happy hallowe'en

well it seems like it's been a long time coming, but it's finally here!!!!!!!! hope everyone's weekend was spook-tacular, and that tonight lives up to all your fright-pectations!!

be sure to watch for all the wee ghosts and goblins, light up those pumpkins, and be sure to deliver at least one good scare!

after all, it only comes once a year!

trick or treat boils and ghouls!

tales from the crypt

anyone else a fan of the old tales from the crypt show?? back in the day (approximately circa 1989 is when the first episode debuted) 'tales' was quite the fright-fest!!

hosted by the infamous 'cryptkeeper', it was an hbo show (obviously) which told a few scary stories over a half hour period. originally starting out as a comic book of the macabre, it evolved to the small screen (and eventually to the big screen) and held quite a few celebrity guests. whoopi goldberg made an appearance, tom hanks, kyle mclachlan from sex and the city, among many others!

it was a very tongue-in-cheek show, never taking itself too seriously, but being scary enough to send a chill of excitement up any horror fan's spine!! it was deliciously creepy, i guess you could say, with the cryptkeepers death pun's and eerie story lines.

it lasted for (correct me if i'm wrong) 4 seasons, each episode delightfully entertaining. it used to be on every night of the week at like midnight on global, and i'm pretty sure i've seen every episode!!

it's big screen attempts weren't the best; demon knight, bordello of blood among others. they were a little cheesy, but all in good fun!

that was the thing about 'tales', it was always good for a scare, or at the very least a laugh!!

i urge you to check out old episodes.


you're in for a treat!!

halloween campus murder

i thought a scary story would be in order for today's entry, being that it's exactly 5 days till halloween. this is one tale that always brings a chill down my spine this time of year, check it out:

As this urban legend unfolds, a prominent psychic on a TV talk show predicts that a mass murder on a college campus will take place on Halloween. While this story isn't true, when it emerges every few years -- it sends many college students flocking home for Halloween.

The original psychic in this story was Jeanne Dixon. Now the legend usually involves a "well-known" or "famous psychic." The talk show I've heard it pertaining to most was the one hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Other talk show hosts include Oprah, David Letterman, Johnny Carson, Montel Williams, and Phil Donohue (in the legend's older days.) When the legend revives itself, it refers to modern talk shows, so more hosts will undoubtedly be added to the list.

After much thought, the psychic refers to the campus in clues -- then reveals the actual college campus she believes the murders will take place. Other details are given, such as the murderer (an enraged student, teacher, or escapee from the local insane asylum.)

The murder weapon is always an object that will inflict much damage, such as a butcher knife or an axe. This always causes more panic and reminds one of a scary Halloween movie taking place in real life.

The number of college students being killed is anywhere from 10-18 and sometimes states it will only be female students killed by an ax wielding maniac in a Little Bo Peep costume. Later versions of this tale have the murderer wearing a scream mask. This gets your imagination going, doesn't it?

More stories then circulate to frighten non-believers of the original urban legend. They tell of campus parties or dorms where students defied the psychic's advice and were then butchered in the wee hours of the night. They often giving details of a large Halloween frat party on campus where the college students acted like, well, college students.

When this hoax gets going again, there will likely be more students and parents frightened by the new "modernized" details, which seem to add credibility to a classic Halloween urban legend.


hope you enjoyed boys and ghouls!

brought to you by scary.com

check out my s-c-a-r-y recipe i found for "bird feet". tee hee, and if you have time check out scary.com...it's for kids, but it'll get you in the mood!

Dirty Bitty Birdy Feet

Utensils
1 Sharp knife
1 Large spoon
1 Large plate
1 Box of toothpicks


Ingredients
1 Individual serving of chocolate/vanilla pudding (4 oz.)
1 Package of yellow vanilla wafer cookies shaped like flowers
1 Package of candy corn
1 Tube of colored icing
Strawberry glaze (if bloody)



Directions

Spread pudding on plate, making a path shape
Cut the large yellow end off the candy corn
Use icing to attach pointed ends to the backside of the cookie (make them look like claws)
Place cookies down the pudding path, staggering them to look like footprints
With a toothpick put a few dabs of pudding on the feet to look like dirt
(OR with a toothpick, drizzle a few drops of strawberry glaze on the feet to look like blood)


