Jack-o’-lanterns are tricky in Florida. You never know what the weather will be like, and if you carve your pumpkins too soon, they will rot in the heat. It’s 82 degrees today, which can also pose a risk in costume selection: My kiddo has some elaborate Doctor Who-themed thing going on, and she’s going to roast.
As a boring old mom, I settled on a fool-proof costume strategy ages ago and have stuck to it ever since. If I’m staying home and handing out candy, I have this red hairband thingie with devil horns that I wear. I don’t bother dressing up in any other way — I just keep wearing whatever slovenly attire I already have on that day. Suitable for all weather.
There was an incident with my devil horns a few years back, when I had to run down to a convenience store to pick up an extra bag of candy because we got swarmed by trucked-in trick-or-treaters: I forgot I was wearing the horns, and the dude at the cash register rang me up and said, “Thanks, She-Devil!” and I said, “Excuse me?” in a perplexed and mildly offended voice and he said, “You know, your horns?” and I said, “Riiiight! Sorry!”
My other go-to Halloween attire is only resorted to when my sister and her partner throw a Halloween party. These tend to be rowdy affairs with no less than half a dozen sets of (all male) Sonnies and Chers, which gives you insight into the demographic.
Anyhoo, since multiple Sonny and Cher karaoke duets are only tolerable with the assistance of alcohol, I’ve learned to wear pajamas as my costume. I buy a new set each Halloween when there’s a party, plus slippers, adjusting material and coverage to suit the weather, and including a bathrobe that can be worn or stored as necessary. Then I just crash out on the couch or in the spare room if unoccupied until I’m sober enough to drive home the next day. It works out brilliantly.
This Halloween, it’s devil horns only (well, and CLOTHES, of course!), and I’m a little sad because we’re being deserted by our own kiddo, who is joining friends in a neighborhood that is judged more likely to yield quality candy. Le sigh.
What are you up to for Halloween?
*Edited slightly to decrease unintentional salaciousness.
JCJ
Oh Betty! I remember several years ago when my daughter fired me as her trick-or-treat companion in favor of a bunch of friends to go explore a new neighborhood. The heartbreak.
HinTN
Devil horns only, no PJs. Scary!!!
Corner Stone
Must….resist…easy…joke…MMMMPPHHH
Corner Stone
Personally, I am eager to see more cartoon sketches done by your dumbest chicken.
Comrade Mary
Betty, you have convinced me to wear my weird head thingie tonight. Thanks!
Popcorn. Lots and lots of popcorn.
Violet
Trying to stay dry and out of floodwaters. I think the worst of the rain should be over by trick-or-treating time but it’s a mess right now.
hartly
I’m curious, is your kiddo into old-school Dr. Who as well as new? If not please show her the old 1963-89 series. I’m desperate to get the nuWho fans into what I consider to be the superior series (especially mid 70s) and while I’ve had some very teensy success in my own social circle I can use all the help I can get.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
I’m going as a Republican. No candy because that would build free-candy-dependency in our impressionable youth.
scuffletuffle
Dinner and a movie out…return home once all the tp has been tossed and the eggs thrown. Sleep soundly and survey the damage in the morning.
Never been my holiday.
Mnemosyne
The majority of our office dresses up every year since Halloween is a VERY BIG DEAL at the Giant Evil Corporation. One of the duties of the CEO is to judge the costume contest, and I think there has only been one occasion where the current poo-bah missed it. Before that, I would basically do what Betty does — put on some black cat ears with street clothes and go about my day.
ETA: Tonight, I’m going to my colleague’s annual Halloween party, where we will feast on eyeballs and spaghetti before alternating between supervising the little trick-or-treaters on their rounds and handing out candy at the house. I haven’t done it in a few years since I have no rugrats of my own and Halloween keeps falling on weeknights, so I’m looking forward to it.
beltane
It’s cold, raining, and windy out and my 8 year old is recovering from a bout with pneumonia. No trick-or-treating for us this year.
schrodinger's cat
Halloween Kitteh is here to issue a warning!
My friends from Rochester are driving up here tomorrow and I am trying to make a list of the tons of things to do before now and tomorrow and for Diwali this weekend. I also has a cold and there is no sun.
