Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everybody!

Have you got your costume ready? Are you all set for going out and making a "ghoul" of your self at a party, or are you going to be hanging around and 'trick-or-treating' with the kids?

Well, whatever you do have fun!

Also... Happy Birthday to Peter Jackson, who turned 48 today.

What have I been up to lately?

Until yesterday, not a whole lot.

I've working on my unemployment obligations, so nothing exciting there.

I'm still doing the organization work for a friend of mine. Finally starting to see some progress there. It felt like I really wasn't making much of a dent in it but I'm starting to see that's not the case now.

On Wednesday I applied for a job position that I'd been hoping would open up.

I'm really excited about it, although I haven't been called in for an interview so I'm just in a holding pattern for now.

Thursday I had to attend mandatory "orientation" at the local unemployment office. *YAWN!*

But that's out of my way now. It counted as a job search for my requirements, and since it was early in the day AND it completed my week's quota... I blew the rest of the day off and watched horror movies while Hotness was at work.

First up was the remake of "Friday the 13th".

Other than being a newer "retelling" of the story, this movie didn't bring anything to the table that was really all that good. (Except for Julianna Guill. RAWR!)

I wasn't shocked in the least and the suspense wasn't really there.

On the plus side, it was better than the original in that it had a better budget and so the effects were on a higher level than when it first came out. Overall.... meh.

Second movie was the remake of "Halloween" which was directed by Rob Zombie.

This one fired on all 8 cylinders and was a great remake of the original.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My only regret is having watched it during the daytime, as I think it would've been much better to watch it after dark with the lights turned down. Other than that, I thought it was top-notch for a horror / suspense movie.

On Friday I was supposed to babysit my nephew for the morning, but that ended rather abruptly when he decided that he'd had enough excitement and fell asleep in his highchair while eating breakfast.

I'd only been there 45 minutes before the little tyke crashed and burned. His mom was already home, so she put him to bed and didn't need me to stick around anymore.

I went the next town and picked up some Halloween candy to hand out at their house tonight, and while I was there I went to see a movie.

I watched "Where The Wild Things Are".

I'd been looking forward to seeing it ever since I heard it was coming out and wanted to catch it in the theater.

It was just under 2 hours long and when it was finished I felt like I'd really spent my money on a "non-experience".

I don't know... The cinematography was well done. The music was appropriately moody and fitting. The costume design was incredible. But when the movie was over I just felt like it really didn't say anything.

This is one case where I really think the book was better.

With that finished, I came back home and putzed around the house for a bit.

Then I took off in the late afternoon to catch up with my good friend Liz and go see a concert in Seattle that night.

She had won tickets to go see UFO at Neumo's and asked me if I wanted to join her.

The music was great. They are a band from the late 70's that has continued to have a somewhat lucrative career in rock, although they are somewhat unknown to a lot of people in the U.S. who are under 35 years old.

I looked around the crowd and it seemed like I was the youngest person there. Kind of a shock, but at least I wasn't "creepy old guy" for a change!

As for the bar, well.... I won't be going back just for drinks there anytime soon. If ever.

I'm not much of a social drinker when I'm out and about, so I didn't know what I wanted when we were at the bar. I sat down with Liz and looked over the drink menu.

Let me clarify that a bit. It's a "menu" of the types of drinks they can make which you pay for to enjoy. Sort of like going to a restaurant and ordering a food item that they offer on their menu.

So I went up to the bar and ordered my drink. The bartender said "A what?", so I repeated it and then said, "It's in your drink menu".

He fiddled with some cash for a moment, filled a beer glass and then came back to me and said, "What is it called?". I repeated it again. He looked puzzled.

Then he grabbed a glass and mixed up something that sounded like what I wanted and handed it to me. Plus he overcharged me for it.

So not only only did I not get what I wanted, but the bartender WHO WORKS AT THE BAR THAT OFFERED THE DRINK MENU didn't know what drinks were on that menu. Plus I paid extra for his lack of knowledge.

Customer service FAIL in my book. Thank you very little.

We finished and our drinks and then went to see the band. They rocked for over an hour and had a couple of encores. Then we left and headed for home.

It was well after midnight and the roads were very wet, so I stayed at her place and had breakfast there before coming back to my house to Hotness today.

Tonight we'll be handing out candy to costumed hoodlums at separate locations.

She'll be downtown at the auto parts store and I'll be at our friend's house.

Then after the ghosts and goblins (and princesses) settle down for the night, we'll be heading to a local restaurant for their Halloween shindig. It should be a fun evening.

** UPDATE!! **

I forgot I'd taken pictures of the band last night.

They aren't great but here they are:

We were on the left side of the stage in the second row, so we got a great view.