The 31st Another Halloween has come and gone. I did my usual trick or treat front porch set up as Mr. Dim with creepy music and a smoke machine. This year though I set up the mannequin in the gorilla suit and Booger the Monkey Butler in a mask holding the pumpkin and lit them from underneath. I don't think it was very scary exactly, mostly just weird I guess. It was effective enough to creep out some teenage girls and scare little children though. Two kids wouldn't come up to the step without a lot of coaxing from their parents, even then one took off running before eventually coming back. Another kid started shrieking "No! No!" over and over as his mom tried to push him towards the door. I eventually had to take off my hood to make him stop screaming and even then he was pretty freaked out. I felt kind of guilty but also kind of proud at the same time. After it was all said and done we ordered pizza, I ate too much and we watched Psycho. A fairly well-rounded Halloween I suppose. In other news, Catherine MacLellan had a baby girl today around noon I think. Halloween is a pretty cool day to have your birthday fall on. I don't know the baby's name but she was a big girl at 9 lbs. or so. Congrats, Cat! The 30th There was a party over at the Maros household last night so I showed up in my traditional Halloween party garb as Mr. Dim. This time I went as Mr. Dim on a Hawaiian singles cruise though. Sharon had a really good Princess Leia costume, Laine was styling as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Nathan wore the gorilla costume. I think everyone that showed up was dressed up too. Kira was dressed as Tank Girl, Tyler wore a jumpsuit with a skeleton painted on it, and Melissa was in this cool corpse bride/gothic outfit that she made herself. Tammy and Heidi showed up in all of their 80s glory as the duo Heart. Tomorrow is the big day. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do when the kids show up but hopefully it will be enough to scare them or be memorable at least. I hung out with Troy and Carol at Tim Horton's today for most of the afternoon. Troy wants me to help him with a website but we mostly talked about comics and cartoons. At one point I got up to buy something and there were 2 older couples standing at the counter. One woman said, "They don't have hamburgers anymore." Then they all started to walk away and the other woman said, "I could have sworn they used to sell hamburgers." The 27th Tonight was an entertainment disappointment. I went on the Ghost Walk with Nathan and Laine which was supposed to be about an hour or so. It turned out to be over 2 hours of walking in the cold, drizzling rain and wind. There were about 10 stops along the way and I think only 3 of them could be classified as actual ghost stories. The rest were just bits of Summerside or Halloween history. Had I known I was going to hear about politicians giving women the right to vote, about farmers dealing with rat infestations and why apples meant so much to Pagans I'd have kept my $7 dollars and stayed home where it's warm, or at least sort of warm. Then we watched The Exorcist: Dominion and that was a total let down. In some ways it was better than The Exorcist: The Beginning but in other ways it wasn't. It's too bad because I was really looking forward to something creepy and well-told. The story was better told than the other version but it just seemed so anti-climactic with some poor special effects and scoring. This probably has to do with the film getting dropped but even then most of the digital foolishness wasn't required. The 26th On Saturday I brought Hobbes to the vet because he seemed like he was in pain and having a hard time going in his box. Turns out he's got crystals in his urine and a bladder infection. Oh, and he got fatter too. Cool. I'm sure glad I buy him expensive food that's supposed to prevent ALL of that. He's going to be ok though so that's all that matters. It's just frustrating though because this has happened before and I follow the vet's orders and it happens again. Annoy. So that whole thing with the cat and the vet delayed my visit to my grandparents for a couple of days. I went to visit Monday instead and just got back today. I don't get to stay very long anymore but it's good to get away and see them even if just for a couple of days. It's always nice and relaxing there but since my grandfather got a satellite dish all he does is watch news stations. And it's fine and dandy to keep informed but sitting in front of the TV for hours with CTV NewsNet on, repeating the same stories every 15 minutes, is a bit ridiculous. I don't know how he doesn't get bored with that. While I'm there the TV is on an awful lot so I get to see all of the crappy stuff I usually miss. I've noticed this even more lately but it was concentrated over the last couple of days: commercial breaks today extra SUCK. Commercial breaks drive me nuts in general but it seems that in the last few years they've gotten worse. Content is worse in a lot of cases but I'm talking about how there really isn't much variety any more. They keep showing the same 6 or 7 commercials during an hour of TV and it's super-obnoxious. They really are just hitting everyone over the head again and again and again with the same stinking ads. It drives me crazy. This is why I tape any show I like to watch…I can't fast forward. The 20th I was biking downtown this afternoon and passed by this woman squatting, huddled in a corner, sheltering herself from the wind so that she could light her smoke. She looked up at me and had a pretty desperate look on her face. In a way, I could have swapped her cigarette for a heroin needle because everything else looked like a junkie scene to me. The 18th My brother is going out west with some friends looking for work tomorrow and won't be back until the