Mnemosyne
Also, a Cracked list perfect for the Balloon-Juice Debate Society:
8 Racist Halloween Costumes People Apparently Still Wear
And, yes, these are commercial costumes available for purchase, not shit people came up with in their wacky little heads.
PaulW
I’m Batman.
CarolDuhart2
@beltane: Popcorn with seasoning is pretty good, and when I was a kid, soft chocolate was to die for.
This is also a good day to check out my site (trying to finish it up, honest!) and read some of my stuff. Click my name, and if you are so inclined, I could use some donations (pumpkin cookies)
raven
Our neighborhood has become a “go to” destination for kids but we live on a bit of a side street that has no sidewalks so we don’t get much action. We’ll saddle up the pups and walk around and see our friends kids and try to get over our shitty addition news from this morning.
HinTN
No trick-or-treaters come out into our sparsely populated (read candy wasteland) rural area so we’ll be watching pre-recorded episodes of The Blacklist.
Hill Dweller
Senate Republicans just filibustered Patricia Millett(DC Circuit) and Mel Watt(FHFA).
burnspbesq
Hoping for some photo’s of the kid’s getup. There are costume-design majors on his floor in the dorm, so the range of possibilities is pretty terrifying.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
Maybe I was a weird kid, but I did kind of enjoy handing out candy after I got back from my own trick-or-treating. If s/he is well enough to do that, or even well enough to lay on the couch watching you do it, it should help the feeling of But I’m missing Halloween! a little bit.
burnspbesq
@Hill Dweller:
Well, that’s what Obummer gets for trying to
carry out his Constitutional responsibilitiespack the courts.Linda Featheringill
@beltane:
I understand you concern about the kiddo but maybe just at the neighbors for just a few minutes?
ranchandsyrup
I have recycled the banana costume for the past 6 or so years. Makes for funny trips to the store when we run out of candy. I’ll go hang out by the banana section for a while and beg people not to eat my brethren. Some years back we got together about 30 banana costumes and did a banana bar crawl where everyone gussied up their costume. We had bedazzled banana, cowboy banana, Desperately Seeking Susan banana, schoolgirl banana, Flavor Flav banana, etc. Going to reprise that one sometime soon because it was tons of fun.
The girls are matching cinderellas tonight. One of their favorite uncles is in town to do the trick or treating with them and everyone is excited.
Mary G
The people in the block above ours go insane – they’ve been decorating and turning ordinary yards into haunted houses complete with corpses popping out of coffins for weeks now.
One lady who has a New-England style house with a widow walk has been turning it into a pirate ship more elaborately every year. She has a set of cannons that stick out of the second floor. This year she has added a blood-soaked, tattered sail.
Kids are trucked in from miles around. The police come to direct traffic.
We last gave out candy maybe six years ago – my mom bought 1,200 Tootsie rolls and handed them out one or two at a time, running out of candy in 45 minutes. Now I lower the blackout shades in my bedroom and hide until it’s over.
the Conster
Sitting in the Houston airport wearing my Red Sox hat (suck it wingnuts) on the way to LA for a gala. The gate attendant at Logan was Tippi Hedren at the end of The Birds. Best.costume.ever.
Betty Cracker
@hartly: She’s seen it all and likes it all but thinks the newer stuff is better. Pffft. Kids.
Elizabelle
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
Love it. Be sure to bleat about the Obamacare website’s failings (real and imagined) too. Don’t rest on just having voted to repeal it — what, 36 times?
@CarolDuhart2:
RE popcorn: fresh popcorn and Milk Duds. Lovely together.
Just handing out candy. Haven’t gotten as far as thinking about costume.
Hill Dweller
@burnspbesq: They’re also threatening to filibuster Yellen for Fed Chair and Johnson for Homeland Security.
I think Harry Reid is going to break out the nuclear option.
Elizabelle
Good recent article on Stephen King from The Guardian.
He’s written a sequel to The Shining, titled Dr. Sleep, from the son’s viewpoint.
Kudos to Handsmile for link to the Guardian. They have all manner of The Shining articles there.
AND: might go see “The Wicker Man” (60s version; not Nicolas Cage ?? rehash) in a theatre late tonight. Hear it’s spooky.
