islanders: I'm glad that it's finally over. You see, Big Brown, the winner of this year's Kentucky Derby & Preakness, was bred & trained on Long Island. When word got out that this year's Triple Crown Flavor of The Month was a LIer, shit broke loose. Big Brown Fever was everywhere in the media, and a capacity crowd was expected at Belmont, his "Home Track." You would've sworn that Big Brown was the title of the next Harry Potter book with the amount of hype he received. Hell, hopes were looking up when news broke that his biggest competition had been scratched the day of the race. I was at work when the race started and I had mentioned that I would've loved to have seen a Triple Crown Win actually occur in my lifetime, but I would giggle madly if he ended up losing.

Imagine the look on my face when I found out that he not only lost, but came in dead last!! (This is to all for formalities. When you read this entry a year from now, it won't look as topical and dumb.)

Half-Price Appetizers: Not as awesome as "Free Food," but it's still an important phrase in the Collegiate Dictionary. Usually offered by Applebee's, the after-10 hour begins a promotion where all appetizers are half-price until closing. Like the broke college students we are, it's an excuse to eat cheap and to celebrate a birthday or two at the same time. After so many Half-Price Bdays at Applebee's, I had to call it quits after a while because I was getting tired of the place. It's been several months now since the last time I went to one of those events, but I know of a few birthdays coming up.

It also seems that Buffalo Wild Wings participates in this promotion as well. They have better-sounding appetizers and I'll be checking those out pretty soon.

HersheyPark: Among my list of "Amusement Parks That I Really Want To Go Back To." Located in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, it is one of the corner stones of the great Hershey candy corporation. I haven't been to the park in several years (last time was probably 2002) and I distinctly remember smelling chocolate everywhere. The coaster count at this park is nowhere near Cedar Point's, but manages to showcase an impressive 11 coasters. Its newest, Fahrenheit, opened just this year. There were only 9 coasters the last time I went there, the newest one at the time was the water coaster Roller Soaker. During that visit, I managed to accomplish the feat of riding every single one of them in a single day. Nine coasters is not that impressive, but the Trailblazer coaster is an enormous bitch for people taller than five feet.

There's also the famous Chocolate World, the simulated tour of how Hershey chocolate is made. From its beginnings as spiders living in cocoa beans, to its completion the Hershey Kisses you're probably eating right now, the tour gives moderate detail on what exactly happens between the closed doors of the actual factory, but with chocolate scents bring fanned around you! The tour ends in what is probably the largest Hershey Store in the country, which is awesome in its own right. Sadly, I thought the Times Square Hershey Store was impressive, but the M&Ms store right across the street from it puts it to absolute shame. Three huge floors compared to a single cramped one? I'll stick to going back on the tour to get my free sample at the end.

Before you ask, yes, there actually is a Hershey Highway. I must say that I hate travelling down that road. It's as awful going into it as it is coming back out.

Hobgoblins: One of my favorite MST3K movies. Though many films they covered may claim the title, Hobgoblins stands as one of the worst movies they ever riffed. It's so bad that its shown to Mike & The Bots as a punishment, and unlike the parents of today, this lived up to its warning. Made in 1989, it's nothing more than an awful, awful ripoff of Gremlins with the title monsters getting a maximum of five minutes of screen time. "Look at the nothing! Look at the nothing!"

The basic premise is that our wimpy protagonist, a young security guard, accidentally releases the Hobgoblins from their imprisonment in a vault on an abandoned movie lot and he must put them back before the sun rises. Why, you ask? The Hobgoblins feed on the fantasies of people and manipulate their thoughts to become real and have their victims ultimately kill themselves and/or others. If they do this to enough people, they'll become powerful enough to destroy the world and will become even stronger during daytime. I won't, and don't wish to, reveal much of what happens, but the "climax" occurs in the worst strip club ever.

The only things of note are the cameo appearance of Darran Norris, who is most known as the voice of Cosmo on the Fairly Oddparents and various other voices in the animation industry, and "Great Parking Moments." The rest of it is either flat, dumb, cheesy to the point of being embarrassing, and at one point, Mike & The Bots actually post up cardboard cutouts of themselves in the theater in order to sneak away from the movie for a few minutes. Watch the goodness here.



If I manage to keep my composure, expect the entry for I up tomorrow!




[H is also for Homestar Runner. It's where yesterday's blog title is from. But more specifically, it's from this issue of Teen Girl Squad.]