spring or summer apparently. I don't really see or talk to my brother much but it will be kind of weird for him to be gone that long. He went out west before and other places for hockey but I don't think he was ever gone very long. Hopefully he'll find a good paying job out there that doesn't completely suck. We had a big dinner over at my parents' tonight and it was extra good. Perfectly barbequed steak doesn't happen often enough. Of course, I ate until I was in pain and I wonder if that would be the case every night at dinner if I moved back home for some reason. Moving out I think has helped my waist line to some degree. I need to maintain my slender physique after all… The 15th Tyler and Melissa each had a piece in this gallery showing tonight in Charlottetown, and Kira was having a party so I went up there with them for the night. We went to Mike's for dinner and I somehow didn't overdo it with the food and I didn't get dessert either which is strange because they have some awesome desserts. At the gallery there were some really good pieces in the show—some not so good, but for the most part I liked the pieces. I don't know much about art and I'm not exactly one to critique it either but I know what I like but I tend to like design better. There was a nice range of work, a really good crowd and I met Donnalee, the super-nice lady who put on the show in her home, and got to talk with the Alwards and Luke Leunes for a bit too which was nice. We went to Kira's place after that and it's huge. Such a gigantic apartment I have never seen. I'm completely jealous of her and her roommate Andrea. We hung out there amid a tiny crowd for the night and had a nice time. When the time came to leave though, I was the one to be driving home due to the drinky-winky of the others. I ended up dropping off this guy in Cornwall named George who could play video game themes on guitar and then drove home in the rain without killing anyone. The 11th Vacation is over. I got back from Ottawa this afternoon after not sleeping for about 24 hours and I'm dead tired. I had a really good time but a week was too short. I had fun though and it was nice to meet Melissa's family and get to hang out with her again even if it wasn't for very long. There wasn't much going on for music unfortunately that I was interested in. We went to this open jazz jam one night and it was pretty sad. Most of the people there weren't going to see music, they were there to take their turn playing. And this one drummer belonged in the don't-know-what-do department because he was playing the most foolish stuff ever and making the most foolish faces ever. It was like he was in another world and not even paying attention to the song, let alone the horn player in front of him snapping his fingers hoping he'd catch on. I did get to see Peter Elkas at Zaphod's though which was cool. I hadn't heard of him before but he was great and had a super solid band with him. The opener though sucked. A bunch of over-confident, attitude-filled mom rockers with squealing girlfriends cheering them on. Sloppy as fuck drummer and boring as shit songs. I don't even know their name, and I don't really care either. One of the first things I got to do when I got there was go see sex educator Sue Johansen at Melissa's college. She was great and super funny. I was jealous of people I know that had seen her before but no longer. She's one of the best people ever. We went to a comedy club one night too and for the most part all of the acts were pretty funny but the headliner killed. My face was so damn sore afterwards. We decided to go to Chinatown after that and get pho and coconut shakes at this Vietnamese place. Awesome food. In fact, I think pretty everything I ate there was awesome. We had Vietnamese at this other place that served Vietnamese coffee which was extra good and I went for Thai food one night with just her family. I ate so muchthere that it hurt to walk out of the restaurant. I didn't go to Parliament Hill though even though that was kind of high up on the list. I planned to the night before I left but there wasn't really time so we went to see A History of Violence instead. Really good movie but disturbing amounts of graphic violence and some scenes that just made me feel very weird afterwards. What also made me feel weird afterwards was the fact that there was some guy sitting behind us making heavy breathing noises and weird moans. I don't know what his deal was but the guy that was with him might have been treating him to a back row hand-shandy. Who knows? But it was gross and disturbing. All in all though, it was a pretty good trip—movie perverts aside. The weather was gorgeous the first few days, like the height of a PEI July but turned to fall pretty quickly. At that point we were out at the cottage on the lake for Thanksgiving which was nice. I ate way too much food again though but that's what Thanksgiving is all about. Hopefully I'll be able to get some cheap flights again sometime in the next few months and maybe I'll go visit again. It would be a good way to break up the boredom and depression of winter. The 3rd I was watching Letterman and Buckwheat Zydeco was sitting in with the band. At one point he showed his new album and I burst out laughing because it's absolutely hilarious. The pose couldn't be more perfect and in his head you can tell he's saying "Jackpot" in a cool N'awlins accent—hence his smile. I wish I could have designed this cover. I'm off to Ottawa for a week-long vacation as of tomorrow and I need it badly. I'm getting so ansty in this house, in this town. I just need a change of scenery and some new restaurants. I'll be staying with Melissa and her family the whole time which will be nice. Her little brother seems like a pretty funny kid and they have a cat named Firebolt so that's an added bonus.