09/11/2004 Entry: "A random Halloween survey..."

X-E's 2004 Halloween Season is almost upon us, hooray. Been working around the clock to get it ready for launchage very, very soon. My only real concern was keeping the same level of spirit as last year's foray, while making it more manageable for this year's version of myself, who has about 1/10th the time to putz around as I did last year. All that said, I'm stoked with the progress. It's going to be a real test to keep the Halloween Countdown going strong everyday with everything else I got going; fortunately, I love doing this shit jussst enough to not balk and run repeats.

In fact, I've already done my part to scour the material world for virtually every Halloween thing I could find -- or at least, the stuff I didn't already write about last year. Sooo happy to see all the stores get down with their spooky selves this early in September. They haven't exactly gone balls out with the Dracula stuff yet, but there's more than enough to whet anyone's satanic whistle. Realizing that I've signed on to basically come up with some new Halloween topic for around 45 days straight, I may have spent a little too much dough on plastic werewolves and witch window clings. Got some neat stuff, tho.

Big thanks to the several readers who offered to send in videos and other Halloween goodies -- your help is most appreciated, even if I didn't happen to need what you had. I'm still on the lookout for more Halloween goodies, (most critically any kind of Halloween specials/tv episodes/commercials taped off television) so definitely shoot me an e-mail if you've got the goods, yo. Get ready to get sick of Halloween long before October rolls around, because we're getting pretty close to The Big Day.

In the sprit of all that jizz, a very general spooky survey: share some of your Halloween memories. Don't care what they have to do with -- costumes, parties, candy, movies, whatever. Oh, and if you're usually a lurker, don't be afraid to speak up. We aren't exactly elitist around these parts.

Chestnuts roasted by s0fa @ 09/11/2004 11:31 PM EST

True story; about two days before Halloween I was at home with a friend and we were playing Monopoly with my mother (I was like 11).

Anyways she started to talk about the cuckoo clock that had belonged to my grandfather hanging above the fire place to my friend, at which point I was going to be bored because I knew the story. Basically it quit working around the time he died and she wanted to keep it since he had loved it so much.

The unsettling thing this time was the fact that about two minutes after she finished talking about it, the damn thing starts to cuckoo over and over again. It would not stop; eventually she had to take the weights off of it. Over twenty years since he died, and it picked that exact moment to go off.

Chestnuts roasted by MrAsh @ 09/11/2004 11:34 PM EST

I dressed up as an agent from the Matrix last year. And one of my professor's asked me if I was an MIB. I was very insulted. I took the Blues Brothers comment much more in stride. Yes we dress up in the college psych department I'm a part of. I guess thats kinda scary in and of itself, huh?

Chestnuts roasted by Knegative @ 09/11/2004 11:34 PM EST

First thing that comes to my mind when I think of hellish Halloween memories is going two years in a row wearing the same black sweatsuit with a different mask. One year was Darth Vader except the mask was this shitty rubber one so my head was like deflated in the middle. The other year was a decently done costume of Venom from Spider-Man, felt tongue and teeth were icing on the poorly thought out cake.

Chestnuts roasted by billionsknivez @ 09/11/2004 11:35 PM EST

At my university last year, a girl's costume was being naked. OH YEAH!!!

Chestnuts roasted by SuperStar @ 09/11/2004 11:45 PM EST

oh great a cuckoo clock ghost story. Now how am I supposed to sleep?

Chestnuts roasted by dfgdfg @ 09/12/2004 12:05 AM EST

D'ye think anybody's friends were disappointed when they showed up for a haunting and all they got was a record full of footsteps and chain rattling? As for my Halloween memories, I'll never forget how I thought I was so clever by using Karo syrup instead of fake blood for my Carrie costume but ended up regretting it when after ten minutes I was a sweet, sticky mess.
Can't wait for the Halloween countdown, it brings back all the childhood excitement of anticipating the Big Day. I've already sacrificed a few pullets in the hopes of guarenteeing an appearance by everybody's favorite undead creature of the night.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 09/12/2004 12:11 AM EST

When I was 9 my friend told me on halloween morning that she was not going to trick or treating this year so I was suprised when she came to my house dressed in a fancy peach dress. And when I asked her what she was she didn't know. When we went trick or treating together all the neighbors said she was different things one said she was a movie star and another said she was a prom queen.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 09/12/2004 12:23 AM EST

When I was five, I attended a church Halloween party run by a bunch of volenteer teenagers. There was a giant "haunted house maze" made up cardboard boxes. You would crawl through it and run through fake cobwebs and stuff.

At the end, they would pour little cubs of water at you when you weren't looking and say it was blood. One of them decided to be a smart ass and started telling kids they were getting covered in the blood of Jesus. A few kids left crying.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 09/12/2004 12:26 AM EST

The Halloween I remember most was the great Halloween Blizzard of 1991. A couple of inches of snow wasn't going to stop me or my friends from getting that candy, at least not at first anyway.

Chestnuts roasted by Emperor_Zorak @ 09/12/2004 12:31 AM EST

One of the last times I trick or treated, Angelo D'Agastino and some friends sat on the roof of their house and threw candy down at us. Then they shot at us with BB guns. Hit Jimmy Morgan in the leg. I filled out an affadavit. It was fun.

Chestnuts roasted by Piscez @ 09/12/2004 12:32 AM EST

A few years ago I decided that I would scare a few kids, so I put one of my father old army uniforms and stuffed it with new paper and put on glove and a face mask and a hat, when I was sufficiently sure that I looked fake I went a sat next to my houses front stairs and put a candy bar in my hand, and when ever one those annoying high school that’s too old to trick or treat and won’t even take the time to get a decent costume I would grab there leg my god I've never seen kids jump so high, it was funny as hell.

Chestnuts roasted by Jonas @ 09/12/2004 12:33 AM EST

Halloween memories...

