Oct. 8 Oct. 10 Oct. 14 Oct. 17 Oct. 20 Oct. 22 Oct. 24 Oct. 25 Oct. 27 Oct. 28 Oct. 29 Oct. 30 Oct. 31 Nov. 1 Nov. 2 Nov. 4 Nov. 6

Nothing specifically about today to say. I've been meaning for some time, though, to start this year's Halloween journal. Sometime last month I got this Pumpkin Tool Box from Concept Marketing (it's not on the site anymore, though). It's such the coolest thing ever. No more losing track of jack-o-lantern tools! Also late last month my sister did a bit of decorating in the living room for Halloween. Which is a bit odd because she really doesn't like Halloween much, being so demonic and all, and since she's so uber-Christian. But hey, she also likes decorating, I guess, so whatever. It's not like there's anything demonic in it. She just decorated the mantle above the non-working fireplace here, with a string of lights, some fake leaves, some candy, a couple pumpkins... I think that's it. I'm sure she wouldn't let me put up some of my stuff. Well, what else to say? I bought a sun & moon necklace with eyes that flash. For my sun & moon collection (sorry I don't have a picture). Although it was in the Halloween section of Rite-Aid, I don't really think of it as a Halloween thing, but I thought I might as well mention it here, anyway. And I think that's about all I can say for now. Oh, except, you know, I think it was the end of last year that I went from calling myself ektomage or ekt back to teknomage or tek, which it used to be before my character died and became a ghost. Because he came back to life now. There's still lots of places online where I call myself ektomage, and it's in the URL of this site (at least until someday if I can ever afford my own domain). But I've been working on changing any pages that say ekt to tek. That's slow-going, I haven't made a concerted effort, I just occasionally do it if I happen to be working on a page that still says ekt. But the point of all this is, I decided I'd still use the name ekt for Halloween, which is why I'm not changing it on this section of my homepage. Oh yes, also I should say some channels are starting to do Halloween programming, like Cartoon Network, for example. I think tomorrow I should try to check out the Halloween episode of Juniper Lee...

Oct. 10

Well, I wanted to say that last night I watched Juniper Lee. On Halloween, the monster children have spells cast on them to look like human children, go around doing mundane human things, and laugh about it. But then this year, they couldn't change back, so Juniper had to find out why, and get it fixed. I shouldn't say any more than that, I suppose. Though really it involved a plot device that's been done to death in countless other shows. Still, it was alright. I always enjoy Juniper Lee, anyway. And... there should be plenty more things to watch this month, other Halloween specials and whatnot. I fear, since I still have no job since moving from Ohio to Maine in June, I won't be able to do much. I have hardly any money. But at least there's TV. And btw, on Adult Swim on the 29th, there's an anime thing gonna air, "Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek." I don't really know much about it, but I'm quite looking forward to it. And I guess that's about all I can say for now.

Oct. 14

Well, today I was channel surfing and came across Reading Rainbow, which I haven't seen much of for years. Anyway... it opens on a dark and spooky night, with spooky music playing. Slowly zooming in on a house... and inside, well-appointed, crackling fireplace... and into the library... a leather chair behind a desk... the chair swivels to reveal our host, LeVar, in a smoking jacket, doing his best creepy... um... smoking-jacket-wearing voice. Alas, the show itself wasn't particularly scary. They showed some reenactments of things we're supposed to guess if they're fact or fiction, like a father and son finding some baby dinosaur bones just lying around, in the city. Or a woman seeing a UFO. There was also a piece on this guy who grows giant pumpkins. And Charles Kimbrough read a book about giant vegetables falling from outer space, which kinda reminded me of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. And guess what? That was one of the three books kids were recommending later! Oh yeah, I should also mention on LeVar's desk was a box with a hairy hand coming out of it occasionally. It was kinda like a were-Thing, I thought. And I think that's about all there is to say. Not exactly one of the best episodes, but it was vaguely Halloweenish, so I thought I'd mention it here.

