In One Hour...It's Gone

 

I really don't know what my problem is. This weird depression that starts coming in even before Halloween is over. I wish it wasn't a thing, but it is.

Didn't help that it rained tonight, so there weren't many trick or treaters. No fire pit for us either. 

We watched Spirit Halloween, cuz why not? Turned out to be an all-ages Halloween movie, but it's only like 80 minutes long and my kid liked it, so I guess it's fine for the target audience. Chris Lloyd is in it, and man does he look old. I guess, who doesn't nowadays?

--

So we went to the bar two nights ago and had a good time. Took an Uber each way, which ended up being about $150 total. I'd figured it would get expensive cuz the drive to Towson is like 40 minutes or so.

Worst part was that we had an Indian driver(not the bad part) but he was playing Indian music. My wife's brother asked him if he could play some Halloween music, and he's like sure, and he punches in Halloween music in some Pandora-like app, and it plays like 85% cover versions of Halloween songs, NOT the actual songs.

Ugh.

We hung there until the band finished, then they wanted to head back to our neck of the woods and maybe hit a bar there, so we did that. But we got back pretty late, like 12:30, so we just hit the neighborhood bar.

Had a couple of people, younger like in their 30's, ask who I was supposed to be. I said Teen Wolf, and they'd say, "What's that?"

So just go ahead and kill me now. This was us at the first bar when the Malf played:

Then Sunday night one of the actors I know had his annual Halloween party. This will be his last, though, as he's moving to South Carolina. I took my kid over, but I wasn't going to drink much because I'd gotten pretty hammered the night before and the hangover was brutal.

I also decided, since it was outdoors, to wear the RJ MacReady costume. It's really good other than the beard. Man, for once I wish I could just grow a beard...

Anyway the house was decorated amazing. Had a bunch of food and was playing Halloween 1-3 on the backside of his house. There was about 20-30 people there, so a decent crowd. My kid would wander off and just start trying to talk to girls. 

It's weird how fearless he is. Completely different from me back then. If he had social skills, he'd have had tons of girlfriends by now. As is it, he just desperately wants one.

 Here's some pics from the party: 

---

Guess I buried the lead here a bit. My mom was going to Uber us, but I got a text from her around 3pm Saturday. Said she was sorry but couldn't take us because her left side was going numb. She was on her way to the hospital.

I asked if she needed anything, did she wants us to come with her? Nope, go have fun, sorry she couldn't take us. So that was sort of on my mind. They ended up telling her that she'd had a minor stroke and they were going to keep her overnight.

They kept her until Monday. Did a lot of tests on her, but didn't tell her much. She's got a ton of docs to open up and see what the tests say, but she has to go to her regular doctor for translation. Really feels like we have the worst medical system in the world, which is weird because pretty sure it's also the most expensive.

I talked to her today and she sounds fine. She's still a little numb and tingly on her left side.I'm gonna try to head down there after work tomorrow to see her. (I had taken off work today because, duh, Halloween)

Anyway...I feel like I should watch a Halloween movie I love, but it all sort of depresses me now. These weird funks are not fun...

 

 

Parties

 

Been watching flicks with the wife and kid. We hit Final Destination and the original Halloween, but I don't think much more than that. The kid has been staying over his "mom-mom's" house two or three nights a week to keep her company. They do puzzles, and had a cool Halloween one to do that was apparently very hard.

I, on the other hand, went into the office for the first and last time. I met up with my friend who offered me the job, and he drove. Traffic sucked--shocker--and then being at the office, especially since I'd gotten up at 6:30am in order to be at my friend's by 7am, was crap.

I was tired. The chairs there, while not cheap, aren't great so I stood a lot of the time. Then at lunch, my friend's like "Let go to lunch", and I made the mistake of not asking where. They went to Chipotle, which is garbage. I got nachos and cheese and I didn't think you could make that mediocre, but congrats Chipotle. 

Anyway, they had a party at 4pm, so everybody stopped working and got into costumes. There was a bunch of food and drink. I even had one guy's homemade Sangria. I don't like wine, but it wasn't bad.

The party part was okay, but I was beat when I got home. I went in 3 hours late the next day.

---

Did I mention that I'm now the only tester in the largest, most complicated component of this system? Since our company now got the whole contract, all the other companies got booted. Now we're scrambling to hire more people, but until then, I'm the only tester here.

When the tickets hit, I get slammed.

---

Tonight, going to Towson for the Malf's band party. It's at that bar that I used to go to in college. Couple of years ago I hadn't been back to this bar in 30 years, but this will be the third time in about two years.(This will be the second time Malf's played there, and there was an afterparty for one of Cutting's movie premieres there that I attended)

I spent a lot of money on this costume, but there are elements that I'm not sure are working. Couple that with it's gonna be VERY hot. I didn't mention, but I wore my backup costume to the office party--that's a teen wolf costume. It was also VERY hot.

So I guess we'll see how it looks tonight. We've decided since it's an all ages show to take the kid, so this'll be his first time in a bar or a real Halloween party...

 

 

 

Only 10 Days Left?

 

 Haven't watched a ton since last. Watched Res Evil 2 with the kid. He's been spending time over his grandmom's house so she's not alone so much over there, which cuts into our TV watch time.

I watched Dashcam(it was okay), tried Hellraiser(Hulu keeps losing my place, and I got tired of trying to fast forward my way every time I came back, so I gave up--not that it was bad, but none of the characters were interesting enough to put in the time). 

Went and saw Black Adam last night with the kid and my brother. It was okay. Meaningless fun, but miles better than anything Zach Snyder's put on the screen for DC.