There was the time I was really little (like 5 or 6) when my mom took me trick-or-treating with a group of other kids, and we went to a house down the street, and the guy who lived there jerked open the door and lept out of the doorway wearing a bear costume. I cried. Bastard.

Then there was the year I dressed up as a vampire/vampire slayer (no, not BLADE... I just couldn't decide ). I sharpened stakes, got some fake garlic, made a leather bag for all my hunting equipment (okay, my mom did it), got a ruffled white shirt and cloth cape, powdered my face white, put in some fangs, and... sat by the door giving candy out. I was too old to trick-or-treat by then (I stole candy from my sisters and ate from our own stash), but the kids got a kick out of it. The wine glass full of blood-red water I sipped from as I sat in the open door frame was a crowd pleaser.

Uh, that's all I got...

I don't know... I love Halloween (sometimes more than Christmas), but it seems like the best of my Halloween memories were, upon further reflection, pheominal ideas I never actually executed.

This year, if I can pull it off in my spare time: Tony Montana, mang.

Chestnuts roasted by Night_Trekker @ 09/12/2004 01:17 AM EST

A few years back, my uncle was visiting for awhile, and happened to come by around Halloween. They were coming to the kitchen door under the carport, and my uncle was sitting at the table, glancing out every now and again. I was outside hiding in a trash can (Mm, scaring kids), when this little asian kid in a bunny suit came up the driveway. I wasn't going to scare such a little kid since he couldn't be older than three, but my uncle waited until the kid was right under the window, banged on it, pressed his face against it, and screamed bloody murder at the boy. He screamed, wet himself, and ran back up the driveway to his mom, who started cursing at us in Chinese or something.

Last year, I convinced a friend of my mother's to loan me her tazer. There's fewer things that are more amusing than leaping out from a bush, turning on a tazer, and screaming like a mad man at random kids. I dunno which scares them more.. the ominous hum, the crackling little beam of electricity, or me being a huge guy leaping out from a bush and screaming about chocolate.

Chestnuts roasted by John Dyne @ 09/12/2004 01:22 AM EST

I skipped Halloween the first year the Simpsons did their little fright night thing, I figured I was too old for it! Haha.. little did I know when I was in my 20's I would be even more into it than ever! Now can you guess what my favorite holiday is?

Chestnuts roasted by Cyanyde @ 09/12/2004 01:29 AM EST

I LOVE Halloween Season on XE.

Best Halloween memory was going as a ventriloquist dummy with my friend as the puppet master. I was scary as hell man... puppets frighten me. This year, I'm going as Luigi and I'm making the girlfriend go as Mario. She wasn't too happy to find out she was going to be an Italian plumber.

Chestnuts roasted by SgtGravy @ 09/12/2004 02:14 AM EST

I have alot of Halloween memories, but the best ones were going to the Haunted House a few towns over. It was/is such a big thing that if you didn't get there early, you were garaunteed to wait in line for about 2-3 hours, especially closer to The Big Day.

Most of it was a maze, and, I kid you not, it was SO PITCH BLACK in there you could not see your hand infront of your face, so you had to make a chain, and hold on to the person infront of you. If you made a wrong turn, everyone had to back up. Some of the passageways were so narrow you'd be squished, or I'm sure some people even have to turn sideways to get through.

There was a rumor that they had trapdoors at one point, but then had to close them off because people were getting hurt. o.O;

The last year that I went, they had 3 rooms. The one looked like a satanic church, with pews and an altar (with a coffin on it, of course) and coffins sitting upright around the edge of the room. Well, this old freaky guy started trying to bring the dead guy in the coffin to life, and once the "minions" from the other coffins were released, I was one of the lucky ones that got grabbed and pulled down into the floor! Seriously! They gave me a free pass for the next time I came, and took me around to a sidedoor to meet up with my friends as they exited the room. Was pretty cool.

The other room I remember had a Frankenstein kind of guy roaming around drooling blood all over us. Was fun, and sticky!

The exit was always fun, too - you got to slide down a spirally slide to get out.

Chestnuts roasted by Ryane @ 09/12/2004 02:15 AM EST

I've got no real interesting Halloween stories, and the whole holiday itself was kind of ruined for me in 1995 when I transferred to a private school and was told for the first time "Halloween is satanic and anyone who celebrates it is worshipping the devil." I thought, geez, someone's taking this a little TOO seriously....I blew them off, but it still lingers in the back of my mind. It's perfectly healthy and fun to have a good laugh at what scares you once in a while. But we all know, deep down, most people are all sick little SOBs, and what if they really DO think of it as "selling themselves to Satan"? AAAAAHHHH!!! It bothered me too much; I haven't been able to enjoy a Halloween since. CURSE THOSE FUNDIES...

Chestnuts roasted by Mars @ 09/12/2004 02:47 AM EST

Best memory was (and still is) reading XE on Halloween!

Chestnuts roasted by Dancer (who else?) @ 09/12/2004 03:00 AM EST

^ Wow man, that sucks.

Ah, X-E will finally be Halloween-y again! Ive been waiting for this for a while. As for Halloween memories, I have a few. One year, I dressed up as Chucky from Rugrats (don't ask), and I tripped and skinned my dam knee.

Another year I dressed up as as the blue martian from this halloween movie where these little aliens land in this town where some evil lady is trying to stop halloween and whatnot. Anyway, long story short, I couldn't see out of the mask/helmet it came with the whole night, so I had it off most of the time, lol.

Chestnuts roasted by Aaron @ 09/12/2004 03:04 AM EST

The Ween of 1990 I dressed up as Mario. Some kids tried to steal my bag of candy. One ripped my bag open and ran, I chased him for a few feet till I noticed another picking up the candy. I turned around and jumped on the guys back, wrapping my arms around his neck, choking him something fierce (WWF lessons I guess). An off duty cop, who was out with his son, had to pull me off of him! Don't mess with a fat kids candy!