Violet
@beltane: Agree with Linda. Maybe just a quick trip to a few select neighbors who could be primed to hand out a ton of candy so the haul is decent. My former neighbor did that with her son when he was sick and we loaded him up with candy.
hartly
@Betty Cracker: Well, to each their own. Though I must say it sticks in my craw how little interest there was in the show here in the US when I was growing up. Every time I step into a store and see Dr Who merchandise for sale (more and more it seems every day) it really sticks a dagger in my heart. I mean Dr. Who action figures? Where were these when I was a kid?
But I suppose I shouldn’t take it out on the kids…
MomSense
Going to dash from work to watch my son walk in the Halloween parade and then go home to hand out candy while the older boys take their brother trick or treating. Will bake some pumpkin seeds and make hot cider when they come home.
Elizabelle
@Hill Dweller:
I’m ready to go with stones, rotten vegetables, and bricks myself.
Although: Please proceed, Republicans. Have been canvassing for Terry McAuliffe (Virginia governor’s race) and people keep telling me they wish they could vote out Congress too this year.
Omnes Omnibus
The last four buildings I have lived in have been multiple unit buildings and no one has ever trick or treated at any of them. I buy candy the first year I live in the place because I don’t want to disappoint anyone who does come. I then have candy that I don’t want; I do buy candy that I like, but still.
I think my costume for tonight will be “guy lounging around his apartment.”
bemused
@Violet:
Was it you that talked about your knitted monster Halloween costume? I knit and I am very curious to see it. Do you have a pic you’d care to share?
Fuzzy
The best costume I ever saw a photo of was four guys and their horses dressed as the apocalypse. The judges came outside the bar in San Francisco and handed them the 5K check. It was no contest.
Rosalita
I’ll be laying low with the lights off. As a condo-dweller, there is the problem of trucked-in little snowflakes from other parts of town. My living room is upstairs from the front door. I don’t need that kind of workout.
Mnemosyne
@the Conster:
I’m still bitter because in 2008, one of my co-workers lost the grand prize in the costume contest to someone wearing a Tippi Hedren “Birds” costume. He was a Robocall, which we all thought was much more clever.
mdblanche
Gomez and Tish’s little girl, all grown up.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
The original Wicker Man is very good, and very tricksy. One of Christopher Lee’s best roles, and it even allows him to show off his opera training a bit.
Matt McIrvin
Our town does trick-or-treat the Saturday before. This year, we had more kids come by than I expected and I actually had to do the emergency run to the drug store to get more candy (inevitably ending in a surplus).
But my daughter is, as usual, getting a second crack at it by trick-or-treating with her grandmother’s wife’s grandnephew in his town, which celebrates on Halloween night. Last weekend we had a pumpkin-carving party over there, and my daughter romped around in the yard and twisted her ankle; it was an eventful weekend. Fortunately she already seems to have healed.
mclaren
I suggest you go out on Hallowe’en as a Democrat who supports genuinely progressive policies. Since they don’t exist, the big advantage of this costume is that you can stay in for the night.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I dressed up today as “middle-aged white guy who works in an office.”
Violet
@bemused: No that wasn’t me. Sounds great though!
Yatsuno
@hartly: FWIW I think Sylvester McCoy was fecking brilliant and Ace ruled. I do, however, cause hurt feelings because I can’t stand Colin Baker. I’ve enjoyed every other Doctor old and new but him. I can even tolerate the movie moatly because of Paul McGann.
Butch
Carrying a box of Cheerios and a plastic knife, so I’m a cereal killer. Actually, oddly we live in a rural area with a big Seventh Day Adventist population, and they pointedly don’t celebrate Halloween, so if trick-or-treaters are welcome at your house you have to leave an outside light on.
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
I think it was PurpleGirl who had the yarn monster costume, and I, too, want to see pictures of that costume. My last knitting-related costume was in 2007, when I went as a tricoteuse (one of the women who would sit under the guillotines during the Terror and knit while the aristos had their heads lopped off by Madam Guillotine).
Hawes
Why would you decrease the salaciousness? That hardly seems fair.
I’m doing Walter White because I’m balding and have a goatee. Only to get to work and find an even balder goateeier (skinnier) co-worker actually bought the damned Heisenberg Hat.
THANKS, OBAMA!
