The Engagement

So, this just happened this weekend...

... and, she said "yes!" :-)

Halloween Horror Nights

So we're now officially in October, and what holiday does that bring us? Why, my favorite one, of course – All Hallows' Eve, a.k.a. Halloween!

Carve your pumpkins, hang your ghostly decorations, bust out the old black and white monster movies, and don't forget to buy candies and sweets for the neighborhood kids – or to prepare your razor-filled apples, if that's more your thing – no worries, I ain't here to judge. Plus, if you do that, it gives me an actual excuse to eat, err... “check,” my niece's and nephews' goodies.

(Haha, just kidding: no razors in the apples this year, please! You can't joke with people anymore because they're taking things a wee-bit too literally these days, hence this disclaimer.)

But anyway, I digress... no, wait, did anybody actually ever do that? Great, now I'm curious! Let me check Snopes and I'll be right back. (Yep. See what I mean about people?)

Crazies aside, Halloween, to me, is a time to dress up and act silly. I guess that's because I never bit into a sharp object, so that doesn't really register with me, although one Halloween I did get shot at from a car with two adult males in it, the driver of whom was wearing a baby costume. I didn't really get a good look at the other guy, since I had to hop a neighbor's wooden fence and run for dear life.

However, on a typical Halloween, things like that don't happen to me. On the contrary, Halloween's typically a very fun night for me.

When I was younger, I used to invite friends over and go trick-or-treating throughout my neighborhood. Kids don't really do that much these days, though. Too many whack-a-doodles out there, I suppose. As I morphed into a teenager, I'd host horror movie marathons at my place, and occasionally, my friends and I would halt a movie to go pull pranks on little kids (such as jumping out from the bushes to scare the unwitting trick-or-treaters). Boy, weren't those the days?!

Once I entered adulthood, costume parties, haunted trails and masked pub crawls became the norm. I wish I could remember those more, but my brain and my booze – though they certainly know how to have a good time together – ain't the best tandem when it comes to recalling stuff.

This year, however, my girlfriend, my best friend and I decided to switch it up and work our way toward Universal Studios for “the largest Halloween event in the nation.”

Featuring my favorite horror movie of all-time (Halloween), my favorite non-syndicated T.V. show (The Walking Dead), the current ongoing summer horror movie franchise (The Purge), as well as rides such as the “Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit” and “The Simpsons Ride,” this night was definitely going to be a very memorable Halloween Horror Night!!

My girlfriend is extremely – and almost comically – afraid of Michael Myers. As we walked into that house, which looked like a perfect reproduction of the Haddonfield house in which little Mikey stabbed his older sister back in 1963, I could feel my girlfriend's nails clawing into my skin and her body quivering. Every single time Michael popped out, I felt her jump. That's why I wasn't surprised when we got to a room that featured like eight or ten different Michael Myers' lined up in a row, to hear her scream like eight or ten different times. If I hadn't experienced anything else that night, that alone would've been worth the price of admission. But alas, there was more!

As we were walking passed the Dracula-themed haunted house, just outside the Revenge of the Mummy rollercoaster, we heard a loud monotonous siren going off and we saw a truck driving into our pathway. Of course, we stopped to see what this was all about, when suddenly, the truck stopped, the back doors flung open, and out came a bunch of armed folks in masks to take hostages. Turns out, we had walked right into The Purge's scare zone, and I was one of several who decided to take a photo with the guy in the “God” mask, which I did notice Universal Studios switched up to read “Dog,” I guess so as to not offend anybody? Regardless, this was as close as I'll ever be to actually being in that movie, so it was neat watching it play out all around me.

[Side note: Those movies don't really make much sense. If you could commit any crime you wanted for 24 hours, what sane person would really desire to kill people? Aside from the irrational serial killers living among us, if you could commit any crime you wanted and have it be legal, I think the grand majority of us would prefer to be out robbing banks, no? I truly believe that The Purge would make me rich, not get me killed by some dude in a white magic-markered mask, but maybe that's just me 'cause I know I'd be all about the Benjamins once that siren sounded.]

Surely, with the Halloween house scaring my girlfriend so, and The Purge activities drumming up the fanboy in me, my best friend was feeling a bit left out by this point, so it was time for us to give him something, too. Considering he's the biggest Simpsons lover I've ever met, his holy grail awaited behind a large sign that read “Krustyland.”

He'd never been on “The Simpsons Ride” before, so we took him there to experience four and a half simulated minutes of an afternoon gone awry in Springfield with an out-for-revenge Sideshow Bob, an out-of-order Krustyland theme park and an out-of-the-radiation-room giant Maggie. Though I never directly asked him, I could see it in his face that he thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Afterward, the three of us walked over to the rest of The Simpsons-themed section of Universal Studios, which included all the famous restaurants from the television series, such as Krusty Burger, Moe's Tavern, Cletus' Chicken Shack, The Frying Dutchman, Luigi's and Bumblebee Man's Taco Truck, as well as the world famous Kwik-E-Mart. As sure as I am that I am not pagan and should therefore probably not be commercializing the crap out of their holiday, I'm sure that my pal was in heaven drinking his Buzz Cola and eating his Chicken Thumbs.

After we'd all had our individual joys met, we ended the night having some joint fun at the Walking Dead house, which was cool because it gave us a glimpse into this upcoming season's Terminus setting. Much like in the Halloween house earlier, this haunted house contained a room chalk full of zombies. Like a bajillion of them! (Maybe even a bajillion and one.) It was brilliantly creepy, and the perfect way to end our awesome night.

So if anybody out there's looking for something fun to do for 2014's “spooky holiday,” I'd highly recommend going to check out this year's annual festivities at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights. The tickets are a bit pricey, but at least you can get somewhat of a discount using the code found on specific Coca-Cola products.

For those of you who do decide to go, please don't forget to give my best to Michael Myers, the zombies stuck at Terminus and “God Mask.” I definitely wouldn't want any of those people getting mad at me, as they're not exactly known for having the best tempers!

The Wise Woman's Stone

By no means am I a perfect being, and that's why every so often, I try to better myself where I can by reading short little self-help books. Today, over dinner, I was reading one titled 101 Daily Affirmations for Confidence and Self-Love.

As I sat there munching on my fish sandwich and sipping at my ginger ale, all I kept thinking about was how authors of books like the one I was reading so unselfishly take time out of their busy schedules to help out people like me who're continually looking for guidance in their life. I wish I could have such a helpful soul, but much like Jim Morrison of The Doors, "I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human with the soul of a clown, which forces me to blow it at the most important moments."

Anyway, as I kept thinking those aforementioned thoughts about unselfish authors, it made me recall an ancient Indian parable I'd heard years before, which goes something like this...

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day, she met another traveler who was also hungry, so the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. 

The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime, but a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

"I've been thinking," he said. "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me whatever you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."

Consider this my own personal way of giving a little unselfishness back to society.