Oct. 17

Well, today I watched a tape of "Twitches." And then I finally got around to doing something I've meant to do for at least a year now, start a page for Halloween TV movies. Put a little review of Twitches there, nothing special. I need to add reviews of other movies eventually, but I want to rewatch them first. No doubt Disney Channel shall put on plenty of things this month, I should have plenty of chances to catch them....

Oct. 20

Today I downloaded Do They Know It's Hallowe'en? off LimeWire (don't look for a download at the link I've provided, that's just for info or to buy it if you're interested). I just wanted to check it out, see if it's something I might want to buy. I'm not sure. If I get some money soon I probably will. It's for UNICEF, after all, and it's kinda funny I guess. But I didn't love it as much as I hoped to. Still, the single should have several versions, I might like some better than the one I dl'ed, it's hard to say. In any event, even if I don't buy it I won't hold on to the MP3 past Halloween...

Oct. 22

Today I watched a Halloween episode of American Dragon: Jake Long. That was nice. It seems like I haven't seen this show in quite awhile. I can never keep track of when they're putting on new eps cuz it seems like Disney Channel is always moving it around. And it mostly seems like reruns anyway. But whatever, I enjoyed it today. Dunno what to say. There was a party where Jake, Trixie, and Spud invited a bunch of people from school as well as magical creatures, who the humans just assume are wearing costumes. Meanwhile the Dragon Council comes for a surprise test, which Jake fails just cuz he's having a party. They take his dragon powers away, but then the Huntsclan kidnap the council and Jake and everyone have to save them, and he gets his powers back. Meanwhile Gramps is taking Jake's sister trick or treating, and everyone loves Gramps cuz they think he's a little boy wearing a wise old Chinese man costume. Eventually all the kids in town start wearing Gramps costumes. That was weird.

Later, I watched the movie The Batman vs. Dracula on Toonami. Definitely better than buying the DVD. Anyway, it was actually pretty decent. Not great, but definitely better than the average episode of The Batman. I put a review here, if you're interested. And that's all I can say for today....

Oct. 24

Today watched Halloween episode of "How I Met Your Mother." That was fun. Ted hoped to see the Slutty Pumpkin who he met at a party 4 years ago. Marshall and Lily dressed as a pirate and parrot. Pirate looked like Johnny Depp in Pirate of the Caribbean, though as of this writing I still haven't seen that movie. I'd like to. And um, I can't think of anything else to say now.

Oct. 25

Okay, I'm posting this on the 26th, but it's about yesterday. Now let me think a moment. Um... there was some planning for Halloween on Gilmore Girls, but the holiday hasn't arrived yet. I think we should see it next week. Also I was taping Charlie Brown, since I thought my sister wanted to see it. Usually wants to see whatever's on ABC at that time, anyway. But then last week she had me tape GG instead, cuz a friend of hers wanted to see it. And last night Beth said her friend wanted to see it again, so I taped the second half of the show. I wish I would've known this was going to be like an every week style o' fing. What else? Um... Halloween figured somewhat in Commander in Chief. I don't think Supernatural was supposed to be a Halloween episode, but of course it's always spooky. I think next week should be a Halloween episode of Boston Legal. And that's all I can think to say, I hope I'm not forgetting anything...

Oct. 27

I realized today that the next episode of Gilmore Girls isn't for 2 weeks. And I'm pretty sure we probably won't get to see any Halloween in it. Dammit. Anyway, last night watched part of "Freddie," a series which I've never seen before nor had any interest in. But I read where he was taking his niece to see Rocky Horror, so I thought I should check it out. He also took a couple of her friends. It was funny, I guess. But I probably won't be watching any more of the series. Or maybe I will, but I don't really care. I doubt it. Whatever. Watched South Park which wasn't Halloweeny per se, but it did involve Butters faking his death, and his dad later digging up the remains to bury in an Indian burial ground, and when Butters came home later his parents thought he was some hideous abomination. And stuff. Yep, funny stuff. And that's just like the B story.

Oct. 28

So yesterday I read Stephen King's article The Fright Stuff, this week's entry in his regular "The Pop of King" back page of EW. Talks about some music, TV, movies, etc, to get in the mood for Halloween this year, even though he himself doesn't care for the holiday. And who can blame him? If I were a famous horror novelist I'd probably try to distance myself from such things as well. Or not, I dunno. It's a good thing horror ain't my cup of chai, cuz I love Halloween...