Put a foot in your mouth and enjoy!

angelic

so these are the contacts that i've ordered for my halloween costume!! i'm totally psyched about them. and while halloween is costing me an arm and a leg (between my costume and the puppy's; harley's going as a pig, and jet's going to be a bumble bee) it's always worth it!!

why just look at my recent blog entries! if dedicating a whole months worth of entries to october 31st doesn't indicate how much i'm in love with halloween...then i don't know what would?!?

last year i had purchased the "white-out" contacts, for my vampire costume. they fuckin' rocked! basically they block out any color in your eye, only exposing the pupil. the rest is totally white. i couldn't even look some people in the eye, cause they were too frightened.

so this year, still on the creepy contact lens kick, i saw these "angelic" ones and totally fell in love with them! apparently they're going to make them almost glow a fluorescent blue-like color...like an angel's!

now i don't want to ruin the surprise, but i'm thinking of dressing completely in white. white pants, white shirt, white tie, white wings, and then have the blue contacts just punch you right in the face!!

i can't wait. dressing up is half the fun on halloween. it's the one night of the year where you can act completely and totally retarded, and look as creepy and as kooky as you want...and nobody can say anything about it! it's even encouraged to be freaky!

i think we all go through that stage when dressing up isn't "cool" anymore, but as we get older, and when liquor gets involved, costumes on halloween turn into a whole new level of fun! we begin to explore the possibilities and indulge them. you can dress up as your deepest darkest fantasy, or you could be something completely opposite from who you are...the options are endless! even the most tabboo of costumes are accepted; i once saw a guy at a rave go as someone's sex slave...i'm talking g-string, hand cuffs, dog collar (complete with chain) around his neck, bare feet (at the electropolis-yuck!) black eye make-up and lipstick writing all over his body!!

so if that guy can get away with it, what are you waiting for?

use your imagination...

the original scream queen

before neve campbell, before jennifer love hewitt and before buffy, i mean sarah michelle... there was an original scream queen...and that lady was jamie lee!

she was the one! the only! the best! all beginning with the original "halloween", she was laurie strode...the sister of michael myers, who one halloween night crawled into his older sister's room and murdered her in cold blood with his mother's sharpest carving knife.

16 years later he's come back to haddonfield, with only one thing on his mind...

after halloween, she continued on in halloween 2 (which was probably one of the best sequels to ever be a part of the horror genre, which took place the same night as the first one). but then she dissappeared from her crazed masked brother, until H20.

between roles she was still a huge part of the genre playing in such fright flicks as "terror train", "the fog" and "prom night". but it's her reaccuring part in the halloween movies that truly sent a chill up my spine.

in halloween: H20 (20 years later) she returns to her role as the terrorized baby-sitter, now fully grown of course and the head mistress of a very posh and secluded private school in northern california.

but michael tracks her down and continues his reign of terror. does she get away? does she survive? does she put her brother to rest???

unfortunately they make us wait till halloween:resurrection (shitty, shitty, shitty), for laurie strode to make a final appearance...this time she's in an insane asylum, apparently driven crazy from all those years of running from a knife-wielding maniac. and i won't ruin it for you, but let's just say the star of the movie is busta rhymes...and tyra-big boobs-banks makes an appearance!

so this halloween, while perusing the aisles of your local video depository, and you come across the festive horror section, pick up one of miss curtis' fright films...her scream is guaranteed to top even the best pipes in the bizz...

♪enjoy♪

jack o' lantern

my family and i always took great care in carving our pumpkins while i was growing up. we even had a signature look to them; which usually included big black marbles as eyeballs, and pumpkin innerds doubling as brains or human remains leaking from the mouth!! (gross out!!)

ever wonder where the idea of carving jack o' lanterns came from? well here's a little fable to explain the custom: This is based on an old Irish legend about the drunk, Jack. One day he was out in the woods and tricked Satan into a tree to throw down some fruit. Once Satan had helped him he carved a cross into the tree and trapped him there. He then struck a deal that Satan would leave his soul alone when he died. This backfired when he died since heaven would not take him either. When he kept bothering the Devil to let him in the Devil gave him a burning ember instead. He carried the ember in a hollowed out turnip (sometimes described as rotton) to light his way as he wandered through eternal darkness on the earth. Eventually this was replaced with the pumpkin in America and became the modern Jack-o-Lantern.

