The Weekly Volcano received cryptic message from someone named Beverly Queery that’s in the same category as invisible spaceships and ancient cabals featuring really elaborate handshakes that would make "The Da Vinci Code" seem like a day at the sandbox.

    Board Game Geekfest.  Play your favoritist board games.  Play your new favoritist board games.          Drink cocktails.  Oct. 28, 7-10 pm.  Email beverlyqueery@gmail.com for location details. 

Hmmm. â€" Suzy Stump

Sanford & Son Antiques' haunted house has been closed by the Tacoma Fire Marshall for violations.  Here's the word from Sanford & Son co-owner Cheryl Gorsuch:

    The Haunted House has been temp. closed. We will be opening back up on
    Wednesday the 24th of October.

    An " anonymous" phone call to the fire dept. stating that there was a
    chainsaw getting too close to the public had to be investigated.
    (there is no chainsaw in the haunted house)

    The fire inspector came to do his job. We have to remove a few pounds of
    plastic and add a few more extinguishers etc. We do not blame the fire
    inspector.

    I hope that you will find it in your hearts to forgive this inconvenience
    and that you will return on Wednesday . I apologize to all of the folks
    from Seattle that we had to turn away and the bus loads of Jr. High
    students.

    So, we all wonder who made that inaccurate phone call. We know it was
    someone who never went through the haunted house last night, but that is
    all.

    Again, We offer our most sincere and humble of apologies and would really
    like to make it up to you on Wednesday the 24th by having the best haunted
    house ever. (and the safest)

    Our very best to you all. Please repost this for us to reach as many folks
    as possible .

    Thank you very much,

    Cheryl

Rusty George Creative advertising agency sent the Weekly Volcano a reminder â€" in the form of a scratch ticket â€" that it’s Pumpkin Day Wednesday, Oct. 24.  If the Weekly Volcano scratches one of the three pumpkins and it reads “You Win,” then we can visit Rusty George’s downtown office Oct. 24 and pick up a free pumpkin.

We’re not sure if that holds true after scratching all three.  Stupid Bobble Tiki. â€" Suzy Stump

Captain Kirk has a son, and his name is Tricky. 

No, really. 

Tricky’s Pop Culture Emporium is owned and run by Patrick Kirk, whose dad was a captain (get it? Captain Kirk) in the U.S. Army.  Yes, Daddy Kirk was a Trekkie, and yes, the family sat together and watched “Star Trek” when it was on television.

It would seem like natural progression, then, that Tricky the Trekkie would dream of a world beyond the elder care he’d been involved with since he was 13 years old.  Tricky saw Star Trek: the Experience as a way out of the daily diapering of the elderly. “It was before Depends,” he remembers. “They were cloth diapers.”

Star Trek: the Experience, a sort of Disney World for Trekkies in Las Vegas, lured Kirk with the lofty title wardrobe assistant.  What that amounted to was, in his words, “washing Starfleet uniforms and shining Klingon boots.” He recalls how the Klingons’ boots, with internal lifts, lifted further the Klingons’ impressions of themselves.

But all was not well with the Experience, and downsizing brought Captain Kirk’s son a pink slip.

That brought Kirk back to work as a nurse’s aide in a Las Vegas old folks home filled with New York characters “who would not die.”  He recalls one guy with a four-pack-a-day â€" “unfiltered!” he emphasizes â€" smoking habit who had a particularly nasty attitude at 100 years old.  A former barber, the man had many photos on his walls.  All featured a cigarette in the right hand and a drink in the left.  “He used to cut Regis Philbin’s hair,” Tricky tells me, and I’m certain he’s pulling my chain. “No, I believed him,” he says.  “If he was going to lie, he’d say Frank Sinatra or something, not Regis Philbin.”

Good point.

At about this time, Elvis entered Kirk’s life in the form of albums some of the residents had given him.  Kirk says of his ambitions, “I moved there (to Vegas) to clean Klingon boots, not to do Elvis impersonations.”  But sometimes, the inevitable grabs hold, and Kirk succumbed, moving to Seattle shortly thereafter, where he garnered rave reviews and a first place for his Elvis in a skirt â€" TransElvistite.  A picture in his shop shows him as his alter ego, and he has a great pair of legs to go with his miniskirt.

Now, here in Tacoma, where his brother lives, Kirk’s shop acts as a physical autobiography of his life’s phases and interests â€" all for sale for surprisingly cheap.

Go there; talk to him.  It’s fun. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

[Tricky’s Pop Culture Emporium, 817 Division Ave. Suite B, Tacoma, 253.272.5288]

Every year at this time, as the end of summer approaches and the NFL season slowly gets under way with the preseason, something very special happens. This year it happened last Tuesday, Aug. 14.

“Madden ’08” hit the shelves. Just like last year, the year before that, and every year as far back as I care to remember, the release of John Madden Football was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

While I’m now a married man with a kid, the appeal of “Madden ’08” was still too much. I told myself I’d hold off, but I lasted only until Wednesday, when I laid down 60 bucks for the game.

It was soooooo worth it.

Here’s to dads who play Madden, and wives who let them slide.

Here’s to the start of football season. â€" Matt Driscoll

If you are anything like us, then "free" always gets your attention. Texas Hold'em is free at the Thunderbird Trading Post at 72nd and Waller Mondays and Tuesdays. Two games each night at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.  You can earn your way into the big tournament in Vegas. 
Saturday, July 29, Thunderbird's next door neighbor, the Aficionado Cigar Lounge, hosts a cigar party with free refreshments and prizes from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. â€" Michael Swan

With all the anti-French sentiment still hanging around, the Weekly Volcano feels it's our duty to remind those Francophobes of one crucial fact: It was Groundskeeper Willie, not Bart Simpson, who uttered the epithet "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." Get it right, folks, and come hear other gems at the Simpsons Trivia Night tonight at Le Voyeur in Olympia. The Weekly Volcano won't claim an encyclopedic knowledge of all 300 episodes, but somewhere out there is an ubergeek who can. The battle begins at 10 p.m.  Expect cool prizes. â€" Brad Allen

The Weekly Volcano is sponsoring a Vegas Night at downtown Tacoma's Varsity Grill (the old Jillians) June 16 beginning at 4 p.m.  Elvis impersonator, Vegas trip contest, show girls, drink specials, and much more.  Texas Hold 'em starts at 7.  We'd love to see you there. â€" Jason de Paul