Halloween Good (!) Cheer

I guess a Halloween isn't complete with a good, stupid-inducing drunkening. Nothing like hearing people stumble their way into the house because they're stumbling-drunk. Well, I guess being woken in the middle of the night by their drunken stumbling to the bathroom's pretty high up on that same, "shit that really fucking annoys the hell out of me" list.

Nothing I love more than waking up as furious as I went to bed. Others' chronic drunkenness is rage-inducing. Having to witness it just before bed tends to leave me in a bad mood. Not terribly conduscive to sleeping. Even less conduscive is being woken by drunken stumblings. All in all, it results in waking up in a rather foul mood (and that's on top of the "oh, fuck: it's Monday" mood).

Thanks. Love starting my day just as pissed as I ended the previous one.

Mixed Blessings at Halloween

Ok, so, I live in a decent-sized neighborhood. Certainly, this neighborhood is rather much larger than the one I grew up in. There's also a fair number of families with children in this neighborhood. Yet, each year at Halloween, the number of trick-or-treaters that show up are rather low. Each year, there's more leftover candy than there is candy given out (we like to provide a variety, so we get a bunch of different candies). Invariably, you have a predictable progression: young/new parents with very young children for the first hour. Older (pre-teens) for the next hour. Teens, invariably not in costume, to close out the evening. Throughout, you also have the "drop-off" kids.

The "drop offs" are invariably kids from PG county. You can tell that they're from PG county by the license plates of the vehicles. I can only guess that they don't recognize/have Halloween in Maryland, as all of the drop-off vehicles seem to be MD-plated. Generally, you'll see them get dropped off at some corner, and then the driver of the vehicle speeds away at a speed WELL above what's prudent for the occasion or even just the speed limit. I guess it's ok to drop your kids off in the neighborhoods with the good candy and risk mowing down the kids that are already out.

Overall, Halloween is such a non-occasion. It seems that the only people that really go out for Halloween are the adults with the various Friday and Saturday night drunken-slutfests ("ho ho ho" isn't so much what Santa says at Christmas but what you can point and say as you watch the parade of "I only feel like I can get away with dressing this way one time of year" tartlets.

Now, as a man, I certainly appreciate the eye candy. So, I'm not using "ho" or "slut" in a pejorative sense. It's more an expression of frustration at the whole state of affairs where Halloween is way more for adults than it is for kids. It's just "lame" (to borrow a term from when Halloween still seemed to be popular with the pre-adult set).

Best Costume Idea Evar...

Genius, I Tell You

Halloween on Price Is Right

So, today was this year's "Halloween" episode of Price Is Right. Drew and the rest of the cast dressed up like the cast from Wizard of Oz.

Now, if I recall, correctly, Price Is Right shoots it's episodes several days or weeks before actually broadcasting them (much like all the late-night shows are shot in the mid-afternoon or early evening). This means that, if they want audience members and/or contestants to be in costume, people have to be dressed up not on Halloween.

I know that Price Is Right sells advanced tickets, but, I imagine there's a lot that are sold "at the door". And, that aside, more than a few people in the audience are people who are non-local and are just taking the opportunity to get on TV while on vacation (thus, probably haven't packed costumes with them).

For the tickets sold in advance, they could print on the tickets "Halloween broadcast: please dress up". However, I don't think that's the case and, even if it was, probably wouldn't result in a great number of people dressing up at any rate.

Judging by the costumes, I'd say that most, if not all, of the costumes are show-issued. It looks like women who are cute and fairly petitely or slenderly built are given the option of wearing costume store tart-ware (sexy-cop, sexy-firegirl, sexy-nurse, etc.). The rest of the people are given Halloween-themed Price Is Right T-shirts, offered makeup and/or accessories. Given the number of non-svelte Price Is Right audience members, the makeup, t-shirt and/or (non body size-specific) accessories are the most flexible way to get the largest number of people "in theme".

Speaking of "non-svelte"... At the end of the show, they gave everyone a 5lb. Hershey's Chocolate chocolate bar. I wonder how many of the recipients already had "the diuhbeetus"?