Anyway, what else? Started watching Smallville, which was cool. Had vampires. or at least people with a disease that was virtually indistinguishable from vampirism, so why split hairs? I've always liked the idea of vampirism as a disease, anyway. Well, I had to tape the latter half, which I watched this morning. I especially enjoyed the use of the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" in one scene. I gots that on my Halloween mixdisc I made a few years ago... also on a Bauhaus CD I bought last year... Anyway, at 9 last night I watched Night Stalker, which I haven't done since the pilot. It started with Halloween, but that didn't last long. The rest of the ep was creepy enough, though. Plus it had Tony Todd as a guest star, and he's always kinda got a creepy thing going. He was something of an antagonist in this ep, though not a villain. In fact I don't think I can really recall seeing him in any specifically creepy or evil roles, though I know he's done some. Usually he's playing a good guy when I see him, but still... the potential for creepiness is always there. But I do go on! The really creepy guy in this ep was Ezekiel, who looked really familiar to me. My best guess was that he reminded me of Angelo from Pretender, although he looked too old to be the same actor. And when I checked online today, apparently it was a different actor, who I don't think I've seen in anything... Oh well, whatever. Well, anyway, this morning I watched my tape, which had first the Halloween episode of Everybody Hates Chris, which was decent I guess. And then as I said, the latter half of Smallville. And I guess that's all I can think to say for now, except... I thought Nick's supposed to play Invader Zim sometime soon. Tonight they have their Halloween stuff on, and Zim isn't listed, so I dunno. Maybe the ad I saw was for Nicktoons Network or something... which is annoying if that's what it was....

Oct. 29

Well. Yesterday Beth bought some of the Mountain Dew Pitch Black II I had asked for awhile ago, and I tried a can today. Y'know, it's like last year's Pitch Black, except sour. Not bad. Hmmm, what else? Yesterday was a Halloween episode of Malcolm in the Middle. Malcolm and Reese took Jamie trick-or-treating, but ended up getting pursued by an old man with a walker. And Hal was worried about ghosts when they found out a bunch of murders had taken place in their house decades ago. And I guess that's all I can think to say for now.

Okay, so later today I watched my tape of last night's Danny Phantom. It was a Halloween ep, but it was old, but I hadn't seen it before. Seems to be the first appearance of Fright Knight, who I'd seen before in the hourlong episode Reign Storm, but this is obviously before that. And later on TV I watched Tower of Terror on ABC Family. I must've seen it a few years ago, probably on Disney Channel. I'm not sure when I saw it, but it probably would have been a few years after it first aired. Anyway, not bad, and then I went and added a little entry for it on my Halloween TV movies page (which I mentioned some time ago on this page when I watched Twitches). What else? Tonight I plan to watch Kakurenbo on Adult Swim, that should be cool....

Oct. 30

Well, Kakurenbo wasn't... I mean, I didn't like it as much as I hoped to, but it was still cool. I wrote a brief entry here. I think I may want to see this again sometime and I may like it better in the future... though I dunno when I might have the chance. I might actually buy it someday, but not for a long time, I'm sure. Anyway, today I took out a few Halloween things from my storage bin. And I decorated up the front page of my discussion board, Volcano Mountain. Tonight I suppose I might watch last year's Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror. Of course this year's isn't till next week. Can't think of anything else to say right now...

Well, I listened to 3 Halloween CDs today while working on my homepage.

