Halloween Fun Time

I wore some costumes. I went to some parties. I turned 23.

I'm the one in the middle, dressed as a girl character from Animal Crossing. Video game costumes aren't a good idea, because most people won't know what you are. Even if you explain, they still won't know.

Here is the Stevie Nicks costume. This reminds me alot of the "Stevie Nicks' Fajita Roundup" sketch.

Oh yeah, that trip I went on.

I started this journal entry months ago; January 11, to be exact. I realized I had not described my Disney vacation in written form on the internet, so I thought I would hammer out a quick overview. What good is a life experience if you can't write about it in exhausting detail for all your buddies to read after they tire of looking at Youtube? I soon realized that a "quick overview" of a Disney trip is not possible. I wrote out plenty of inconsequential things, got bored, and quit. I'm here again, and I'm tired of looking at this monster of a blog that is stuck in limbo as a "draft." I'm here to publish the minutia of 6-month-old vacation, whether or not you want to read about it.

So back in December, Adam and I went to Walt Disney World. Ten hours and several bedsores after leaving my house at 3 a.m. we were in sunny Orlando, about 20 minutes away from our resort, when we screwed up big time. You see, we put our trust in Mapquest--a terrible, terrible mistake on our part. A website with the word map in its name that claims to have maps to everything on the planet would seem the obvious place to go when you need a map to something. Don't be fooled. Mapquest told us there was an exit that we needed to take and we found the hard way that this exit does not exist, thus adding an extra hour and a half to our frantic search for the resort. And let me be the first to tell you, Florida's highways are not tourist friendly. That extra hour and a half cost me $6 in tolls. Seemingly every off-ramp in florida costs a buck-fitty to drive on, so if you're planning a vacation and there is a chance you might get lost, put lots of cash in your glove compartment.

Anyhow, we decided to quit using Mapquest, which had totally screwed us at this point, and just follow the big signs that say "Walt Disney World Resort." Those signs bring you right through the blindingly garish town of Kissimmee, which in my opinion is akin to premature ejaculation. Why drive (or fly) all that way just to stop at some distraction before Disney World? This is Mickey, we're talking about, this is Space Mountain. Get your carnival rides outta my face, I've got my eyes on the goal. I have to admit though, I have been to Old Town in Kissimmee, and I did (sorta) enjoy it. To my credit though, I was like 12 and I was forced to go there by all the old people I was with because they were too tired to drive to Disney in two days' time. Ok where was I? Oh yes, after getting lost again in Kissimmee, we finally made it to the All Star Music Resort. Maneuvering into the parking lot was somewhat tricky and almost got us hit by a bus but we made it in one piece to guest parking, where we then had to tango again with two lanes of bus traffic to get to the lobby. By this hour of the day we were exhausted, sweaty, and bedraggled, and wanted nothing more than to drag ourselves into a room and sleep. But, the line in the lobby was long and each guest being waited on had some complicated, lengthy complaint or situation which took forever to solve. We stood in line for 30 minutes listening to the most annoying Spike Jones Christmas songs being played on the loudspeaker over and over again. The lobby was decorated with all kinds of Christmas regalia, but behind the desk where the employees work, there was one sad little menorah that looked terribly out of place. It wasn't even a normal sized one...it was really tiny and it had no candles. It was the only thing on the table in the back, so it kind of looked like it got thrown there after someone didn't know what to do with it. Even though I'm not Jewish, I think it would be more enraging to see a half assed nod to my holiday tradition than none at all. Come to think of it, I really didn't notice any type of Hannukah decorations whatsoever...and that's saying alot because there was even a Kwanzaa celebration at the American Adventure pavillion in Epcot. Whatever...I guess those rumors about Walt being a Nazi sympathizer are true.

We were assigned to the Rock n Roll section and after walking waaaay to the back of the compound, we found that our building looked like something from a John Waters nightmare. Bright pink and baby blue stucco is the first thing I always associate with Rock n Roll. The room was a standard motel type room, except the TV only caught ABC and the Disney Channel. It ruined my plan of watching back-to-back episodes of Rosanne on Nick at Night all week, but the Mickey-shaped towel arrangement and fresh Mickey soaps and shampoos left behind everyday by housekeeping more than made up for that.

Oh, did I mention that at this time both and Adam and I were suffering from a severe cold/flu virus that turned us into walking, talking mucous fountains and caused us to run fever? Yeah, that. We're sick, exhausted and ready to crash in bed. Just as I start to doze off, the family next to us busted into their room and kicked off an all-night shouting match that prevented me from getting any rest. I was jarred awake countless times by the screaming of a toddler, and at midnight, the little brat screams,"I MADE POO-POO, I MADE POO!!!" I was really annoyed and said "I don't give a FUCK! SHUT UP!" I didn't think they could hear me in the next room, but they might have because after that things settled down. I woke up the next day and toured the Magic Kingdom, tired as shit with a terrible headache. (Tomorrow Land smells funny.)