From 7th grade until now (i'm 25) I still dress up and hand out candy. Some times I just walk among the kids. I've gone as Alex from Clockwork Orange, Leather Face, Oderous from Gwar http://www.vinniesantino.com/VSPhotosFamous/Gwar.jpg (not me or the costume, just a pic I found of him), Jay (to match my friends Silent Bob costume) and many others.

Chestnuts roasted by Rayzak (My site has Hostess Sushi!!) @ 09/12/2004 04:01 AM EST

Halloween!!!! I love this time of the year, Fall in paticular.

Chestnuts roasted by Caylor @ 09/12/2004 05:48 AM EST

i wass working at wendeys one Halloween, at we all whore our comsutmes to work, the mask i ha d on was like this demonish mask(vary scarey)and i was told to take it off becoues we where loseing customers, i guess no one wonts to see there burgers being made by a skeloten-demon thing

Chestnuts roasted by bri-guy @ 09/12/2004 08:54 AM EST

Ah, yes, Halloween, that magical night when your parents convince you to wear a crappy costume made out of a garbage bag because they're cheap. Anyway, my most amusing memory has to be the year my cousin and I went as a two-headed monster. Using a garbage bag (what else?) and some green face-paint, our mothers turned us into a reasonable approximation of a double-headed hellbeast. And they spent the rest of the night laughing their asses off. See, we were both about six years old, we each had one arm trapped inside the bag and one clutching our precious candy, and we were expected to walk in perfect sync. We had to have face-planted it off at least half a dozen porches. Good times. Good times.

Chestnuts roasted by Jedoc @ 09/12/2004 09:30 AM EST

I remember going house to house in my neighborhood wearing those cheap plastic masks of he-man or batman. I still remember the sound of my breathing echoing off the inside of the mask as I walked up to the door. We used pillow cases instead of pails or bags because they held so much more. By the end of the night my little brother's bag would be wet from dragging on the ground. There were always three kinds of houses we went up to: they would give away good candy (reeses, snickers, etc.), old lady crap (apples, anything home made), and weird stuff (one guy gave out comic books with the front cover ripped off, probably returns to the printer. The comic was about mankind being wiped out except for the bad guy and the hero's woman and he tried to make it with her. Kind of depressing.) I still remember throwing those apples down the street and watching them break apart.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr King @ 09/12/2004 10:26 AM EST

I went as Marv Albert one year, bad wig, bloody mouth, running around half naked, apparently the weirder(deviant?) your costume, the more chicks like it...

Chestnuts roasted by whitemale_98/competent soldier @ 09/12/2004 11:07 AM EST

I was a big fat felt pumpkin every single year for 8 years. And I have absolutly no funny stories to share about it either.

You gotta love the crazy neighbor who bursts forth from his front door dressed as beetlejuice every year, most the kids aren't brave enough to approach that house, and those that do usually end up running away screaming. *in spanish* lol

Chestnuts roasted by ArcticOrange @ 09/12/2004 11:24 AM EST

One year I went as Pocohantis. At one house the lady saw my costume and started preaching how important it was to save the rainforrest. Now as a child I was smart enough to know she wasnt from the rainforrest and beside that I wanted my candy. I didnt give a crap about what she was saying. She gave me some of that crap hard candy needless to say.

Chestnuts roasted by Jessie @ 09/12/2004 12:31 PM EST

Halloween was kind of on and off from year to year at our house, my mother being a manic depressive. One year we would deck out the house with decorations, blacklight in the window, tape playing spooky sounds, the whole works. And then the next year we would hide in the back of the house with all the lights off, hoping no one would come to the door. Growing up, the scariest thing I was subjected to was my mother's own brain.

Greatest haunted house gag I remember was simply the having a chainsaw dragged across everybody as we passed through a narrow passage. Or course, the saw's chain had been removed, but it was still loud and shocking.

When I was little, Star Wars was big (the originals), so virtual every kid in the neighborhood was Star Wars themed. My own was a plastic C3PO and vinyl suit. The following year only the mask had remained whole, so I threw a white sheet around myself, and went as "ghost of C3PO". Don't ask. heh

Chestnuts roasted by Mister Cthulhu @ 09/12/2004 01:11 PM EST

Some friends and I kidnapped one of our friends the day before holloween...we covered her face and handcuffed her and started taking her to the pick-up truck we had outside...however she broke free of our grips and started to run and ended up running directly into the parked truck....it was sad......and then hillarious

Chestnuts roasted by Ant @ 09/12/2004 01:17 PM EST

Hm... let's see, there was the snow storm... the time it rained and I had to dress up in a plastic sheet... huh. I really have nothing whatsoever. I can't even hand out candy because like, 5 kids come to our house every year. (Out of the way I suppose.) Sucks because I'm too old to go trick-or-treating now.

Last year I did face-painting for a church party. I did pretty well, except the other lady started using my paints without asking and I couldn't do jack-o-lanterns... and all the kids asked for stuff that wasn't on the sheet I set out.

I've been down that road before. ALWAYS do what's on the face-painting sheet. You make one exception and then you have to make a 100. *sighs*

My memories suck.

Chestnuts roasted by Sucrose @ 09/12/2004 01:46 PM EST

Yay! Lurkers rule. Um... I don't know if I have any halloweeny memories, but Halloween is by far my favorite holiday EVAR. And since it's on a Sunday this year, it's even better because I'll have all day to get ready instead of having school interfere. Seriously, they should at least let kids off early for Halloween.

So yeah, good luck with X-E's Halloween season! Last year's was awesome.

Chestnuts roasted by Dark Penguin @ 09/12/2004 01:57 PM EST

Halloween is my birthday, so pretty much all my memories are good ones. Come on now, I got twice the candy other kids got (milking the birthday for all it's worth) and then a cake and presents after Trick or Treating. Just awesome.
The best one would be the year my best friend and I discovered the untapped street. No one ever went up this one block, and yet everyone had awesome candy. So cool.