Oct. 31

Happy Halloween! So. Last night watched "Lucy: Daughter of the Devil" on Adult Swim. It was okay, but too short. Seemed like it should be part of a series. Not sure what else to say or even if I'll bother making an entry for it on my TV pages. Maybe, if so I'll put it here. Today I just added a link to Spirit Halloween on my front Halloween page. I also don't think I mentioned that the chain on the sun & moon pendant I mentioned around the top of this page... was too short, and I switched it for another... but the other day the other one broke, so I took yet another... see, most of the ones I have are like I dunno, sort of yarnish, but the one I had first switched it for was actually a chain. Maybe I thought it was a bit short too, but whatever. The one I changed it to when it broke, again yarnish, seemed too long. So today I was thinking of switching it again, but I'm getting tired of stealing things from my other pendants for this one. So gosh I had a clever idea: I cut the one I was using to make it a preferable length. Seems good now. Still got a couple pendants without chains but whatev, I can only wear one at a time, or only want to anyway. So I could always switch back and forth. I rarely wear any such thing anyway, like practically never. Isn't this an exciting post? Ever so interesting and entertaining... I wish I had something else to say, but no doubt I shall later. Right now I'm just listening to mp3s and I think I'll see if there are any last minute changes to make to my November page before switching over to my site's front door on the morrow...

6:47pm now. Earlier I tried to watch this thing I taped off Cartoon Network last night, the Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow, but it kind of sucked, so I ended up fast forwarding thru most of it. Also did some channel surfing, watched part of a Halloween episode of Weekenders, which I'd seen before I guess, but it was cool. Also, I've always thought Tino's mom is pretty, but in a cat costume, rowr! And I tried making these pumpkin dessert things from Eagle Brand Kits... it doesn't seem like there was enough crust for all 6 baking cups after I mixed it up, but I did what I could. It's fine, the pumpkin filling may have way more than filled the crusts, but it all fit in the cups, so it's fine. What else? Um, there were a group of 3 trick-or-treaters at one point who I gave packets of m+m's to. Hurray. And Code Lyoko wasn't Halloweeny or anything, but it was pretty scary today I thought. And I saw a little piece of the History of Halloween on History Channel. Not much, since it was half over when I turned to it, and I've seen it before, and I'll see it again in future years I'm sure. But enough to make me look up Anoka, Minnesota, and that led me to add a link to Anoka Halloween out front. Probably been some other Halloween stuff on TV while I was surfing, but didn't pay much attention to any of it. A little bit of Kids Next Door, etc.

Oh, also I should say, for such a long time I hoped I would get a job in time to get paid prior to Halloween. But still no damn job. And I hoped I would get birthday money I could use for Halloween, I know there's one check a relative was going to send but apparently never have. My hopes have been dwindling, and today was my last hope for a Halloween miracle... which of course, didn't happen. Sigh. No Halloween ale for me. I'll sit home all sober and stuff. But I'll be fine. Um... and I'm listening to my Halloween mixdisc now, it's cool.

Nov. 1

Okay, so last night I watched my dvd of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the original movie, which I bought either one or two years ago but hadn't gotten around to watching yet, since I'd seen it before). Today I finally got around to writing up a review here, which mostly involved moving some stuff from my review of the TV series to a movie page, and breaking it up into paragraphs, editing it some, adding a bit of detail. But not much. It also meant very slightly editing the beginning of the TV review, aside from just deleting the text that I moved.

Anyway, also last night, after Buffy, I watched a DVD I got last year, that had 3 Vincent Price movies. I'm not sure when I watched the first movie on it, "House on Haunted Hill," but I think it must've been in November sometime. I mentioned buying the DVD in last year's journal, but not watching it, so I guess it must've been some time after Halloween. I probably mentioned it in my blog, but hell if I'm gonna go looking for that. It ain't important. I didn't really think too much of the movie, though I do remember it couldn't have been too awfully long after I watched it that there was a scene of people on The O.C. watching the same movie, so I thought that was cool. And I dunno when I watched the next movie, "The Last Man on Earth," it may've been around Christmas or something. I can now officially tell you that had to be my least favorite movie on the disc. Because last night I watched the third movie, "The Bat." It may have been my favorite movie on the disc, though I still didn't think it was all that good. Everyone behaved so stupidly, plus it was pretty predictable. Even so, I'm glad to have seen it. And I still want to watch more of Vincent Price's movies eventually. And also I'm thinking that Maurice LaMarche sounds an awful lot like Vincent Price, but that's apropos of absolutely nothing, just my mind wandering randomly. Anyway, I think I'll try taking this DVD to Needful Things and see how much I could get for it. I could totally use a couple bucks.