----

Work is becoming super tedious. I see both sides of this situation, in that I wish I was in one of the easy divisions creating tests that a monkey could create. There's no much job security there, as many of them have found out now that the contract changed.

Instead, I'm in the hardest, most complex division. It took me three days to construct a 42-step ticket recently. The average ticket is like 10-12 steps. 

My brain was bleeding by the time I got done. But hey, no way they're gonna replace me because holy shit no other tester has any idea what's going on or how anything works.

Speaking of, there was only one other tester in this division with me, and we split the tickets by which component they were. I found out that today is this other tester's last day with the company, so all of a sudden I'm going to be the lone tester in this division.

My boss has said they're hiring 3 new testers, but that means until they get up to speed, it's all me. I'm not that familiar with the other component that was being tested in my division, so in order for me to do those, I have to go learn THAT component. I'm betting they're also going to ask me to train these new testers with what I know.

Fuuuuuck.

---

Hopefully a fun weekend. Turns out that pumpkin trail is happening. This is the only pumpkin trail I've ever been aware of, and was the inciting idea for the segment in T2.

I also have every piece for my costume, so have to try it all on and see how it looks. There needs to be some tweaking to some pieces, and I'm hoping it won't be too hot for the inside of a bar.

As always, Halloween is coming way too fast...

 

 

Busy Busy Even Moreso

Okay, so on the list of movies I've watched, it is thus:

• Signs
• 13 Ghosts(Dark Castle version)
• Resident Evil(original)
• Werewolves Within
• Jeepers Creepers
• Halloween Ends - this will undoubtedly go down as the worst movie I saw this year. 
• Jeepers Creepers Reborn - pretty bad, but compared to Ends? A masterpiece.
• Dashcam - not sure what I thought of this. Was too long, but had some good stuff, and the main actress--while annoying--was pretty amazing with those ad-libbed songs. (she ad libs the entire end credits, pretty entertaining)
• Smile
• Fall - way more intense than I expected. My palms were actually sweaty watching this. 
• Fright Night
  

On Deck: Frighteners, Resident Evil 2, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Halloween 1&2(who knows, maybe 3 also if we get time)

We started watching Stranger Things season 2, since it's Halloween-based. (at least, the first couple of episodes) Not sure how my kid's gonna take it that we can't watch season 3 until summer since it takes place over the July 4th holiday.

Still continuing on the daily blog posts. I'm only about two posts ahead of the day, so it'll be interesting to see if I can keep coming up with stuff to fill all 31 days.

 Didn't think I'd leave you high and dry with no sexy 'ween, did you? (that's supposedly Lily Munster herself, Y DeCarlo)

Busy Busy

 

The wife decorated the house for Halloween. Had to rejigger our setup because we got a new couch in that room, which had us removing our TV stand(which held a ton of decorations on top).

Got out two nights ago to shoot some pics because it was a paid holiday on Monday. We didn't go far--had a cemetery I was curious to check out plus an old church and cemetery, and see what else was around.

The first cemetery--turns out, it FLAT. Like...there are almost NO tombstones. Just flat headstones. So not much to take a picture of. The old church at the other place was decent, and THAT cemetery is very old. You can feel it.

Here's the decent pics I shot. Not many.

Been watching some movies with the kid, sometimes with the wife. We watched Signs and Werewolves Within.

On my own, started that new Hellraiser. It's okay so far, but I'm not blown away like most of my friends. I was never that big a fan of the original, so maybe it's just not my bag.

---

Went over the Malf's for a long-overdue chat. Ran the gamut from writing to band stuff to movie stuff. The Malf was pretty drunk by the time I left. He gave me a copy of his new book that I haven't read yet.

Also spawned an idea in his brain that he got pretty excited about. He might make it his next book, he said. 

We may finally begin work on that screenplay we'd talked about collaborating on a few years back.

---

Did I tell you I started writing new anecdotal posts about making movies on FB? Figured I'd do it every day of October to help pimp the movies. I'm about two days ahead of the posts, but am a little afraid I'm gonna run out of stuff to write...

I posted a non-FB version that I update every day or so when I post:

https://bit.ly/kkanecdotes

 

 

 

It's already coming too fast...

 

Yes, my favorite holiday. Sure, it's only four days into October, but I'm already behind on the watching.

I DID finish one of the H'ween based books. Wasn't great.Sort of expected better from this well-regarded author.

Started ANOTHER book, this one an anthology of H'ween stories. So far none of them have blown me away, but they're not bad. Entertaining enough.

Last night I watched the 4K of Fright Night with my kid, since he'd never seen it. He enjoyed it. As always, I noticed little things I'd never noticed before, mostly filmmaker stuff. It also took me back to when I watched this film seated right behind Holland and Ragsdale at a convention in Texas.

That's all the horror flicks I've watched so far, though I've seen a couple of H'ween episodes of shows.

Can't remember if I mentioned, but discovered a show I used to love is on Hulu. The Practice. Started rewatching it, and discovered another favorite show I've wanted to rewatch is also on there: Picket Fences. (both are shows from David Kelley)

Finished the first two seasons of the Practice in like a week. Watched the first seven eps of Fences(and there was a H'ween episode that's a lot of fun)

Want to get out to the theater and see the new Smile movie but it's been pretty busy. I'm not gonna deal with people on this one, at least not right near me.

---

Been doing anecdotal posts on FB about my moviemaking career, which is clearly winding down. While part of me still yearns to go make stuff, part of me is like "Isn't enough enough? It's a young man's game..."

So who knows? How many blogs do I end with that sentence, I wonder?