Domino
I’m 23 and who is Sunny and Cher?
burnspbesq
@Hill Dweller:
‘Bout god-damn time.
JPL
@Hill Dweller: I think Harry Reid is going to break out the nuclear option.
April fools!
Hungry Joe
One year (I remember I was in a Popeye costume) people kept asking me if I was collecting for UNICEF. I didn’t know what that meant, but I’d nod, and people would drop some change into my bag. The next day I found out about UNICEF but I was too ashamed to admit that I’d gotten ALL THAT MONEY (couple of bucks) under false pretenses … so I kept it. Many years later I saw a UNICEF collection can and gleefully dropped in all my change, and crammed in a few ones as well. Walked away with a clean conscience at last.
fuddmain
I’ll be taking the kids out and will be meeting up with my son’s friend. Kid’s dad works for Rubio. Nice guy actually. We’ve never discussed politics.
Last year this kid went as Mitt Romney. It was pretty funny, because every time he came back from a house with less candy than the other kids he would say, “Yep. They’re Democrats.”
Comrade Mary
@Elizabelle: There’s a neat interview with both Kings on CBC’s Q that’s worth checking out.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I’m currently reading Dr. Sleep. Not loving it so far. I like Stephen King so much as a person that I forget I really don’t care for his fiction all that much until I start another book. D’oh! And when I say I like him as a person, I don’t mean to imply that I know him; I don’t. But he spoke at an anti-TeaTurd event here in FL a couple of years back, and I admired that (he winters in Sarasota), and I like his non-fiction. He’s not at all pretentious about his work, which I believe he accurately called the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries. I like that about him too.
Chyron HR
@mclaren:
I’m dressing as a True Progressive tonight. I’ll explain to each kid who comes to my apartment that it would be “selling out” to just give them tiny candy bars, and that they should be happy to wait until next year when I might have full-sized ones.
Butch
@fuddmain: Was kind of my costume last year – a bottle of Bacardi taped to each leg and a baseball glove, so I was Mitt Rum Knee.
Origuy
@mdblanche: That is awesome! Now I’m going to have to watch all of the episodes!
I usually wear my kilt or my Ren Faire garb if I need a costume. I put on a eye mask that matches for as long as I can stand it. My rule for a costume is that I have to be able to eat and sit in it.
Rosalita
@Domino:
Get off my lawn!!
ranchandsyrup
Went as Dick Cheney in hunting garb in 2006. At the end of the night, a couple of very upset patrons in the bar broke my toy gun and gave me a drunken talking to about disrespecting Cheney. Good times.
Betty Cracker
@Chyron HR: Well played.
Hill Dweller
@JPL: Republicans didn’t even pretend to have a problem with Patricia Millett. They just don’t want Obama putting a judge on the DC Circuit.
If the Twitter machine is right, Mell Watt is the first nominee from congress to be filibustered in 170 years.
They’re also threatening to filibuster Yellen and Johnson.
Reid doesn’t have a choice at this point.
fuddmain
@Butch: Love it! I’ll be dressed as I always am: generic fat guy.
raven
@Domino: The say you’re young and you don’t know, won’t find out until you’ve grown. . .
bemused
@Violet:
Now I remember, it was Purple Girl. Maybe she will check in and give us a peek at her creation.
The Sailor
I’m not sure if this shows up here, it’s a public FB pic of the one of the best pumkin carvings evah!
My Uni town cancelled Trick or Treating for tonight and rescheduled for tomorrow night. Something to do with thunderstorms and tornadoes.
cckids
@hartly: It should help that Netflix just recently put the older stuff up for streaming; it had only been available on DVD’s. When my daughter gets home for winter break, we are gonna binge it.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Clever idea! That oddly reminds me of a video I need to look for. It was an animation of a knitter knitting a scarf dangling over a cliff growing longer and more heavy as she knits. I think it was made in Finland and the title was “The Last Knit” or something like that.
mdblanche
@Hill Dweller: If t’were to be done, t’were best done quickly. Just call in the Senate parliamentarian or whoever you’re supposed to call one day and have the vote with as little prior warning as possible. Don’t give the Republicans a chance to bitch and moan to their Village friends or the Democrats nostalgic for the good old days to lose their nerve about doing something so uncivil.