Oh, and today my sister wanted me to make candy apples while she was at work. I never did that before. I hope they turned out okay. She was taking them someplace she went after work, so I doubt I'll get to have one, but we'll see. Oh yeah, also I wanted to say that Sunday night I taped this TV movie "Vampire Bats" on CBS, and I got around to watching it today, though early on I thought I'd just quit watching before too long, cuz I thought it was kinda lame. But I did end up watching the whole thing. Maybe it got a bit better as it went on. But it still wasn't really good, and I'm definitely not going to write an entry for it on my TV pages. And that's all I can think to say, for now....

Nov. 2

Well, today in the mail we got a package from our aunt and uncle in Ohio. It had some Halloween stuff in it for Beth and me, couple little bags of candy, couple Halloween snap bracelets, a bunch of like Halloween plastic confetti type stuff littering the box, some mulling spice Beth had asked for, and at long last, my birthday check. Bit of a trick having it come late, but it's still a really nice treat...

Okay, also today I have watched my tape of last night's Boston Legal. One of the cases was a group of four people trying to prevent a school Halloween pageant. There was a Christian couple who were upset about witches, who they say worship Satan, and they're upset because they're not allowed to have a Christmas pageant or whatever, so it's unfair. There was a Wiccan couple who are upset about the depiction of witches as evil and whatnot, since real Wiccans don't worship Satan or even believe in Satan, or anything like that. These two couples seriously didn't get along with each other, but they were trying to work together against the school. Personally, of the two couples, I was more on the side of the Wiccans, though I guess I could to an extent see the Christians' point, too. But ultimately I was on the side of the school. So I was glad the 4 people lost the case, on the grounds that Halloween should be taken lightly. Of course, the school's lawyer, as well as the judge, referred to it as a secular holiday. And I know that originally it was a Pagan holiday, later coopted by Christians, so actually it is technically a doubly religious holiday that both sides could fight over... but in this day and age, really, it's mostly commercial. And the defense was right, too, when they said kids don't see witches as a symbol of anything. And when the judge said they should remember what the holiday's really about, I so knew he'd say "candy." Anyway, there are, I'd say, no major holidays that remain entirely religious. There are a few major religious holidays that have become largely secular, and there are a bunch of minor religious holidays no one thinks much about or are even necessarily aware of. So I think both sides should keep Halloween in their own ways, and let the general public keep it in a secular way. Well, that's all I've got to say I guess...

Nov. 4

I wanted to mention that for some time now I've been reading the October issue of Anime Insider, and there was some vaguely Halloweenish content in there. An article about anime characters' blood types, which is popular in Japan, blood types determining personalities. And an article about some scary anime and manga. Also, yesterday this week's EW finally arrived. It should come no later than Monday, so coming on Thursday is just ridiculous. Especially considering it too had some Halloween content, about scary TV and movies and whatnot. Oh yeah, also, yesterday Dad came to stay for a few days, and brought some candy with him. I had some "spooky cats" Peeps. I've never been big on Peeps, you know, and have been somewhat troubled in the past few years with their branching out from Easter to so many other holidays... but I still don't mind having a few Peeps once or twice a year, I guess.

Nov. 6

Hi. Well, I reckon this is the last entry for this year. Watched Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XVI tonight. Liked the opening bit with Kang and Kodos watching the World Series and using an acceleray to speed it up so that it would be over in time for Treehouse of Horror. Or whatever. Let's see... there was the bit where Bart gets replaced by a robot. Meh. Didn't suck, but wasn't really good, either. Then Mr. Burns played the Most Dangerous Game. That was a bit better maybe. At least it was a decent choice of a story to rip off. But the one that I really liked this year was when a witch turned everyone in town into their costumes. There were a few good ones. Hans Moleman turning into a mole. And... I think it was Ned... turning into a flower and the Bee guy was... well, good play on the Nasonex commercials. And, I dunno, I forget already cuz I've got such a bad memory. But I liked it anyway. Even though I'm pretty much out of the Halloween spirit by now. Seriously, they gotta try to do these things closer to the holiday. Anyways, see ya next year, I guess...