Chestnuts roasted by Sev @ 09/12/2004 02:32 PM EST

Like that ad there. I recall a time near Halloween in which my friend had a tape of a similar nature. We decided to make a scary setting for my younger brother, so some of my friends and I went into the bathroom, cover the windows, wore dark and concealing clothing, and pretended to be at my brother's funeral while the music played. My brother came in, saw what was going on, and started attacking us with some toy. I couldn't see through my costume (my face was covered completely), so it was completely disastrous for me.

Anyway, I'm sure that Matt's covered pretty much anything that I could think of as far as Halloween-related items go. In fact, I'm sure he knows of more than I could think of, which is why I look forward to the new Halloween season right here on X-E.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 09/12/2004 02:54 PM EST

Yes, the halloween season is upon us.
Time to get black clothes to mug little kids.

I'm also gonna set up a fountain that spews red fruit juice, and a head near it with scars ans the like.

Well, time to go to Winners....

Chestnuts roasted by RPharazon @ 09/12/2004 03:03 PM EST

Yaaay! Halloween and all its Satanic gooeyness is upon us! This is better than ten Mardi Gras and an orgasm! I don't get to post my appreciation very much with all of the stuff going on (school, teaching, and I'm getting hitched) but I'm very excited for X-E Halloween. Why, I may even listen to the X-E Halloween remix whilst surfing the coverage. I'm so Vincent Price's and Matt's bitch.

Otherwise, I don't have any specific Halloween memories: Halloween is just generally fun and good times for me. Fortunately (and surprisingly) my fundamentalist mom wasn't the type to keep me from celebrating Halloween with my friends.

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 09/12/2004 03:04 PM EST

Wait a minute. I have another Halloween memory. But this one regards trick-or-treating.

This was my last year of trick-or-treating (my parents said I was already getting too old for it, and they wouldn't let me go the next year). My brother, friends, and I went for miles. Our bags got so damn full, that my brother's bag was coming apart, and a kind lady at one of the houses gave him another bag.

We also got all sorts of cool candy. Hell, we even hit a house that was giving out cool little cheap toys instead of candy. and I don't mean those cheap little plastic rings/spiders (I'm sure we got plenty of those). Oh no, we hit the jackpot. This place had little Halloween notebooks, pencils, erasers, and the mother of them all: Glowsticks! I don't need to tell you which one we all chose.

Afterward, we all went to my house and watched Edward Scissorhands on TV and ate candy. Plus, everybody spent the nightn at my house. It was the best Halloween ever, and I'll never forget it.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 09/12/2004 03:06 PM EST

Taking a break from reading physiology, I see Matt finally update (blog entry).

True story: when I 5 years old or 6, my local Kroger (grocery store chain) had a small ,but scary (hey I was little) haunted house. The employee there would dress up as mummy, skeleton, etc. and scary the heck out of little kid (including myself) by either 1. poping out of dark corner of small building or 2. simply grap the child hand if trying to get candy if place out. It such a shame that my local Kroger in NKY does not do this haunted house anymore. May be it because as you exit the house, the city police officer would hand out shity comic book with McGruff and Trick or Treat safety.

Chestnuts roasted by Beta-Theta @ 09/12/2004 05:13 PM EST

Sorry, Matt if I haven't send anything Halloween related to you (curse you physiology and organic chemistry. However, here some suggestion for a Halloween related article on X-enteriment:

1. The first Simpson's Treehouse of Horror: I don't if you have mention or review it, but to some this consider one of best Treehouse of Horror epsiode ever.
2. Ghostbuster: The T.V. series: If you didn't receive (yet) a video on ghostbuster, well, Slimer will be very disappoint with you.
3. My brother told me in the early 90s (I beleive) there was a Halloween promo with the Mars candy company with these aliens that were on there candy package. I even beleive aliens even had a Halloween specials which their were stuck on earth, trying to go home, and amazed of eating Mars candy products.

Chestnuts roasted by Beta-Theta @ 09/12/2004 05:24 PM EST

I've never posted before but I've been coming to this site for about a year now(forgot how I stumbled upon it). Since then it's relieved hours of boredom here at college. Last Halloween was probably the best I've ever had and I'm excited about this year! I'll be at ECU yet again...I'm sure you get the idea. I still think Halloween is the best for the little kids. Free candy and no worries about a "dark side" to the holiday.

Chestnuts roasted by Tara @ 09/12/2004 05:25 PM EST

One time during halloween there was this huge storm (The No-name storm) i live 3 houses form the ocean and I remember watching my pumpkin floating down the street as the ocean flooded the neighborhood. I cried and cried no tricker treating for me.

I had this cereal box theme going on for about 4 years in a row. My mom was a pretty good painter, and she would paint me up a gigantic box to wear. I was frosted flakes, fruit loops, and cocoa crispies. The cover of the box looked exactly like the cover of the real ceral boxes. It was awesome but very hard to move in a huge box. with my head and limbs sticking out. I also carried a gigantic spoon made out of a crap load of tinfoil.

Chestnuts roasted by JeremyMac @ 09/12/2004 06:02 PM EST

I have another memory. It was during a halloween party when i was a kid. Me and my friend had the genius idea of lighting a jackolantern on fire. So we did. The whole lawn started blazing and this lady started yelling at us so everyone ran away and took the pizza and threw pizza slices at cars.