The Sailor
@raven:
Ah, Zombie Bono. Quite an improvement. Cher would make a great Morticia, if she wasn’t already embalmed. (Cher, not Morticia. Morticia will live forever. {snap snap}
eemom
@Betty Cracker:
If you haven’t already, you might want to check out his old stuff which is actually pretty good: Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Firestarter, the book of short stories with the eyeballs on the cover….
eta: I see now you’re talking about the sequel to The Shining.
cckids
@Butch:
Do they not like strangers showing up at their doors unexpectedly?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
Hey! So’m I!
So, my CSA, in its wisdom, is attempting to expand my boundaries again, by including chestnuts in their bounty. Two hours and multiple singed fingers later, I have a little over a cup of peeled chestnuts to try this for Hallowe’en dinner.
As much work as the little buggers were to prep, they had better be amazing.
Elizabelle
@Comrade Mary:
Thank you. Bookmarked it.
@Betty Cracker: Interesting. I guess S King can be uneven.
I’ve never read any of his novels all the way through — so long! — but I devoured “Different Seasons”, book with 4 novellas, 3 of which made it to film. (The Body was filmed as Stand By Me; also The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil.)
Tried to get through Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption in one sitting; could not put it down. Slept a few hours, then back to reading. Fabulous read.
Maybe his publishers like long books, where his storytelling art flourishes where he has to restrain himself?
Anyway, will attempt both The Shining and Dr. Sleep soon.
Butch
@cckids: No, their religion forbids them from celebrating it. I don’t know why.
Elizabelle
Thinking on how Patricia Cornwell’s first books were very good, and then she inked an incredibly lucrative contract and the subsequent books declined, one after the other.
I think it’s about the time the character Lucy became prominent; the books descended into nonsense.
Really abuse of the reader, and more a look at Cornwell’s psyche and interests than coherent procedural novels.
They seem to be unreadable now.
piratedan
@Elizabelle: actually his best works (imho) are The Dead Zone and The Stand (the edited version, which is still a very healthy tome) and IT scared me so bad I sat up all night and read the damn thing because I was too scared to sleep (I was a bit younger then).
hartly
@Yatsuno: There’s very little point in talking Dr. Who unless you’re prepared to hurt feelings and have them hurt in turn. Trust me, as one of the few Tennant haters out there I’m sure I’ve hurt at least as many feelings as you have.
Betty Cracker
@eemom: I remember his old stuff being so much better than the current book I’m reading (Dr. Sleep), but it’s been 20 years since I read Salem’s Lot, The Stand, etc., and it’s possible I’m becoming more of a book snob as I get older. I don’t think so — I’ll read practically anything. Well, except romance novels — unless there’s absolutely nothing else to read, including oatmeal tins and mattress safety warning tags. And Proust. Goddamn, I fucking hate fucking Proust!
geg6
When I saw the post title, I thought “Thank FSM, Betty absolutely detests everything about Halloween just like I do!”
Apparently not.
I will be holing up in the dark until 8pm, hoping no kids are stupid enough to knock on my door. I don’t buy candy. I am not charmed by your bratty kids with no manners nor with your unaccompanied teenagers who look like they need to shave more often than my John and whose costumes, they tell me, are hobo costumes but look like standard high school slacker wear. I don’t believe in ghosts or zombies or vampires or werewolves. I’m not afraid of the dark. I believe in nothing supernatural. I don’t wear costumes because I am not a stage actress. I don’t find most other people’s costumes humorous or cute or sexy. I think the adults who makes such asses out of themselves on this day are even more ridiculous and idiotic than the kids, who don’t yet know better and who have been coerced by the adults in their lives into participating in this stupid masquerade. I especially detest people who dress their animals up in costumes. My dogs have a dignity that I refuse to disrespect by making them look like idiots.
Can you tell that Halloween is my most hated “holiday”? Ugh, just get it over with so I don’t have to see any more crappy looking Halloween recipes, poor abused animals dressed up as squirrels, or “sexy” costumes on my FB news feed.
hartly
@cckids: Good for you! Todays kids need to learn some respect for the old show.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker: I thought Salem’s Lot was good (it really creeped me our reading it at night alone) but the rest, not so much.
