Halloween is a time for lots of yummy/bad for you treats. Now that I think about that so is Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, News Year Eve, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and so on. Not only do I get all the classic Halloween treats I also get some form of cake and presents (YAY!). Here is a breakdown of all my favorite Halloween goodies. Nom nom!
Caramel/Candy Apples Who doesn't love a good sugary covered apple this time of year? Has anyone else noticed that caramel/candy apples are getting a little fancier each year? Besides the classic, plain caramel and candy I have also seen some with nuts, rainbow sprinkles, M&Ms, marshmallows, and this summer I saw one at a gourmet candy shop by Cincinnati covered in peanut butter and Reese's Pieces!
Candy Corn Not my favorite but I do enjoy a nice, healthy handful of candy corn every now and then. I think that candy corn is more cute than tasty and it is symbolic of the season.
Popcorn Balls These are great as long as you don't break a tooth! They are way better when they are homemade. Since popcorn balls are a royal pain in the ass to make I can settle with packaged ones.
Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale I just learned to appreciate the joys of beer this year. Oh, and I am glad I did! The Blue Moon Brewing Co. comes out with special seasonal brews and my favorite is the Autumn Pumpkin Ale. It's a little weird at first and I was apprehensive at first. It doesn't taste like a piece of pumpkin pie smashed up in a beer like one would think. It's more of a darker beer with an occasional taste of pumpkin. Bottoms up!!
Caramel Apple Pops These are my absolute favorite candy! I couldn't find them for a few years and my Halloween season was just not the same. I found some at Meijer a few weeks and I snapped and bought 4 bags!
Halloween Cupcakes I usually end up with cupcakes on Halloween. Last year for my birthday, I ended up ordering way too many from the bakery. When my mom went to pick them up there was a lady next to her who was also picking up Halloween cupcakes. The lady said "Do you have a Halloween baby, too?" "Yes." "How old is yours?"- the lady asked "She is 21." "Mine is 1 today." FAIL! This year I am making my own damn cake (even though those bakery cupcakes are super cute).
October is my favorite time of year. Not only is Halloween my favorite holiday, it also happens to be my birthday. I am pretty hardcore Halloween (I have a bat tattooed on my foot in honor of the day) and I am writing a series of Halloween-related blogs. I have always enjoyed 1980s horror movies. The 80s were the heyday for slasher and horror movies. I think many fans would agree that the best horror movies were made between 1980-1989. Humans have always enjoyed violence and horror and it wasn't until this time that Hollywood really caught on to this and decided to cash in. If it wasn't for Psycho 20 years before we wouldn't have Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers. So thank you, Hitchcock for killing Janet Leigh in the shower! Many of my peers have a special place in our hearts for these movies. Not because we saw them when they originally released but because we remember going to the now almost-extinct video stores with our families and friends and wandering over into the horror section knowing we weren't supposed to and looking at these VHS box covers in both fascination and terror. We wanted to watch these seemingly terrifying movies but were too afraid too. During my three year stint at Blockbuster I remember seeing kids and preteens do this as well with the same posters I did as well as the newer ones. When I got old enough to see these movies I was not disappointed although these 80s horror films are not going to win an Academy Award (some are just plain awful) but they are fun and symbolic of Halloween itself and a by-gone era in cinema. I did some searching for some of my favorite 80s horror movie posters. They just don't make 'em like they used to! *The Spookies poster is on the wall collage of posters at Showplace Cinemas in Somerset,KY* *The Horror High is my favorite*
Mad Men is not only one of my favorite new shows but it is also considered to be the best show on television. With only 2 episodes left of season 4, I thought I would share some of my favorite moments from the show (including seasons 1-3). *SPOILERS* Hint: click on the links for videos! For starters this show is extremely clever. I feel like I learn something when I watch and it's also a show that I am not ashamed of (cough, cough, hint, hint Teen Mom). It helps to know business terminology when watching this show. Thanks to my almost completed Arts Administration degree this is not an issue. Who ever would have thought that a show about advertising in the 1960s would have been so interesting? There are masses of 1960s pop culture references (Who could forget the Bye,Bye Birdie style commercial in Season 3 or little Sally Draper going to see The Beatles at Madison Square Garden a few weeks ago? Or Peggy's Twist infused promotion party?) It also deals with real historical events, people and real products and companies. There was a whole episode dedicated to the day JFK was shot. It's clear that the writers and directors do their history homework. The agency also holds accounts with Bird's Eye, Playtex, Mountain Dew, Samsonite suitcases, Kodak, and Lucky Strike. This is a clever tactic because the audience is familiar with all of those brand names so it feels familiar and you can relate to the ads made on the show. One thing that Mad Men does is that at the start of every season time jumps forward one year. This leads to things happening at the beginning of seasons that are never really explained. The audience just learns to accept them and move on . Also many major plot points are left unanswered and unresolved. Such as Peggy and Pete's illegitimate baby in Seasons 1 & 2 and what ever happened to Roger Sterling's daughter? I am sure we will find out eventually but for now we will just have to wait and wonder. I think that Season 4 has been the best so far. It's a little different in the sense that Sterling Cooper is now Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce after the original agency was bought out at the end of season 3. It took a little getting used to a new set. The season is all about characters starting over in a new office as well as in life. Don Draper has finally gotten divorced from everyone's favorite bitchy housewife, Betty. Joan Holloway Harris is married with a husband (who is a complete tool and who raped her in season 3) in Vietnam. Peggy Olson is slowly rising to the top of the corporate latter and Roger is rekindling his affair with Joan all while starting the new agency. My favorite part of the new season so far is the awkward somewhat romantic relationship between Don and Peggy. I did not see this coming at all. The more I see it the more I like it and I think that we will see them together possibly at the end of this season. I love the idea and I think it makes perfect sense because they are the male and female versions of each other and it just makes sense considering Peggy is pretty much the only regular female character besides Joan that Don Draper hasn't screwed. It would be a great plot twist and cause many troubles for the at the office. The more trouble we have at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce the better the show is!
