What's this? What's this?

It's November already (@%*&!!), and October went by in a one big friggin' blur. The last half of the month was incredible, with Halloween Horror Nights (if I haven't explained yet, I will in a moment), tons of spooky movies and shows on tv, and lots of time spent hanging with friends and family celebrating my favorite holiday of the year.

Oh come off it, I only like Halloween more than Christmas because I don't have to travel with a big honking suitcase (half filled with presents) cross country to visit my loved ones. With All Hallow's Eve, I stay in town now, don't do too much to dress up (riiight) for get togethers, and I walk around with my buddies and snag candy (er...raisins? Thanks Disney.).

(rant off) With Halloween Horror Nights, it was a very different experience than Disney and it's own haunted holiday festivities (Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party), but this was a blast in it's own right. I went with a friend and we hit Universal at around 8:30pm or so. Mind you, the park opened at 7pm for the event on the Studios side of the parks, so by the time we got in the place was pretty packed.

We were able to get through most of the scare zones, or areas in the street blocked off and earmarked for scharacters to, well...scare the crap out of unsuspecting people (usually teenage girls and groups of african american women - trust me, they screamed the most). Mary Ann and I, well we just walked through cautiously, giggling at each other, and having the good sense to move away from the actors when we felt they were going to pounce. My favorite group doing alot of scaring were the guys in torn up outfits akin to Larry the Cable Guy that donned safe chainsaws that they set off every few minutes. Those suckers sounded more like Dustbusters, but they sure did the job. Every time I heard one go off, I yelled to Mary Ann "quick...get to the sides!", since they did most of their chasing down the middle of the nearly packed walkways.

Bill and Ted's Halloween show was alot of fun too. Their storyline was good versus evil, and they began their battle with Lex Luthor who headed out of their futuristic phone booth and then started pulling out other baddies from the past year's movies. My favorite was Magneto (with green cgi guy in tow billowing his cape) and the Jack/Elizabeth duo. Man did Universal rag on those folks, and we loved every minute of their playful jabs.

The downside of the night was that all of the actual mazes where the main characters and real scary stuff were were downright packed to the hilt with people. Lines must have been two hours long when we walked by each area. We also tried getting onto The Mummy, but it was too crowded, and lockers were scarce.

Will I do this next year? Maybe. Did I enjoy it? Yep...though I think it might have been different with other company.

For the past week (post Halloween), I've been occasionally gasping at the near tidalwave of immediate advertisement of Christmas. ((What the heck happened to Thanksgiving?!)) At the Animal Kingdom, no less than 3 days later, the entrance to the park was flanked with a giant tree covered in animal ornaments. It's a very striking piece, but man, can we have a few weeks to slowly move away from one holiday and into another?

Anywho, now I guess I'd better get back to some other things. Meaning school (homework to the Nth degree, though this class I enjoy - Ooh..system analysis) and preparing for work. Gotta get my priorities straight now don't I.

Currently reading - Laurell K Hamilton's - Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series (book 11 of 13)
** Out now - Anita Blake: Guilty Pleasures comic, part one!!