Elizabelle
@piratedan:
Ah, thank you. I think someone said “Cujo” was good too.
I’ve never read any HP Lovecraft either. So behind on my pop culture forays.
eemom
@geg6:
Not even gonna get you started on Christmas…. : )
hartly
@Elizabelle: Lovecraft’s great if you can stand the bombastic prose. He comes up with wonderful scenarios and his monsters, when we see them, are brilliantly described. But if you hate seeing words like “eldritch” and “daemoniac” thrown around gratuitously you might find him a bit trying.
cckids
@hartly: Yeah, I came to Doctor Who late in life, we just started streaming the later ones last year & made it through doctors 9, 10 & 11, and we both love it. I can’t wait to see the earlier ones.
eemom
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I read the old ones even longer ago (being’s as I’m Teh Old meself) but I do think there’s a real difference in quality between those and what he’s churned out in the last 20 years or so, which every time I’ve looked at any of it has been total crap.
Maybe he tried harder back then.
Geoduck
If anyone’s a Lovecraft fan, be sure and check out the film version of Call of Cthulhu, which was made by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and done in the style of a 1920’s silent film.
As for my standard costume, I have an all-black outfit which comes with the glow-in-the-dark logo “This invisible man costume is defective.”
geg6
@eemom:
I actually don’t mind Christmas. Probably because our winter solstice celebration is quite restrained in my family. No small children and no religious on either side, so it’s just a nice family day.
Ash Can
Halloween in our neighborhood is a blast. We’re a little bit off the (really) beaten path on our street, so we put a bowl of candy out for the spooks who do come by, and we go over to a neighbor’s place for Halloween open house. Most of the kids in our group are old enough to go trick-or-treating by themselves, so we grownups just hang out and drink beer and grill burgers. The kids get fed as they breeze in and out (“Have you eaten anything besides candy yet? No? Then wait. Don’t go back out until you have a sandwich.”), and a good time is had by all.
It was fun to go with the kids when they were younger, to be sure, but it was like getting dragged by a pickup truck. We parents would barely begin to say hello to the person handing out candy at one house, and the kids had already finished at the next house and were headed for the one after that at top speed. And off we’d run to catch up to them, with the wagon holding the cooler full of beer in tow. The amount of energy put out by a gaggle of 7-year-olds smacked up on sugar is a real force of nature.
Ash Can
@Yatsuno:
Why does that hurt feelings? I understand Colin Baker was the least-liked Doctor of all.
Elizabelle
@hartly:
Oh boy.
I just recently figured out what all the “Tardis” references were about.
Redshirt
@eemom: King’s van accident is often noted as the notable change in his fiction. I, on the other hand, and from personal knowledge, think it has more to do when he stopped drinking/doing drugs.
He was so blasted during his early career he claims to have no memory of writing Cujo, for example.
hartly
@Ash Can: Even the least popular Doctor has more fans than you’d expect. For one thing he’s made a lot of new fans from the Big Finish audios. And, hard as it is to believe with all the negative press between now and back then, his first season actually did pretty respectably in the UK ratings and even – by the standards of the original series – in audience appreciation ratings. I actually have written examples of fans praising his performance DURING his much maligned tenure on the show. (I wonder if these might be worth anything, due to their rarity?)
Personally, I loved him in Vengeance on Varos and thought him basically decent in most of his other stories, but he’s far from my favorite Doctor.
Redshirt
I’d be so freaked out if I got a trick or treater. They’d be in great danger as well, from the various defense systems.
Elizabelle
Mother Jones gets in on the inappropriate costumes schtick.
I never heard of a hackers and hookers party.
hartly
@Ash Can: Another thought on this, if you’re not yet bored of the topic. I’ve often been amazed by just how upset people get over hearing their favorite TV shows and characters criticized. It seems trivial, but I think a lot of people take it as a personal criticism, and if you’re a fan of the least popular Doctor, the constant criticism of him (and by extension yourself) must be like constantly getting a sore picked open.
I feel a little for the C. Baker fans partially because I know they must feel singled out for (in their eyes) personal abuse, and partially because I think the crumminess of both him and his era have been exaggerated. For the record, my favorite Doctor is Tom Baker so I don’t have too much to worry about, but my close second favorite is Jon Pertwee, and I confess that despite my best efforts I often do feel my hackles rise a little when people criticize his Doctor for not being complex or mysterious enough.
