Wicked-Fun Halloween Weekend!!!

...AND was actually a weekend for me!!! YAY!

So it starts off with Family Dinner: Chicken-Fried Steak w/scrambled eggs and biscuits & gravy and hash browns!!!

FANTASTIC start to both the day and the weekend!

Brian had spent Friday and Saturday at Tommy's because KELLY WAS IN TOWN!!! And he was gonna spend the rest of his vacation at our house!

After Family Dinner I finally got used to the controls for DESTROY ALL HUMANS! WHICH RULES!!! That was one of the first games I bought earlier this year for our PS2, and it was only just now that I was able to figure out the controls and really enjoy it! A lot of times the way Brian enjoys our PS2 is watching me play single-player games and helping me out when I hit a snag or a boss that's particularly vexing. That's what we were doing when Kelly arrived, and after our Hellos and hugs and stuff, we three continued doing that.

Only Brian and Kelly got in on the playing, too!

Brian is EXTREMELY creative when it comes to destroying a 1950s' suburb full of humans!!! I was horror-struck and amused -- and slightly glee-filled!

I also showed Kelly some of our other games, and he showed me his badass PSP! (I'm so very jealous.)

There was also wine and lots & LOTS of laughter.

Then Monday started off with more humanity destruction while Brian worked (poor dude)! Then when Brian had had a chance to destroy some humans we three went on a mission to scout locations for a movie Kelly hopes to direct here in Austin next year. We drove a lot, but got some GREAT pics and video for him to take back to L.A. with him. I also got to talk to my Baby Munts Munts on the phone while we were in transit!!! (Our schedules have been off lately, so any conversation with her is even more blessed than usual -- and that's PRETTY DARN BLESSED!!!)

While running around we got to talking about horror movies, and got onto the subject of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (the 1974 original) and then THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (the excellent 2003 remake/reinvention) and so we decided to wrap up the evening watching both. (Kelly hadn't seen the remake before, so it was all new to him!)

Then Tuesday -- ALL HALLOW'S EVE -- started with Brian working again (BOOOOO!!!) and me taking Kel to Texadelphia for a Texi Cheese Steak (I don't think that's what they call them, but I think the nomre is cute so I'm usin' it), which we took home while we watched a cool little 1981 made-for-TV movie called DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW -- just to make note ofwhat the filmmakers did on a small budget and how their storytelling could be improved upon and so forth. (Whenever we watch a movie we're enjoying it for what it is, to be sure, but we're always also evaluating what the writer/director/actors/etc. are trying to do and how it's coming off and how we might do it differently, if at all. Just kind of the way we roll.)

Brian arrived about halfway through the flick and joined us.

Then we killed some more humans.

Then around 5:00 pm we headed to Tommy's.

We got there around 7:00 pm.

I'm not kidding.

Okay, Tommy and his wife ALWAYS have to live OUTSIDE town. I don't know why this is -- it means that EVERYWHERE THEY GO is a commute. But for some reason, they simply CAN NOT live within city limits. So when Brian and/or I go to visit, it's a journey. It's a road trip. That's just the way Tommy prefers it.

HOWEVER... Starting around 5:00 pm on any given weekday is RUSH HOUR. ("Rush HOUR" being, of course, a deceptive misnomre.)

BUT... I happend to have 2 hours of spooky OTR shows on disc in the car, so we whiled away hour Halloween early evening in the car listening to these! (Great fun for me! And I don't think the guys hated it too much, either.)

When we finally got to Tommy's he and his wife were taking the li'l one Trick-or-Treat-ing, so we manned their door, doling out candy to the Darth Vaders and Supermans and witches and whatnot. Then when Mom & Dad & Cute Li'l Squirt got bak we got to enjoy the family aspect of Halloween! It was all so cute & sweet!!!

This trip was particularly cool for me, because this was the first time I had seen Tommy's new house!!! BIG!!! Pretty, too!!! (I want one! Like his!)