Chestnuts roasted by JeremyMac @ 09/12/2004 06:06 PM EST

A couple Halloweens ago I got pulled over by a bike cop who got lucky cuz I was turning around so he pulled right in front of me and blew a whistle and yelled at me for not pulling over earlier to his 'siren' which was really a bike bell. Anyways, even though I didn't hav emy drier's license with me (cuz I was just driving down the street to pick someone up in a costume that had no pockets), I got out of it since it was just me not having my headlights on.

www.killforkicks.com

Chestnuts roasted by Tyler @ 09/12/2004 06:08 PM EST

the best costume i ever had was in grade 6 when i bought this zombie make up kit at the local drug store that required you to mix some white pounder together and use it to stick toilet paper to your face, my face looked wickedly scarey all wrinkled up and stuff. another halloween about 10 years later i was trippin on lsd at a friends house when a kid came to the door wearing a garbage bag, it blew my mind. last year we put a stuffed dummy with a freddy mask at our door for the trick or treaters and then the next day my sister took the newspaper out of the dummy, put on its clothes/mask and sat at the door. my mom came home from work and my sister never even got a chance to grab her or anything cause as soon as she walked into the house she looked straight into the dummys eyes for some reason and screamed.

Chestnuts roasted by pottymouth @ 09/12/2004 09:04 PM EST

I'm looking forward to what you come up with for the Halloween Countdown, Matt, even if you don't quite have the time that you did last year. Holidays seem to bring out the best in you; your articles for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas last year were among the best things you ever did.

I grew up in a very small beach resort where most houses were vacant long before October 31st, making the trek for Halloween goodies very long, arduous, and tiring. Our trick-or-treating often turned into hikes over half the town just to find places that were still being lived in, much less giving out junk food. Most of my memories involve walking around from block to block, looking for those one or two houses whose occupants were actually there off-season.

It wasn't entirely bad. My mom was (and is) an expert seamstress and artist, so our costumes were almost always unique, or at least well-made. Most of the remaining residents always seemed to be old people who never had candy to give out, so they'd give out everything else - random change, huge candy bars, and one year, kids' books. There was a lot of "Star Wars" stuff there - I'm still kicking myself for being shy and only choosing one thing, but I was getting a lot of flack for my "Star Wars" obsession at that time.

My other Halloween memories always occured about a week before Halloween, and for me, was even more important than trick-or-treating in some ways. The town I lived in had (and may still have) a big Halloween parade. My sisters and I were in the parade every year from early grade school through our early years of high school, and we always had a great time. My sisters' costumes were so imaginative, they often won awards (first prize a few years). I never won awards; I prefered to stick to the tried and true, like cowgirls and brides. I'm a parade nut, though, and this was the only time of year I'd actually get to WALK in one and show off a bit.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 09/12/2004 09:12 PM EST

Once, around age eight or nine, I decided to be a pirate. I tore up an old t-shirt, wore a bandana, eyepatch, and my mom used a sponge to make a beard out of some black facepaint. Halfway through the night, I missed having my depth perception, and took off the eyepatch. It was also really humid that night, so I removed the bandana. The last house I went to that night asked me if I was supposed to be a hobo. After that, I was depressed.

Chestnuts roasted by Elmo Machete @ 09/12/2004 09:20 PM EST

50th post!!! Woo hoo!

Chestnuts roasted by The Unstoppable @ 09/12/2004 09:57 PM EST

I remember one year when my mother was taking my brother and I out trick-or-treating,she was wearing a gold foil hair wig,and some girl thought it was real,where she had it done,and went screaming back to her parents about it. I hope she reality came to her gently.

Chestnuts roasted by Overlord @ 09/12/2004 11:11 PM EST

This story always makes me a little sad...

Anyway, when I was younger, every Hallowe'en, our local radio station, (CKLP 103.3! Go Parry Sound!), would have a contest for all of us little school kiddies.

I sat up listening to the radio after trick or treating, hoping I might get that lucky call telling me I won something.

At like, eleven, I finally went to bed, only to be dragged out of my room ten minutes later by my parents who were telling me that the radio station was on the phone.

After talking with the host for a few minutes, it dawned on me that not only had I won something, but I had won THE something. The grand prize! A brand new bicycle! And coupons! Glorious coupons for every restaurant in my home town. There must've been $200 worth of free food. (FREE! Without the Buy one, get one... part)

So you're probably thinking, why would this make me sad?

Three reasons.
1) They gave me the wrong bike at first. I was like, 9, and the gave me this oversized behemoth of a bike that certain Tour-de-France types would ride.

2)They replaced the bike with one that proceeded to get run over by a truck a month later.

3)The coupons had extremely short expiry dates. I never got to use them.

And such is my tale of woe.

Rob

Chestnuts roasted by Rob @ 09/12/2004 11:45 PM EST

I met my best friend on halloween in sixth grade; I was dressed as Anne of Green Gables, she was Sara Stanley (the Story Girl, from another series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery). I was a big nerd, and really unhappy, but then I found out that there were other nerds and we could be nerds together; to my embarrassment now, though, we also noted that there were even NERDIER nerds who could be looked down upon as we had been.

Best costume I ever had was when I dressed up as a wall. Took a side of a refrigerator box and painted it with tempera paint, and my dad helped me hot glue handles on the back. I made a picture frame for my face to stick through, and stuck a trash basket on the front for my candy. It got to be a pain in the ass to carry it around, but I was damn proud of it, and I think I got points for originality.

Chestnuts roasted by Rei @ 09/13/2004 12:03 AM EST

my friends and i would always go around stealing pumpkins in high school and then throw them out of the window while driving on the freeway. they would never smash, though, since october in colorado can be frigid and the pumpkins would always freeze, but dammit we kept trying....

Chestnuts roasted by golden shower princess @ 09/13/2004 01:47 AM EST

I want everyone to know I loved Halloween until last year (click my name). I bought an Ectomobile, and that was bar none the coolest Halloween ever, and everything since then has been a constant turbulent death roll of sadness and pain.