Shana
I’m not sure if this link will work, I’m barely computer-literate. In case it doesn’t work, search for University of Pennsylvania Law School’s pumpkins.
Elizabelle
Bringing Betty’s comment about dressing for a Pest Control Float forward; it was on the Hyperbole early morning thread.
Laughed at this one, because it does capture the sisters dynamic. Your own stuff is that much sweeter if your sister got shafted with hers. Check.
PurpleGirl
I’m scheduled to hand out treats in my building lobby later this afternoon. I’m wearing the Yarn Monster tunic I made years ago. Should be fun, when I wear it answering my apartment door the kids and teens like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: Pics or it didn’t happen.
MomSense
@beltane:
My little guy just bagged on it as well. Cold and rainy and he has a cold. He wants to know if we can watch movies and eat candy at home.
PurpleGirl
We get signs (trick or treat here and not this year) from the building reps to hang on our doors so the kids know where to knock or leave alone.
Betty Cracker
@PurpleGirl: Is vandalism no longer a thing? Or maybe you live in a more civilized place. Where I come from, you either hand out candy, or you suffer the consequences.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Or you make it very clear that you are not home.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Not dressing up. Just handing out candy. It’s cold and wet here, so traffic should be a little light. Unfortunately Lo bought a shit-ton of candy. I have managed to avoid eating any so far.
Mo is having some sort of rowdy gathering in the garage (probably a pre-func) then they’re getting chipotle, then trick or treating, then going over to a friend’s house.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Too true. I might have to do a cartoon of that float ride one day. My sister’s roach costume even had fake roach arms that moved with her real arms when she threw the candy. Poor kid.
Ash Can
@hartly: I remember sentiments like those from my involvement with a couple of different fandoms back in the day. I could certainly understand the attachment to/identification with/protectiveness toward certain characters, but there were times the arguments got a little too intense. :)
flukebucket
Republicans. Always a barrel of laughs……
The committee behind the Chisago County Republican Party Facebook page issued an apology Thursday morning, a day after its page posted a picture depicting a slave auction.
Posted Wednesday, the wood carving-style picture showed a slave auction with “PRO CHOICE” written underneath — under that, the phrases “Against slavery? Don’t buy one.”
Omnes Omnibus
@flukebucket: Humor can be a very effective political tool. If it is funny.
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
I’m making a magnet for my new car using a piece of fan art (properly licensed from the original artist, thank you!) and a quote from the show. I’m fully expecting to run into some asshat who is OUTRAGED because the cartoon is of the 10th Doctor but the quote is from an 11th Doctor episode.
To which my reply will be, “Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. And bite me.”
Ash Can
@Mnemosyne: It seems to me that both the 10th and 11th doctors used that “timey-wimey” term. If they could both say that, they could feasibly both say other things too. ;)
A Humble Lurker
@geg6:
Isn’t this the the animal that eats it’s own…eh….leavings?
moderateindy
@geg6: You sound like a fairly miserable misanthrope, with no sense of whimsy or imagination. How sad that such a fun Holiday illicits such an odious reaction. Between that and your response about Xmas you seem like someone that would be about as enjoyable to be around as a bad case of Shingles.
Betty Cracker: not dressing up to give out candy is perfectly reasonable, but Pajamas are not a costume. In fact it shows a great bit of disrespect that you put so little effort, thought, or imagination, into your attire for a costume party. It basically is like saying, fine, I’ll come, and eat your food, and drink your booze, but don’t actually expect me to waste any of my time adding to the ambiance of the party. LAME
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@Elizabelle:
Sumer is Icomen in, loud sing cuckoo.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@hartly:
Lovecraft’s one of the greatest writers who was not a very good writer (in terms of prose style).
However, it’s hard to remember how radical Lovecraft’s ideas were. He started writing the Cthulhu cycle stories in 1925, one year after Hubble published that those some of those fuzzy nebulae in the sky were other galaxies, which radically reduced our view of our importance in the Cosmos. To write stories of a cosmology at best indifferent and at worst hostile to humanity was a new, new thing.