I also love that we saw some more Joan and Roger. For those of your with penises I am sorry that this is all you get to see of Christina Hendricks ;)
Now for some other great moments from past seasons... The lawnmower incident. This is just one of those what the f*ck moments that only this show could pull off. It's hilarious yet horrible and unlike any other scene ever put on TV. Even if you have never seen this show you know that someone got their foot cut off with a lawnmower on Mad Men.
Vomit. Yep you read that right. Vomit. For some reason this show has an excessive amount of vomit. There is no video for this because, well it's vomit and that's gross. I am not really sure why there is so much vomit on this show. It's gross yet funny at the same time. The most memorable vomit scene on this show would have to be Roger on the stairs after a lunch of martinis and oysters and before a heart attack after he and Don have sex with twin sisters. Okay moving on.... Betty VS. The Birds This is such a great Betty moment. He truly showcases how crazy she really is. She is pretty fab. Gotta love her! Now for some unanswered Mad Men questions... How in the hell did AMC get away with showing a 10 year-old Sally Draper starting to masturbate? WTF?!?!? I feel a little wrong posting this. I am actually a little disturbed by this.
Why do Joan and Don randomly kiss? I fully support this but what does it mean? Is it some kind of odd brother-sister love or is it unresolved sexual tension? I hope everyone enjoyed my thoughts on Mad Men. Please feel free to share your thoughts. " Look, I want to tell you something because your very dear to me and I hope you understand it comes from the bottom of my damaged, damaged heart. You are the finest piece of ass I ever had and I don't care who knows it. I am so glad I got to roam those hillsides."-Roger Sterling After reading the Rolling Stone article about this show I love it even more because it was pretty much self made by a bunch of Hollywood rejects. It's always great when nobodies can rise to the top :)
I know I haven't posted in a while so here goes!! This one's a doozie! I have been planning this blog for a some time now and I think it's finally time it happened. If you know anything about Hollywood history and the casting of Gone with the Wind then you already know the direction this is going. For starters, my boyfriend Cory and I get along great. We have lots in common and agree on most things. One thing we have in common is a love for Classic Hollywood. The one thing that we disagree on the most when it comes to movies is the casting of Scarlett O'Hara. This is not something that is a great barrier or anything that results in a knock down drag out fight. It's just something fun to joke about and somehow we manage to bring it up everyday. It's gotten to the point now where it's always something I can count on. I am pro-Vivien Leigh and he is on team Paulette Goddard, who was almost cast as the infamous Southern Belle. Paulette Goddard was signed with David Selznick at the time but he did not cast her because she couldn't prove that she was legally married to Charlie Chaplin. At the time our buddy Vivien Leigh was legally married to her first husband but was "living in sin" as they say with Laurence Olivier. I really don't see the difference in those situations but it was 1939 and people cared about things like that then. Nowadays you could marry a chicken on the internet, have a Cheeto as your maid of honor (or best man) and video tape your wedding night and no one would bat an eye. I love Paulette Goddard. I think she is adorable and I love her in the movie The Ghostbreakers with Bob Hope. But she is was not the right choice for the part of Scarlett. She could have played Scarlett ifRhett had needed a zany sidekick. Having coached some acting pieces before I can tell that Paulette Goddard is a good actress by watching her screen test. Just because you are a good actress doesn't mean you can't play every part that comes your way. If you act, the sooner you know this the better off you will be :). Obviously, Vivien Leigh was cast accordingly. NOTE TO CORY: There was no casting couch involved regardless of what you think, my dear! Here are the screen tests from GWTW. I am kinda obsessed with this video. I think it's hilarious and interesting to see all the different acting choices. It's a little painful in some parts (poor Lana Turner and Tallulah Bankhead. Really what the fuck were they thinking.) I would hate to think that my massive acting fail is immortalized on celluloid for ever.
Anyway, enjoy and remember that tomorrow is another day!
This week I lost my beloved dog of 15 years, Bingo Anne. She had cancer and we had to put her down. It has been really hard but I know we did the right thing for her. She had such a great life and lived a very, very, very long time for a big dog. We are not really sure what kind of dog she was. We know she is some kind of husky mix. Perhaps a little bit of a wolf. She was just a good ol' outside dog who killed and ate all kinds of small backyard animals including our neighbor's pet yellow cockatoo and a cat until she discovered air conditioning. Our trusty outside guard dog was then a spoiled rotten house dog. We referred to her as "The Bitch" because she was the top dog (the other dogs we had including Fudge knew it too). Some people found her a little scary because she looked so much like a wolf and had some wild animal like characteristics. I was never scared of her because she was just a big baby (who could cut a bitch! lol). She was the best dog ever! I will miss her everyday.
I have been looking at the website http://ihasahotdog.com/ this week and it has helped me so much in dealing with the loss of Bingo. Seeing the funny captions of other dogs (and a few of Bingo that I made) has made me feel so much better. They are so funny and the captions that people put on the pictures perfectly capture the spirit of the dogs or googies as they are called on the site. Here are some that I made.... Here are some of my favorites from the site....
