Best Halloween Ever!

This weekend was a blast. Friday Missing Palmer West played at Rex's with The Teeth. They were great. I drank several Rex's world famous Long Island Ice Teas and danced my hiney off. Saturday was Beeps' birthday so he slept until noon and then we went to see Darjeeling Limited (which was just fabulous. We are big Wes Anderson fans.) If you like any of his other films you will LOVE this one!

Afterwards we rushed home to get ready for "the best Halloween ever" as Marc pointed out several times throughout the night. We bought tickets to a party tour that included 4 parties that started at 5pm and ended late night. Drinks and food included. We unfortunately missed the first one but made it to the second one right on time.

The six of us planned ahead and decided on the best Halloween group costume ever.

Behold, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem:


Some side-by-side fun:











Beeps was Dr. Teeth, Rose was Animal, Krista was Janice, Marc was Zoot, Marc N. was Floyd, and I was Rowlf. When we arrived at Krista and Marc's, we were greeted by Marc's parents Kitty and Skip who proceeded to take several pictures as if we were headed to the prom.

This is Rose and I on the walk to the first party:


At party #1 (which was technically party #2), we ran into the second best costume of the night. Little did we know that this was going to get ugly. Behold, Awesomo:


Me and Beeps:

Awesomo unveiled (I said it was gonna get ugly). He was smashed very early on.


Party #2, my third favorite costume of the night. Andy Reid, complete with accent, Football for Dummies book attached to his clip board, flags ready for the throw, and an authentic Book of Mormon. He stayed in character all night. This party was great, there was a fire pit and plenty of food and drink. Good times.


Awesomo wasn't far behind. Somehow he found part of his costume and put it back on.



ANIMAL!!!


Party #3, The Mayhem finally got a chance to perform. Krista and Beeps on keys, me on maraca, and some strange dude on bongos. Around midnight the cops came on a noise complaint. No doubt the cause was the musical styling of the Mayhem.


It's been a long time since I was at a party that got broken up by the police, but frankly it couldn't have come at a better time. I was exhausted and ready for bed. We walked home and called it a night, already brain storming ideas for next year.

For more pictures from the parties our friend Mike has posted some on his My Space page. (you might have to be a friend to see it.)

Today we met up with the rest of the band for brunch at Butterfish complete with complimentary bloody Mary's and mimosas. Guitar Hero 3 also came out today. Beeps picked up his reserved copy and has been at it ever since. Right now he's rocking out to Pearl Jam's "Even Flow".

A nice one to end the weekend.

Is That Ghost Made of Trash?

Today I was traveling with my boss out to Lancaster for a client visit. The drive is so beautiful. The perfect rural farm setting: rolling hills, corn fields, pumpkins and farm stands. There were horses and cows slowly grazing. The air had a faint farm smell (if you know what I mean) and some fields had sheep and tiny ponies in them.

There were farms everywhere with white washed fences and small blue Amish foot-propelled scooters parked against the houses. We also saw the cutest thing ever, two Amish girls in blue dresses with white bonnets, holding hands and lunch boxes as they ran to their one room school house. The air was warm but crisp and around every turn you could see buggies coming up the road. In several of the fields, the autumn harvest was taking place; teams of four-plus horses pulled machinery that cut corn stalks or turned hay while men in straw hats perched atop to receive and pile the crop. Just a perfect fall setting.

It was almost ruined though, when we pulled up to a stop. I looked to my right and saw a house "decorated" for the Halloween season. They had so much junk in their yard that I wondered:

A. Where they stored it all in the off-season and
B. How much toxic lead the Chinese had infused into the plastic

They had plastic jack-o-lanterns with painted faces, FAKE leaf garland wrapped around their porch railings (why? I don't know because the tree right next to the porch was doing a pretty good job of providing some real ones), Styrofoam tomb stones, and the piece de resistance, white and clear plastic trash bags in the trees and wrapped around the light post. Out of the corner of my eye I thought it was garbage, but I guess they were supposed to be ghosts.

Just in case there wasn't enough wasted and misused plastic in the world, these geniuses thought it would be a good idea to hit Walmart to add more.

Anyway, I guess my point is, why fix what ain't broke? Maybe what you are trying to recreate is already all around you.