Then after the Family Fun, when Tommy put his daughter to bed, The Guys headed to the Alamo Drafthouse for some adult Halloween fun!!! A sneak preview of Scott Glosserman's BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON!!! And Glosserman was there to introduce the film and Q&A after it!

It's a quasi-mockumentary that takes place in a world where Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and all of your favorite supernatural serial killers are real, and Leslie Vernon is allowing a film crew to follow him as he prepares for his first big slaughter.

I was scared. I HATE when hacks who can't make a REAL horror movie make a "horror comedy"! usually the "horror comedy" means that the filmmakers aren't capable of pulling off either a good horror movie OR a good comedy. Not always the case, but USUALLY is. They just can't make a good flick, period.

NOT THE CASE WITH BEHIND THE MASK!!!

THIS MOVIE IS BRILLIANT!!! It was advertised on the Drafthouse's site as both hysterical and genuinely scary. I had my doubts, natch. SERIOUS ones. But the other guys liked the idea, and as a double-feature with the HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS it's a WELL FUN way to spend Halloween!!! THEN I SAW THE FLICK!!!


BEHIND THE MASK RULES!!!

If you're a fan of horror (particularly Slasher Flicks) and a fan of laughing DO SEE BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON later this year or next year, when it's released!!! You won't be disappointed and you will have SUCH a great time!

We didn't stay for HALLOWEEN 4, tho'. Everyone but me had to be up early in the morning, so we decided to give the second feature a miss.

BUT... As very pleasant little surprise, just before the theater let out for the intermission Kitty Kitty Bang Bang -- a burlesque act -- came out and dances to "Thriller"... concluding the show number by ripping off their shirts!!! So YAY! (They had electric-tape tassles, but still... Boobies! :D )

And before the show, there was a fun costume contest with some very cool (and some very bad, and one truly tasteless and unkind) costumes! That was fun. Three children entered -- inexplicably, as both the films were R-rated -- and all three just happened to win the Under Four Feet Tall catagory!

After Kitty Kitty Bang Bang the Drafthouse let out for intermission and we hit a bar down the street for a final drink before we all returned home, and to Real Life the next morning. "A quick drink" turned into a couple hours of stimulating conversation, and was a nice Good-Bye to this extraordinary vacation-without-going-anywhere (for all except Kelly).

My sleep schedule inverted itself while Kel was here, but then last night I went to bed a few hours earlier than I normal would do and ended up getting some 10 hours of sleep or something -- which I needed. Without incident or fuss my sleep schedule flipped itself, then flipped itself back! (In itself an amazing and magical incident.)

Oh, and when Kelly started playing DESTROY ALL HUMANS he saved his game seperately from the one Brian and I had saved, and he got FURTHER THAN BOTH OF US on the game! So next time we go wreaking havock on the 1950s we can choose to pick up from where we left off, or where Kel left off for us, lol.

But Real Life returned with a vengence when I woke up this afternoon. I got to see Gnomey, and for a bit is was wonderful and cool... But then she got news about both her grandparents not being well and other family drama, and she was worried and unable to get to sleep, despite the fact that she's working LOOOOOOONG days from now until next Thursday.

The Silver Lining -- and I'm a cat that can usually find it -- is that I got to be with her for longer than I have been able to for a month or so. And even spending time with her when she's hurting is better than not spending time with her. I hope I don't come off like a selfish bastard when I say that... It's not like I'm partying-down while she's sad or worried or whatever. I just mean that I'd rather hurt WITH her than not hurt without her. You know?

Anyway.

I've got half an hour before my shift is over (my "Monday") and then I'm off to see if she has any word for me about how things have progressed. She may not, though, because she goes to work early now, so she's likely already at work by the time I get there.

Actually, it's 11:29 am in England right now. So she's been at work for 3 1/2 hours. But she may have left me an offline message.

Still...

I had a GREAT Halloween this year! One for the books! And my baby told me she had one of the best times with her best friend that she's had in a long time! Whatever is going on now, whatever is up ahead, we both still have Halloween!

And then one day (maybe next year? dare I hope?) we will have Halloween TOGETHER!!!

:D