I'm tired of writing about trivialities, but to write about the experience in the park would take too long for my attention span and yours alike. I think it's something everyone should experience at least once in life, including the high prices and minor aggrevations that come along with it. In the end, spending all that cash is worth it. At least for me. I will say that we went during the off-season before Christmas and I highly recommend it. We were able to walk straight on most of the rides with no wait, and the lines we did have to wait in were minimal. There were plenty of Japanese folks, which made people-watching enjoyable and the weather was pretty warm. Fifty percent of overheard conversations were not in English, or in any language I had ever heard before, which was interesting.

Now with that out of the way, I can present to you the Ballad of Jesse and Brenda.

One night we had found a spot by the lake in Epcot so we could watch the fireworks show. This man, his wife and son settled beside us to film and watch the show. The dad looked like a greasy pornographer. He held a camera that looked to be about 15 years old and was taping everything in sight. He taped his son, whose name is Jessie (I know this because he had mouse-ears with "Jessie" embroidered in sloppy cursive) acting silly and being obnoxious. The very frazzled and wrinkled wife stood a good ways behind sucking her cigarette for dear life (smoking is not allowed in the park). Her eyes never blinked. The dad stopped filming Jessie for a second, turned around and pointed the camera at the mom. "Give us a smile, Brenda!" She never quit dragging on the cigarette and her face never changed. Her eyes were so wide and unblinking that you could see the white above her irises. Fireworks show starts and all throughout the thing, Jessie is standing on the rail flailing his arms while the dad says "Good, Jessie, keep conducting the orchestra. Keep moving, Jesse. Bring up the fireworks!" What amazed me about it was this kid looked to be about 10 or 11--way too old to do embarrassing shit like that. I concluded that he was mildly retarded. This performance continued throughout the whole show. I couldn't even hear the Christmas song over the dad's talking. After the show was over, we walked with the other cattle to the exit. About 15 minutes later, still stuck in a human clog before the gates, I see Jessie and his dad running around the gift shops screaming "BRENDA!!!" I guess she bailed on them. Can't say I blame her.

Oh yes, and being herded like cattle several times in the parks has taught me that people LOVE to fart in public.

That's pretty much my experience at Disney, besides all the rides and crap. Those were fun. We might go back again this year, and I hope this time we can save our pennies and afford a hotel with slightly thicker walls.

Police nab the "Bayou Strangler" aka the "Bayou Hamburgerler"

They finally caught that serial killer. Local crackheads can now sleep soundly. As can local buffet owners.

An excerpt from Crime Library:
"During two days of police questioning, Dominique confessed to murdering and raping 23 men whose bodies have been found in Terrebonne and surrounding parishes, Larpenter said. All of the bodies showed signs of strangulation, suffocation, or some type of asphyxiation death, and most bore subtle indications of bondage.

Dominique preyed on men who were down on their luck and in need of money, investigators said at a Monday press conference. Many of his victims were homeless, jobless, and had no means of transportation other than shoe leather or peddle power. Many of the victims were homosexual, as was Dominique."

You can read the whole story here.

Suck it, PS3.

Today I'm suffering from a case of Wii Arm.


I think with the release of the Wii, the children's obesity epidemic will taper off slightly, but cases of carpal tunnel and shoulder injuries will rise.

Also, those Miis are so darn creepy.

The Misadventures of Dope

I'm having a large bout of insomnia right now and one of the recommended techniques for getting drowsy is writing out everything you're thinking about at the time in order to cleanse your mind of anything that might be bothering it. So I'm going to do some free-association.

One of my friends is all messed up on hash brownies and won't answer any of my messages. I hope this person is not dead or injured. I'm probably killing his buzz. Before tonight I underestimated the power of weed. In high school the worst it did to me was make me time travel. And that was only the PCP *in* the pot, not the pot itself. Ahhh "the misadventures of dope." I think I want to tell all these stories now and get them off my chest. This is going to be a really long blog.

Ok so one time V bought this bag of pot from a raver chick at school. We had smoked plenty of times before and were experts at rigging up bongs out of anything we could find around the house. Bet you didn't know that about me in highschool, did you? I'm not proud of it, except when I'm reminiscing. Anyhow, I went to V's house one afternoon after school and we made a bong out of a two liter bottle and other found objects to smoke this new pack. I smoked some and almost immediately after I started getting tunnel vision really bad. I felt like I went through the tunnel and ended up somewhere else. I got really scared and started screaming. V tried to shut me up because her mom was in the front room and would hear me freaking out. I walked backwards from the bathroom into her bedroom and threw myself down on the bed. I was still screaming and couldn't control the volume of anything I said. By now my vision was blurred and doing that crappy delay effect from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody video. "I've time-travelled back to the '80s!" I screamed. V looked at my eyes and said they were completely black. She thought I was going to die. I'm not sure how long I lay there on the bed but eventually I recovered and we ended up downing Slim Fast and then I got on an exercise bike and pedalled for like two hours before my high eventually wore off. I'm not sure which substance was responsible for that, but it couldn't have been weed.