Chestnuts roasted by Aaron @ 09/13/2004 01:51 AM EST

One year my friends and I all dressed up as pieces from a Monopoly set. I was the Boardwalk. The funniest thing was the abundance of soccer moms that thought the two girls going as dice were dominos, apparantly disregarding the Community Chest, thimble, and Monopoly money standing next to them.

Chestnuts roasted by Samantha @ 09/13/2004 01:51 AM EST

Thanks XE for reminding us how important Halloween was to us as children.

As far as memories go....how many people remember spending hours looking through those cheap plastic costumes at the department store. And how many people actually had one that survived the entire night? I always came home with a big split up the crotch of my costume! Ah...those were the days!

Chestnuts roasted by Greg @ 09/13/2004 07:17 AM EST

Once, it was me, Little Brother, and our cousin "Rat". Bro had a kind of Gene Simmons thing going on, Rat was a Legion of Doom motif, and yours truly had a Doctor Doom/robot mask I made out of cardboard with a lower jaw that moved when I talked. (hint: for good sturdy and quick construction, use carboard from pizza boxes. clean piza boxes.) We took turns carrying a big battle axe I made using a real axe handle and a bat-shaped, silver-painted hunk of cardboard. (pizza box) We went to a local Boy Scoout run haunted house. first thing we heard was, "No fair, they look better than us!" At one point, Brother and Rat hunkered down behind me and when one kid jumped out at us, I yelled, opening the mask's jaw wide, and the other two jumped up and Little brother brandished the axe, pulling from under the army-surplus coat he was wearing. One room was the ol' "funeral scene" set up. Rat acted like a madman, Little Brother laughed maniacally, and I dropped to my knees by the casket and screamed, "I didn't know the gun was loaded!" Part of their atmosphere was playing Heavy Metal really loud (misinformed kids, early 90's, and Bible Belt) and we did a sing along with "Shout at the Devil" as we walked out the door. meanwhile, my uncle (Rat Daddy) was hiding in the bushes. While waiting for us, he was wearing a plastic hockey mask and a raggedy hooded sweatshirt, and would tap on the windows of the house, and generally lurking around scaring kids coming out. It's fun to outdo the little kids sometimes.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 09/13/2004 12:20 PM EST

I suppose that "lurker" title fits me, though I have posted a few times before.

I always loved spending tons of time making a costume. And one year my mom took my friend and I to a party after we went trick or treating (mostly boring adults, a few of their kids stuck there too) and we made up a new word. At least new to us, it might have existed before. "Glooshy" describes the texture that mini candy bars take on after melting by a fire...not in the fire, just next to it.

Chestnuts roasted by Mara @ 09/13/2004 12:49 PM EST

My friends and I went to this haunted trail when we were seniors in high school. It startes out innocent enough... walking through a dark trail, people jumping out at you, etc. Then after the trail this guide came out and took you through three little sets, i can't remember the first two.. but the third one was a car wreck with poorly made up teens lying about and empty beer cans, to warn you about the dangers of drinking and driving. Then they led us over to a little tent and started handing out bibles and preaching to us! We didn't realize until then we were at some haunted trail ran by the Gideons... who'da thunk it?!

Chestnuts roasted by WhiteTrash @ 09/13/2004 09:32 PM EST

Halloween season is soo much better here on X-E than it has been for me the past 9-10 years. That's beacuse I've worked/managed a damned Party Store since I was 16. Halloween would start in June for me there - ruined it for me! Now, I'm a Postman and can deal with it as I like.

~No one delivers 80%! No one!

Chestnuts roasted by Mugzy. . . @ 09/14/2004 12:52 AM EST

Well, I am usually a lurker, but since Matt encouraged me, I guess I'll share:

Whenever I think of Halloween, I think of the last one we spent at our old house in Canada, which would be the 'ween o' 2000. That day some of my friends were over, and we were mulling over whether or not we would actually go out and trick or treat, so to pass the time we decided to make our own "Spooky Halloween Sounds" tape. I still listen to that tape, whenever I find it...I swear, it's like an hour long, we used both sides...and all it is is 4 guys making moaning noises, cat noises, wolf noises, occasionally ghost-horse noises, saying ominous things, then at one point we recorded the Saved by the Bell theme for some reason.

Needless to say, it spooked the socks off of everyone within a 10 kilometer radius that night.

Chestnuts roasted by Tyler @ 09/14/2004 01:08 AM EST

I remember way back when i was in fifth grade in the early 80s, all the 5th grade art classes worked for months to turn the art classroom into a haunted house that the littler kids would get to walk through. I was dressed as dracula, and was positioned at the exit of a dark tunnel in our house of horrors. Most of the kids were already crying by the time they got as far as me, and I sure as hell didn't help much, waving my cape around and baring my fangs at them.
For some reason, that was the first and last year for the haunted house.

Chestnuts roasted by Mac @ 09/14/2004 01:45 AM EST

Lurker? Nah, I just work too much ^_^ Anyway, this will be my first Halloween as an X-E devotee, so that's all I'll get to do this year, maybe buy a peeps bat if I can find one =P I haven't done Halloween in forever, last time I really remember was when I was 13 and I got bag jacked. I was all sad, but when you go to peoples houses and have a sob story (plus it was getting late) they sure do take pity. I think I got what was stolen from me back then some. While I'm thinking of it, I have a question... does anyone remember their candy lasting well into the next year after halloween? All the Snickers and good stuff like that got eaten up within the first few days, but I had dubble bubble up the ass for like the next year and a half. Crappy costumes and (what ended up) stale candy, I think almost everyone had more exciting Halloweens than me.

