I made the mistake of going to Party Works yesterday. I needed some glow sticks for the pumpkins (I prefer them to using candles). It was a total mad house. I did make Nickolas's day when I came home with some fake spider web stuff. He had been bugging me for some for the past 3 weeks. His little friends went a bit bonkers with the stuff on their house, covering all of their bushes, the street sign and even the fire hydrant. So he and his friend covered our shrubs leading to the front door and had me draping it in our tree.

My whole idea with pumpkins went to pot. Last night Nick and I carved pumpkins. David had a rough day trying to work on a blown up car, so I let him off the hook.

I just got done cleaning the living room and am getting ready to start setting out all of the pumpkins. Nick just took off to his friend's house.

*do'h* he need to get is furry butt back here and do his homework!!

The pumkins and decorations are now all lit. Nickolas is in his costume. The candy is by the front door. Now I will have to deal with a hyper boy who wants to go N.O.W!!! We may get off easy again this year. He is talking about going out with friends so we don't have to take him.

We just spent the evening at Knott's Haloween Haunt with Coaster Matt and his wife, the Monster Magnet. It's been YEARS (almost 20) since I went to Haunt and Chris had never been. We have an absolute GREAT time! I'm sorry it ended tonight so I can't experience a few of those amazing and horrifying mazes again. I had a few good scares - which was cool since I am hard to scare in a situation like that. I'm always watching, always aware, so I am rarely surprised. But, it was fun to see the Monster Magnet get it quite a few times. I inadvertently orchestrated a great scare for her that was too perfect and was a great way to start off the evening.

I ended up telling my Icee Bear story too many times in one evening so I'm not going to do it again now - besides, it would keep me up until 3 am. But, it led to a funny moment orchestrated my some Disney friends we ran into.

There are pictures in cameras and stories to be told, but we'll have to do a more complete Rank the Swank er Spook later.

^Good to hear that Halloween Haunt is still fun. I'd love to hear the Icee Bear story sometime... :)

We built a haunted house in our friend's garage this weekend and had several groups of kids come by. They liked it. It was sort of a tiny maze that led to a seance room where a gypsy lady (my friend Christy) told your fake fortunes and gave you candy. A hanging grim reaper hovered over her head and eerie music played nearby.

My little scary (possibly too eerie for the kids) touch was hanging my friend Pete's sharp tools and ominous gardening implements from the ceiling... all stained with fake blood. Luckily, a lot of the kiddies didn't look up. ;)

We had great fun last night. We also watched Tim Burton's 'Vincent' and 'Frankenweenie' on DVD as well as one of the 'Scream' movies. I think it was 'Scream 2'.

We had pizza and too much candy. But, boy, was it a blast.

went to party

stayed out too late

paying for it now

This year, I was the Fearsome Phlegm monster for Halloween. Only problem is it's November 1 and I can't seem to shake that costume. I hate colds.

EPCOT Food & Wine Festival (just the "food" part for me).

The inferno barge still has no inferno, in case anyone is wondering.

On a tip from someone we checked out a house near us that had set up a Haunted Mansion tribute last night. It was pretty nifty, a few spiffy props, the whole spiel (including every Grim Grinning Ghosts audio track and even the "Playful spooks have interrupted.." ride stop) along with pretty elaborate synchronized lighting. Quite entertaining, we even wore our "Cadaverous" and "Ghoulish" mouse ears for the occasion. :D

I bought 2 Costco bags of Hershey's Nuggets for the evening. We got a grand total of about 10 trick or treaters. So now we're "stuck" with oodles of "extra" candy. Damn.

Oh, are we doing recap:

Well, then .... went to Halloween Party One at the dilapidated mansion in Highland Park. This is where the intimidating costumes are worn by friends who have too much time on their hands, apparently. This year's theme was Video Game characters: zapppop and I decided to play it simple (yet effective) by going as Mario and Louigi. We were adorable, if I do say so myself. There were many characters from the Mario Brothers universe, so we had a lot to play with. And there were, as usual, some truly amazing costumes. I'm really excited about next year's theme: Tim Burton. Best to start working on costumes RIGHT NOW.

Then, before first midnight (this was the night of time-change), we headed down to South O.C. for a Willy Wonka themed party ... not guests costumes, but the setting and the hosts and, most important, the concoctions at the (Wonka) Bar. The party was dying down, but there was still lots of fun and larfs to be had till the wee hours (a bit past second twosies).

On Sunday, zapp and I went out again as Mario and Louigi to visit some "haunted houses" that we posted about above. The Phobia scary maze was fun, if a little brief. (We were the only customers at the time, so we had all the attention of the ghoulish inhabitants ... which kinda made me uncomforable and I may have rushed things a bit).

Then we went over to the Haunted Mansion tribute in Laguna Hills. It turned out to be a nifty light show to a custom-made H.M. loop (G.D. posted about it above). They were not really open for business, and some of the projection effects (Leota, Singing Busts) were not working right ... but they treated us to a rehearsal run-thru, and gave us cool Death Certificates for visiting.

On actual Halloween, i threw a really cool Halloween Party at work - but had to run off in the middle of it. After office hours, I drove through Beverly Hills on the way to Hollywood - a great route with tons and tons of trick-or-treaters. I thought I'd gone back in time or something. Hollywood Boulevard was obnoxiously crowded. I hung out with friends lined up at the new Virgin Megastore (next to the Chinese Theater) as they waited for the midnight release of the Star Wars III DVD, and costume-watched for a while. But it was too hectic for me, and I ended up going home early and watching scary movies (The Others and The Shining). I had a ghost whisper the word "papier" in my ear quite distinctly during The Shining. It freaked me out.


The wierd part of the day, however, was leaving work in the middle of our party to head to court to hear my nephew testify in the trial of the punkass fu<ktard who shot and paralyzed him two years ago. What a bizarre Halloween.

No O in Luigi sweets ;)