We didn't always get high at V's house. In fact, the first time I introduced V to weed was at my house when my parents were gone for the weekend. It was April 20th (retarded, I know) and someone had given me a free joint. This was the first time I ever had a joint in my posession and I wasn't completely sure how to act with it. I put it in my pocket and got really paranoid that cops could just sniff it out or that my grandma could tell I had it when she picked me up that day. I smuggled it safely to my empty house and called V over right away. I didn't tell her what I had until about an hour after she got there. I told her to come see what I had in the bathroom and she was reluctant because she thought I was going to show her a turd or something. Then I pulled out the joint and she got really nervous. I think at that point she was very anti-drugs and didn't know how to react to her best friend shoving a joint in her face. She hid those feelings well whenever I said I would just throw it away. "Oh no, don't waste it!" So we smoked it. By the end of the time, she had a pair of tweezers in her hand trying to get every last puff. We thought we might be high and that we should watch BET because the black comedians would be funnier while we were high. No such luck. The only thing that happened was V ate a whole bag of chips and the rest of the ice cream from the freezer, which pretty much wiped out the snack stash in the pantry. I had a tough time explaining that one when my parents came back.

Then there was the time V came over and we smoked while my grandma babysat my baby sister in the next room. We blew the smoke out the window screen but I'm sure she had to have smelled it. Then I made it even more obvious by running up to her with a fistful of wadded up cash and asked, between cackles of laughter, if she could order me a pizza. And even still after the pizza came, V and I were looking through an Oriental Trading magazine and when we came across a lady wearing a flag vest and top hat, we broke out into a stirring rendition of "You're a Grand Old Flag."

A few days after, an armadillo set up shop outside my window. I don't know if those two events are related, but I'd like to think so.

Then there was the time we got caught. I won't go into all the details of that, but let's just say we got a cat high and he ended up ratting us out by opening the door while the vent was on full blast and the smell of smoke wafted out. One of V's parents knew what was going on and the other was totally clueless and thought we might have been lezzing out in the bathroom or something. I'm still puzzled by that.

This blog has served its purpose as I am now very drowsy. I might come back and delete all this because it would be just my luck for someone undesirable to find it. Enjoy it while it's here, kiddies.

Nighty night.

Memory Project

I just saw this on CBS News and I think it is so amazing.

There is something called the Memory Project in which a man gets American high school students to paint portraits of orphans from Nicaragua. All they have to work with is a photograph and for some reason having to gaze at the face of the child every day builds a special connection. They say the students feel especially connected to the child in the portrait when they paint the eyes. The photo album on cbsnews.com doesn't really do justice to the video they aired, but it's better than nothing. It was so cool to see the kids get really emotional over receiving a portrait of themselves....the guy explained that they never had parents taking baby pictures of them and snapping photos while they were growing up--something we all take for granted--so it really touches them to see someone paying special attention to them as individuals.

I'm so bored!

I just saw the commercial for Dirge of Cerberus and Gackt's "Redemption" was playing. Wee. Gackt-spotting on a boring Saturday night.

Remember when AMC played horror movies sometimes? I wish they still did. I could go for a scary movie tonight. It will seem more fitting around October though.

I'm going to make a real effort to get into Halloween this year. Last year it was difficult because of the hurricanes and everything. Everyone was still sort of dragging along, trying to get back on track. There were no haunted houses, especially the good ones in New Orleans. Nope. But this year, I'm hoping all the good Halloween hangouts are back with a vengeance. But not literally, because I just want to have fun, not die. Here's to hoping the hurricanes pass us up this year. I hope they pass up Florida too, because if my Disney plans are ruined I'll just go to sleep and not get out of bed for a few months. The only thing that could really ruin my Halloween this year is neglectful parents waiting until friggin 5:30 to come pick up their kids. Which happened last year and I'm pretty sure it's going to happen again. Some people just don't think. If you are going to take your child trick-or-treating you better have then picked up by AT LEAST 5:00 so you can have time to get home, feed them, put them in their costume and get them out there. And heaven forbid the people watching your children have any plans of their own. Last year, I ended up staying with a child until 5:45 and by the time I got home it was nearly impossible to navigate through my neighborhood and into my driveway. Then I had to rush to get into MY costume and get to where I needed to be. My other complaint is that there has been an absence of good Halloween movies on TV during Halloween. I recall the recent movies have been mildly suspenseful and not really Halloweeny....like Bram Stoker's Dracula and Halloween 3. I'm sure cable stations have better cards up their sleeves than those two gems.

Halloween is still a good ways away now, so I'll try to focus on this upcoming week. I need to come up with a list of values and a mission statement for a casino. Research time. I have a feeling that this semester is going to wear on my nerves. I know one class that already does. It doesn't even go towards my major, I just kind of needed the hours, therefore, I resent it. And I'll have to do a paper for it, ew.
I'm still debating in my mind whether to stick with my concentration or move to another. It'll be in the same major, so it's not that big of a deal, but whatever.

I need a Coke right now. BAD.