Chestnuts roasted by sailor moon @ 09/14/2004 02:32 AM EST

Oh yeah, a couple of fun things were doing the haunted house in elementary school, a haunted house in my neighborhood that chose a different theme every year (I tell you, getting chased by "Jason" even if he didn't have a chain or whatever on his chainsaw scared the hell out of me), a haunted house where people blended in with the walls (wish I did drugs back then, that would have been even more of a trip) and ultimately, when I was about 16 or so me and my mom went to the crappiest haunted house ever and this guy in a costume followed us forever trying to scare us and I think we disappointed him when we ignored him. Oh yeah, Knotts Scary Farm was cool, got to do that one year. Did anyone ever get money when they trick or treated? When I was like 5 this guy gave me a quarter and I thought he was crazy, damn I wish I could get free money now =P And that, loyal X-E blog readers, is the total history of me and halloween. Pretty boring =(

Chestnuts roasted by sailor moon @ 09/14/2004 02:42 AM EST

I remember very clearly the worst halloween of my life.

At the time, my mom and dad were somewhat close to the church we went to back then, and since halloween was falling on a Sunday that year, the priest decided as a "fun" thing for the kids, the kids should all dress up as Biblical figures. Oh yeah... nothin says fun like being someone from the bible.

Anyway, seeing as my family was close to the church, I was made to be an example of the fun spirit etc.. of this event. This did not bode well with me, I complained, They ignored.

I wanted to be Link from legend of Zelda, I had it planned ALL YEAR before the shithead priest ruined everything. Anyway...

My mom and dad decided the very best way to kill my little child soul would be to Dress me up as none other than MOSES... Using the Movie (the 10 commandments) as an example, I was thrown out into the world in a robe, a wig, a beard/moustache combo, a staff, and yes... Stone tablets (made out of styrofoam) with the commandments on them.

Sunday halloween of vile evil came, and it was the coldest rainiest halloween EVER. I got to the church and Big suprise... I WAS THE ONLY KID DRESSED LIKE SOMEONE FROM THE BIBLE...

Every other kid were ghosts and goblins.... princesses and witches... oh and that doofus dressed like moses oh wait.. that was me.

As if all that wasnt bad enough, ask yourself this question... On a cold rainy Halloween, how much candy do you think a kid in a robe with no shoes and 10 commandments gets?

Chestnuts roasted by Mechagodzilla @ 09/14/2004 12:15 PM EST

You could have gone as one of the figures mentioned in Revelations. Biblical, and scary! "And what are you supposed to be, Mecha-G?" "I'm the Whore of Babylon!" Bet you would've gotten more than candy.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash with seven crowns @ 09/14/2004 03:09 PM EST

My mom was a seamstress, and one year she made cute witches matching costumes for me and my best friend and both our Barbie dolls.

It's really hard to get cool customes to go trick or treating in Canada because they have to fit over your snow suit (it's usually freezing by the end of October).

I remember going to a bar in a big furry pink bunny costume, and I was BOILING in there. Saw someone at the bar, beautiful gorgeous blonde girl and thought, what a bitch to show up all glammed up, when all us girls are looking like accident victims or giant bunnies. Turned out it was my friend John, I only clued in when he said hello to me as I passed by. He was just the most beautiful girl ever - and drag queens were not fashionable at the time.

The following year at university I decided I was not boiling alive in my costume, but because of schoolwork I had no time to prepare, so I put on my sexiest lingerie, my trench coat, a fedora and one of them plastic fake nose with a mustache and glasses attached. That's right, the perfect flasher outfit, costing a buck for the fake glasses. When people asked me what I was I just opened the coat... I left the party with several phone numbers in my coat pocket!

Chestnuts roasted by Yzziefrog @ 09/14/2004 05:34 PM EST

My dad used to make really awesome costumes for me (with my assistance) and himself. The best ones:

-One year I was the Terminator. I wasn't one of those wuss Terminators that just had the slicked back hair and the sunglasses, I had HALF OF MY FACE BLOWN OFF. Tinfoil is freaking magical, dudes.

-The year after that, I was Dracula. It would've been awesome had I not had "horrible" leg injuries (I played a few too many games of Jump Off the Picnic Table, I guess). But all was not lost! My parents decked out my red wagon to look like a coffin, and they took turns pulling me around the neighborhood. I was the freaking king of the world.

-My dad's had some pretty cool costumes, too. One year he was the World's Worst Rodeo Clown (lots of blood and bones poking out), another year he was Dave McDave, Savage Celtic Attorney (like Braveheart with a tie), and one time he just put on a bunch of random crap & a pair of sunglasses. He was a blind guy XD

Chestnuts roasted by Tomas Jefferson @ 09/14/2004 07:07 PM EST

Oh yeah. Then there was the year that I dressed up as a character I made up, which I will NOT describe to you. I made a paper mache mask and a suit and everything. It ended up being pretty uncomfortable and every asshole in the world decided to ask me just what the hell I was supposed to be. So I spent the evening embarrased AND I had my creative spirit crushed.

And people wonder why I'm such a cynic...

Chestnuts roasted by Night_Trekker @ 09/15/2004 12:32 AM EST

One year, I was the blob from A Boy and his Blob (NES) I wanted to punch the two people who though I was a ghost (Especially that kid who was like "A gwhost? ............ YOH NOT A MONSTUH!!". Regardless to whom that second part was directed at, I still to this day would like to pop him one).

Halloween's a drag for me now that I live in a bigger neighborhood. Here's an excerpt from my journal (sorry to be a lazy bastard) concerning last year (which I think I may have already posted here...):
Halloween was pretty much a joke this year. I was handing out candy, and most of the kids either weren't in costume, or wearing winter gear over their costumes. Then there were the groups going door-to-door in their cars! C'mon you wusses, it friggin' rained on Halloween in '94 but I still kept my costume on and didn't wear anything over it. I also saw a lot of repeating costumes (I even saw two of the same crappy surgeon costume with painted on pockets) and kids choosing to not wear their mask even when they didn't look like they screwed with your breathing... The final outrage (worth mentioning) with kids these days: post-kindergarten children with dinky pails that couldn't hold half of a chocolate dime. Dammit folks, your kids don't need to be on the freakin' Atkins diet at age 8, you can EASILY just ration their candy. Two funny honorable mentions, then I'm outta here: 1. Some teenage guy comes to the door wearing just a red Power Ranger mask. 10 minutes later: I try not to laugh as I get a kid dressed as the red-ranger with no mask (although he might've just been on the wimp-wagon, the assumption in which that jerk stole his mask is more interesting...). 2. I get the fat girl who is every obese character on kid's cartoons and kid's-comming-of-age type movies. 'Just way she slowly waddled up the stairs in her fairy princess-type costume and then holds out her candy bag that reaches to the floor. Done.