interesting...

the lanterns originally carved out of turnips, potatoes or beats, represented the souls of departed loved ones, and were placed in window sills and on door steps to welcome home the deceased on all hallow's eve. they also served as protection against malevolent spirits or goblins freed from the dead.

it has been an essential part of halloween celebrations since the victorian days, and is a universal symbol of halloween.

so think of this story as you gut your vegetable plant this halloween!

happy carving!

el dia de los muertos

or day of the dead, if you will, is basically the mexican version of halloween. (in layman's terms). the celebration traditionally starts at midnight the night of Oct. 31, and the festivities are abundant in images related to death.

the customs have different origins, and their attitudes toward death are different: In the typical Halloween festivities, death is something to be feared. But in el día de los muertos, death — or at least the memories of those who have died — is something to be celebrated.

it's one of the biggest celebrations in mexico, and it's even becoming more popular in the states. Specifics of the celebration vary, but one of the most common customs is the making of elaborate altars to welcome departed spirits home. Vigils are held, and families often go to cemeteries to fix up the graves of their dearly departed relatives. Festivities also frequently include traditional foods such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead) which can conceal a miniature skeleton, skull-shaped candies and sweets, and paper mache skeletons and other ghouly figures.

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this is an example of the elaborate style altars that are built to honor the return of the dearly departed. at the top of the article, is the candle light vigil at night.

hocus pocus

now i hope this movie is familiar to those of you halloween-movie fans, because it's an absolute must for this time of year. and for those of you who've never heard of the wondrous movie that is disney's "hocus pocus", STOP READING this right now, and rush out to your nearest 'cockbuster' and rent it!!!! then come back, and finish reading my entry. you won't be disappointed!

"hocus pocus" (in my house atleast) is probably the original halloween movie of choice. dating back to 1993, it's a tad bit outdated (being one of sarah jessica's earlier roles before satc) but still very much enjoyable. set in salem, it tells the tale of the sanderson sisters, executed over 300 years ago for practicing witchcraft; more specifically for 'sucking the lives out of little children', they are brought back to life on all hallow's eve when a virgin lights the black flame candle thusly activating the curse the witches put into play before they died.

brought back only for the one night, it's a race against time as they try to capture the lifeforce of as many children as possible in an attempt to stay alive forever, all before the sun comes up.

bette midler, sjp and kathy najimi are all hysterical in the three main roles of the sisters, and a very young thora birch (better known as kevin spacey's titty-flashing daughter in american beauty, or as the dark main character of ghost world) plays the heroine.

it's pg fun, but highly enjoyable as the witches battle against the 20th century in an attempt to secure their evil in salem forever!

how's that for a sales pitch?

i'm sure we all have that one movie that just screams 'halloween' to us. and to me, it's hocus pocus. i watch it religiously around this time of year, and it always gets me in the mood.

honestly it's worth your while just to check out sarah jessica parker as the dumb and ditzy blonde witch who's the slutty of the three.


trick or treat

all hallow's eve

well it's that time of year again, kiddies! what time of year would that be, you ask? well just the most wonderful time of the year!!

OCTOBER!!

and what holiday comes on the last day of this month??? that's right...HALLOWEEN!! halloween has always been my absolute favorite day of the year. hands down! so being that we're into october now, i thought i'd dedicate every blog entry for this month to everyone's favorite nocturnal october celebration!

shall we begin with a little bit of history? Behind the name... Halloween, or the Hallow E'en as they call it in Ireland , means All Hallows Eve, or the night before the 'All Hallows', or 'All Saints', or 'All Souls' Day, observed on November 1.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

well, i hope i didn't bore you with that lil' history lesson. but a true halloween fan probably found that at least a tad bit interesting. hopefully...

angel

well this is her, my newest tattoo. isn't she beautiful? i'm going to take a digital photo of my whole back soon and post it, so you get the whole effect.

the only differences are she's got a little bit of blue in her halo, to match the rest on my back, and her face is completely colored in.

she's innocent, sexual, mysterious, and angelic. like me!! just kidding! she's in the center of my back along my spine inbetween the other two, and besides being probably the most painful of the 7 i have, she's also the most lovely. and perhaps my favorite.

more to come later!