Happy Halloween everyone!

This was the first Halloween that I can remember where it rained (not much, though). I also got to pass out candy for the first time in four years. There weren’t a whole lot of trick-or-treaters, although apparently my grandparents got a lot. The big costumes for the year seemed to be Renaissance princess, Star Wars characters, Batman, and Spiderman. Right now I’m watching “Garfield’s Halloween Adventure,” which I’m trying to make a tradition since I first downloaded it two years ago (and thus was able to see it for the first time since I was six).

But let’s backtrack a bit. I’ve seen a couple movies in the last few weeks, so I’ll talk about them. About two weeks ago, my parents and I saw Wallace and Gromit. My parents have been huge fans of the duo for over five years, and I’ve enjoyed it as well. It’s a very funny movie, though I’d recommend you watch the original three shorts before seeing it. You’ll enjoy it a lot more, because there’s a good deal of inside jokes that you would otherwise miss, plus you’ll “know” the background of the characters better.

On Friday I saw The Legend of Zorro with Stephanie. You know me, I like swordfights (While Zorro is not my favorite franchise, I adapted swordfights from The Mark of Zorro and The Mask of Zorro-as well as The Princess Bride-for use in my senior project). I had read that the franchise had essentially become Spy Kids (since it’s rated PG, whereas the last movie was PG-13), suggesting that they had “ruined” it by trying to make it “family friendly.” I’ve never seen Spy Kids, but I wouldn’t say it’s that bad (for instance, the kid does not become annoyingly precocious; he’s precocious, but it doesn’t go too far, as often happens in these sequels that feature kids). Catherine Zeta-Jones still only has one swordfight, but at least she wins this time. It’s definitely a campfest, but it’s a good kind of camp. Granted, it’s got its share of stuff that doesn’t work (like trying to make Zorro’s horse into an actual character), but, as our local movie reviewer said, it’s sufficient enough to tide us over until Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest comes next July.

As sparse as the summer movie selection was (Speaking of which, Revenge of the Sith comes out on DVD tomorrow!!!), there are a good number of movies I’m interested in seeing in the next two months. The four big ones would be Harry Potter, Rent, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Producers.

Well, that is all for now. Enjoy your candy everyone!

Just a quick note.

I've finished two more drawings and I have put them up on my DeviantArt site. Go check them out, and let me know what you think.

            Bored, once again. I’ve gotten a second job at the Anderson’s (a store kind of like Meijer or Wal-Mart but with more of an emphasis on hardware) as a cashier, and I start next week. It looks to be a 20-hour work week plus I’ll get more hours at Bath and Body Works as we get closer to Christmas, so my life seems to be getting a lot busier, but not necessarily more interesting (Seriously, how interesting can standing at a cash register for six hours be?).

            I had kind of an odd dream the other night. I was with Laura on some really loopy highway (in a convertible, no less), and she kept talking about how she desperately wanted a baby (NOTE: In real life, as far as I know, Laura does NOT desperately want a baby. That would be Susannah who desperately wants a baby). I think I had the dream because there are two people at work who are pregnant. One just became pregnant and hasn’t started to show yet. The other (the store manager, in fact) is VERY pregnant, and the joke is that she’s going to work right up to the minute she goes into labor (in reality, she’s going on maternity leave next week and won’t return until after my “seasonal employment” is over). Last night I had a dream about a partial solar eclipse. I looked up “eclipse” in an online dream dictionary and it says that in the case of a solar eclipse that I should guard against enjoying life too much. Life’s so boring right now I don’t think I need to worry about that.

            I finished off another story. This one is only 30 pages, as opposed to the 180 like the last one. I am willing to share the 30-page story, although I warn that it’s based off a dream I had years ago and the premise is so excruciatingly implausible that it’s cheesy just because of that. According to my entry of the dream in my dream journal, I had the dream in the first place because Chris was talking about James Bond too much and I had watched The Sting the night before, so you do the math. Except it’s not with a professional spy or professional con artists. It’s with a theater student and a computer hacker. Um, yeah.

            I better go to bed now. I need to go to the library tomorrow, plus I want to buy sherbet and maybe stop at Rally’s. Talk to you later.

Today was rather dull. My mom wanted me to go over to my old high school to watch the 8^th grade visitation pep rally, so I stopped by there. In case you didn’t know, I went to a Catholic high school, and every year they have the 8^th graders from all the Catholic elementary schools in the region visit all the Catholic high schools (there are six: 2 boys schools, 2 girls academies, and 2 co-ed schools), and after they’re taken on tours throughout the building, we would throw a recruitment pep rally for them. When I was in high school, the pep rallies evolved from downright lame to actually pretty decent for a high school as small as ours. Or at least, I thought so at the time. Now they just seem cheesy, but what can you do?

            Anyways, this year’s theme was “Be a Hero,” so the school was decorated with cardboard cutouts of Spiderman, soldiers, football players, etc, all with speech bubbles saying cheesy things about the school. The actual pep rally started with all the seniors dancing to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero,” led by Ms. J, the cheerleading coach (she’s also one of the social studies teachers). At the end of the song, Father Dave (the priest at the school, who replaced Father Stites just last year, so I don’t know him that well) came roaring into the gym on his motorcycle with the cardinal (the mascot) riding on the back. I’ll admit the motorcycle was cool (but I like those kinds of motorcycles), and it’s an amusing notion that there’s a priest who likes riding them. After Father Dave gave his spiel and rode off, the “Superladies” of the senior class came back out and danced to the “Cardinal Step,” which was really the song “1-2 Step” but all the students yelling “Cardinal Step!” so that the line “1-2 Step” would be drowned out. There was the Christina Aguilera song “Come on Over” mixed in as well. Then the senior boys had their turn, dancing to “Men in Black” (which made little sense, since they were all wearing white shirts and only two of them had suits on) mixed in with some boy band song that I didn’t recognize. After that the cheerleaders did a routine, and then all the seniors came back onto the gym floor to dance to “Kung Fu Fighting” (the version that’s in DDR). The cardinal tried to get one of the eighth graders to dance with him, but she got lost real fast so it mostly looked like he was trying to molest her. Then Ms. J pulled a bunch of eighth graders and alums (not me) out of the stands and everyone danced to “Everlasting Love,” followed by the final song, “Fame.” All in all, cheesy, but it’s better than the Austin Powers theme they had a couple years ago.

            Anyways, after that I left to go over to work to pick up my schedule. I stopped by Elder Beerman’s on my way out and talked to Laura for a bit. We’re going to some club tomorrow night to see her friend’s band play, so maybe tomorrow will be more interesting than today was.