Chestnuts roasted by RewolfJ @ 09/15/2004 03:57 AM EST

If I can find the right items, I might try to make a cheap-ass Master Shake costume. Run around the 'hood and just be a sarcastic prick all night.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 09/15/2004 02:08 PM EST

each year I pass out the candy on holloween but last year I had stepped out to talk to my cousin and locked myself out. The only way in was to crawl through a window but just as I was crawling in a trick or treater shows up and I'm in this itty bitty skirt with my butt hanging out for all the world to see!

Chestnuts roasted by Michelle @ 09/16/2004 12:14 AM EST

LOL - bible characters... Lessee: There are the Beasts from Daniel, eg bears with wings, leopards with four heads... also, the Riders of the Apocalypse. Death, Famine, Pestilence, the Antichrist... (um - George Dubya on a white horse, harhar), or maybe, a king of Babylon putting out eyes of captured kings with a spear... oooh, and Whore of Babylon's funny too (go kingklash). Why go with Charlton Heston in a nightgown? Boring boring. Even Goliath with huge hole in head is more halloweeny.

South Africa doesn't celebrate Halloween... could be horror of nasty evil satanic subjectmatter, or more probably intrinsic fear of dentists. Coke contains +-10 teaspoons of sugar per glass, and enough phosphoric acid to dissolve the paint on your car (try it). So people wonder why they need root canal. Uuurgh. Too much sugar! Not enough kooky simpsons All Hallows E'en eps! (we get em around May, btw. Just doesn't work. But "The Shinning" ep was classic. Bart: Don't you mean the Shining? Scots Janitor: What, boy? you want us to get sued??!.

Me wants some chocolate now. Dammit. Hersh! Send all evil nasty dentists to Hersh!

Chestnuts roasted by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Hedgehog @ 09/16/2004 12:10 PM EST

Living in Wisconsin, I went as a Green Bay Packer for about seven years in a row.

I always got extra candy if a guy answered the door because they'd be all, "Yeah, go Packers!"

Chestnuts roasted by Whee @ 09/16/2004 07:25 PM EST

I lived in the country as a kid, and since houses were few and far between my dad drove us around. This was a bit of a pain since he'd take us only to places he knew, and thus would stand around for what seemed like forever chatting with people. The benefits were great, though. Rural people don't get a lot of trick-or-treaters, so they give out TONS and TONS of candy. Some years all it would take was eight houses to fill a pillow case. Plus, since you only went to familiar houses any and all yummy homemade candy was fine to eat!

Oh... and since I live in Canada, we usually have snow on Halloween. Having to wear a snowsuit over your costume was a letdown, although it wasn't necessary every year. ("What are you, an eskimo clown...?"

Chestnuts roasted by Vic @ 09/17/2004 12:28 AM EST

For some reason I always associate FFVII with halloween. I'm sure it only happened once, but I was playing it right before a friend a I went out that year. If the math isn't adding up for you, it was pretty well after I was too old to TorT. But those were the best years because we would take my friend's cousins around and be the semi-mean older kids who harrassed the little ones. Maybe it was just me saying stupid sh**. I was an @$$hole then and still am, really. But just verbally.

"Wish I never opened my Mouth Almighty"

simple quote! first to ID it gets my respect.

Chestnuts roasted by Knegative @ 09/17/2004 08:18 AM EST

Uh... is it Bruce Almighty?

Or... some movie with... God in it?

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE!!! O_O

Chestnuts roasted by Night_Trekker @ 09/17/2004 09:36 AM EST

Um...no

Chestnuts roasted by Knegative @ 09/17/2004 11:57 AM EST

I'm not patient enough and I'm not sure if you're really all that interested in the answer, Night, so I'll tell ya. I said its simple, so don't be too harsh. Its from Mouth Almighty by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

For the record, I was really really disappointed with Bruce Almighty. Laughed like once.

Chestnuts roasted by Knegative @ 09/17/2004 12:05 PM EST

OK, so when I was a kid my mom wouldn't let me celebrate Halloween the traditional way. Instead, I got to go to costume parties at big church events. It was pretty much the same, you dress up, get tons of candy, play party games...except without the "danger" of Halloween (which I know some of you might argue then completely changes the holiday).

Anyway, my biggest Halloween memory was of this one aforementioned church Halloween event where I saw these two boldfaced punks stealing candy from mentally retarded kids. At first I laughed 'cause it was admittedly funny to see someone being jacked right in front of their face. But then I realized how wrong that was (even if the victims weren't retarded), so I had to go over and stop it. Mind you, I was like 8 at the time and those thieves were probably like 10, so that was a pretty scary thing to do.

So I guess that despite my mom's best efforts, Halloween did seriously frighten me after all!

Chestnuts roasted by rapsodist @ 09/17/2004 02:46 PM EST

In my grade school around Halloween, we would always have a pumpkin carving contest. Kids from the school would bring in their pumpkins that they worked on for weeks. For like two years, this one girl would always take first place for having the "most unique" pumpkin, making me cry and run off. Kids pointing and laughing, cruel...

Many years later I actually married that girl, not sure if she can still carve "unique" pumpkins though.

Chestnuts roasted by JiveTurkey @ 09/17/2004 04:54 PM EST