So for those of you that don’t know, I moved at the beginning of October. It was rather bittersweet and I am still adjusting to my new surroundings. In the midst of the packing, driving, unpacking, storing, etc. I came down with what I can only guess was a stress induced plague. It really made my move that much harder.
After 2 1/2 weeks I’m finally starting to feel like myself. I’m still living out of boxes for the most part and still look like I live in my car, but my anxiety (and the plague) has subsided. Tonight I felt up for going for a walk. I am fortunate to live across the street from a beautiful park and in an area where I feel relatively safe walking around. The weather here in California has still been rather warm, it reached 90° here today, which is way hotter than my liking, but my walk this evening was beautiful. Just west of where I live is farmlands so there is nothing to obscure the sunset and tonight was no different.
As I walked I thought about my day, my job, and life in general. It was a nice way to decompress. I also spotted the tiniest little frog hopping around on the sidewalk and was vigilantly watched by a beautiful Himalayan cat on a brick wall. I foresee this becoming a regular occurrence.
This was intended to be finished and post yesterday, but by the time I got home, I had come down with a case of the yucks. I spent my evening infront of the fan and a brief time outside to take in some cool air. Thankfully I am feeling better today.
Has anyone noticed that in the last few years it seems like Halloween is getting more and more diluted with the Christmas Creep? My years in retail always killed holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving because the focus was on Christmas, but it seems like every year, Christmas starts popping up earlier and earlier. I remember as a kid everyone on my street would get into Halloween. Candy, decorations, the whole nine. People would come from other parts of the city to trick or treat in my neighborhood. But I have noticed in the last few years that people don’t really decorate anymore, and last year we had 1 trick or treater at our house. Are people giving up on Halloween? Is it because of the economy? Are people too caught up in Christmas that they don’t mind bypassing my absolute favorite holiday?! Here are a few things that I love about Halloween
1. Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen one? I do believe in ghosts. My next door neighbor when I lived in LA had one in his house. You could sit in the large armchair in the living room and occasionally an overwhelming scent of ladies perfume would fly past your face, despite his wife moving out about a decade before I experienced it for the first time.
2. Favorite candy? Reese’s peanut butter cups, Milky Way Dark, Payday, smarties, and gummy bears.
3. What did you dress up as when you were a kid? I think the most memorable was the clown I dressed up as when I was about 5. My mom still has the costume in the box that it came in. I also dressed as a witch, Cleopatra, and a fairy a few times.
4. Parties or Trick-or-Treating? I only recall going to one Halloween party as a kid (the same year I dressed as a clown). I’ve always been partial to trick-or-treating.
5. Have you ever carved a pumpkin? Quite a few. I always become over ambitious and want to create designs that I end up regretting in the end. Some of my favorite pumpkins have been the Nine Inch Nails logo NIN and Link from Legend of Zelda.
6. Worst thing you’ve ever gotten trick-or-treating? One year my friends and I picked a neighborhood that was a real dud. We received walnuts, pennies, and raisins from people. Awful!
7. Best costume you’ve ever seen? For the last 4 years (this year will be 5!) I have been working the Exotic Ball in Sacramento, CA. They have a $5,000 costume contest, and some of the entries are incredible! My favorite thus far has been the man riding a HUGE tauntaun that he made himself . It was mechanical and awesome.
8. Favorite ‘Halloween’ monster? I think I would have to choose witches.
9. Favorite thing you’ve dressed up as? A couple of years ago I dressed up as Steve Zissou from the Wes Anderson film – The Life Aquatic. Only one person knew who I was, but I didn’t care, because it was awesome.
10. What are you dressing up as this year if you’re dressing up? What would you dress up as if you aren’t? I more than likely will not dress up. But if i had to choose anything, it would most likely be something from a video game.
11. Do you like going to haunted houses? No, I absolutely hate being scared and startled.
12. Haunted woods? See above.
13. Ever worked in/hosted a haunted house/wood? I participated in a haunted house one year for a youth group that I was part of as a kid. I scared myself more than anyone working there.
14. Do you decorate your home for Halloween?
When I lived in LA we would decorate a lot – but we havn’t done more than pumpkins and lights in the last few years.
15. Favorite decoration? Lights!
16. Got a favorite spooky tune? After having worked retail the last 10 years, I have been completely burnt out on Halloween music. If I had to choose one “Halloween” song, I would pick…
17. Any wardrobe malfunctions? None that I recall.
18. Scariest Halloween moment? Trick-or-treating on the block behind my old house, the owner whipped open the door and scared the living daylights out of me and I took off running down the street.
19. Best Halloween? I love every Halloween! I can’t pick one off the top of my head though.
20. Worst Halloween? Last year I slept through the entire night after getting home from work. Thanks for that depression!
So there are a few of my favorite things about Halloween. Stay tuned for some news that I will hopefully announce soon! It involves a new project I am working on.
Let it be known that I hate purses. I own a small assortment of them, because it is nearly impossible to carry your wallet, keys and cell phone all in your pockets without looking like some sort of weird pocket stuffing hoarder. But given the opportunity, I will still try. I pretty much have two ideas/thought processes when it comes to bags/purses.
If I buy a smaller bag, I will in turn, carry less stuff .
The quickest way to clean out your purse/bag is to buy a new one.
Buying a smaller bag never works, and I resent buying the purse and never use it again. Cleaning out your purse by buying a new bag also doesn’t work because then you have a closet full of half full purses stuffed with half packs of gum, receipts and chapstick. Despite the failure in both of these ideas, it doesn’t stop me from doing them over and over again – the ole insanity plea kicks in I guess. I have 3 bags that I seem to rotate through, two of which are pictured here and here, but I often find myself going back to this bag. It has a ton of pockets and is great for tucking away every random thing I feel the need to carry around with me. It’s an OCD dream. So without further ado, here is what is in my bag:
Trophy Queen Wallet – I spotted this while working Midnight Mass two years ago and had to have it. It is lined with plush leopard print and holds just the necessities. My only qualm with it is in the rare occasions that I do carry cash, I am forced to fold it into origami to tuck it into a pocket in the wallet. Sorry cashiers!
Ultimark self inking stamp – Nerd moment here. I am an avid geocacher. And the more logs you sign, the lazier you get it. I ordered myself this handy stamp that stamps __/__/__ pyropixie on logs – making it much easier to date and sign logs in a hurry.
Blistex Raspberry Lemonade – I am a chapstick addict and this stuff smells just like pink Starbursts – YUM!
Cupcake Coin Purse – I use this handy coin purse I picked up at Target during back to school to hold all my store loyalty cards.
Flash Drives – I need two because I always seem to misplace one while working on the other. I most recently found the one with the pink cord in my sock drawer.
Yellow Whistle – I purchased this fun little whistle with tickets that I won at Sunsplash.
Hello my name is… – Back to the nerdy geocaching talk, we have monthly meet ups where we nerd out about all things geocaching. My name tag is a trackable that other geocachers can discover.
Inhaler – duh.
160GB Ipod – I gifted myself this gem after a break up – and have found that I need about 9 more of them. When will the 1TB Ipod be out guys?!
Nintendo DS games – The top two and lower Princess Peach case all have Nintendo DS games in them. They hold most of my collection but there are ones that are kicking around at home. Never know when you feel like throwing your current game out the window and want to swap for something else, or have a vs. battle with someone in Mario Kart.
Water glitter bracelets – More loot from Sunsplash, who knows when you need a little sass.
Pull back race cars – Also from Sunsplash, they are nice to have to kill the boredom.
Sephora Hello Kitty Compact – I love this thing, and all things Hello Kitty. Mirrors are not only great to have to check your teeth after that delicious garlic bread, but to show your patient how badly they really do need to come with you to medical attention after they took that digger up the stairs while balancing 3 beers.
So that’s about it. There are a few other random items within my bag, but a girl can’t give away all her secrets.
In other news – I got a phone call saying that the Xbox’s were repaired and ready to pick up! YAY.
You know how I was really excited about playing Happy Wars on Friday? That all changed very quickly. Richard downloaded it on his 360 first, and when we went to start playing it, it froze. Richard turned off his Xbox and started it up again to find that be had got the dreaded Red Ring of Death. He said its happened to him before and didn’t seem that phased by it (though if I were him, I’d be freaking out). I told him to pop his hard drive into my 360 and we could play it on mine until we figure out what we were going to do. So, he popped his hard drive into my Xbox and powered it on, greeted by… Red Ring of Death?!
WHAT?!
I figured it was just a fluke thing and maybe it was just his hard drive, swapped them out, but with no luck. Crapola. I frantically called Microsoft and they said it most likely was not caused by the hard drive swap, and that I just have bad luck. But, they would be more than happy to fix both of our out of warranty systems (his being an original 360 and mine being an elite) for the tune of $99 dollars a piece and 4 – 6 weeks. Uh, thanks but no thanks.
After searching the Internet high and low, I found a local place that specializes in electronics repair and would fix and upgrade our systems for $45 a piece and had a 1 day turn around time, definitely more my style. Sadly they are closed on Sunday – so we anticipate getting them back tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Eating my feelings at Burger King – when did this place start sucking so bad?
A view from my rear view mirror on my drive to work and the awesome
text messages I have to decode from my boss.
Delicious tomato soup and bread from Boudin’s SF
A lackluster turkey pesto panini I had from Cafe Olivetti in Yuba City, CA.
and a delicious pumpkin ooey gooey bar from The Cookie Tree in
Yuba City, CA.
My junk food stash
Having a bad hair day and rocking my Finn Adventure Time hat
I know this game came out in 2010, but I just got around to downloading it yesterday after a recommendation from Richard. I played the demo and decided I could not live without it and punked down the 800 points. Dear Microsoft, why do you make it so easy to buy points? My bank account hates you. Sadly I played the demo on Richard’s Xbox, so I was unable to unlock all the achievements I gained while playing the demo, and had to start completely over on my own system.
The game takes place on Halloween. Fraternal twin siblings Reynold and Wren are new in their neighborhood and are asked by their mom to use their trick-or-treating to make new friends in the neighborhood. The player at this point chooses which sibling to play as. The two dress in their costumes, with the non-playable character dressing as a piece of candy corn and the playable character dressing as a robot. A monster with a sweet tooth sees the non-playable sibling, and kidnaps him or her. The player character must now save their sibling in time and be home before curfew.
I have a bad habit of skipping through story lines in games, so when I found out that I could not power through the dialog in the beginning, I found it rather frustrating, especially because I had to do it twice. I was quite delighted to find that my original starting costume is a ROBOT, heck yes! I find the flow and game play of the game a little clunky and jerky, and I find the turn based fighting a little weird. I also wish that there was map feature because as stated before, I am a completionist and want to make sure that I have explored every nook and crany of the game. All in all, I have only been able to invest about 2 hours into the game, and I am head over heels for it. I love the styling of the game, and the hoarder in me loves collecting candy and battle stamps. I can’t wait to check out Happy Wars that comes out this Friday for free for gold Xbox Live members.
