Please Stand By

I currently have several blog posts in various states of completion, but I'm afraid there might be a not-very-brief interruption in service. Here's why:


Christmas came early, as I made a probably ill-advised purchase of Criterion's AK 100, a set of 25 Akira Kurosawa films. I'm a bit upset to learn that none of the discs have any of the special features available on the individually released discs, but if I'm being honest with myself, I probably wouldn't have watched most of them. I got through half of the commentary for Seven Samurai before I grew tired of Michael Jeck's highly informative but also dry and lifeless ramblings. And, on the plus side, they've gone back and corrected the few problems evident in earlier prints of the film. So, for 8 bucks a movie, I'll continue to convince myself that this was a wise investment.

Halloween Picture Extravaganza

I'll take it as a good sign that I'm too busy enjoying Halloween to write about it. I'm watching too many movies, going to too many parties, carving too many pumpkins, and gathering candy from too many houses to really write or post anything in-depth. This upcoming week will probably see a few more detailed impressions of the holiday's activities, but for now, enjoy a few glimpses into my recent life.



This is my six year old daughter's first ever attempt at pumpkin carving. She did every part by herself, from the gutting to drawing the pattern to carving. And speaking of my daughter:





And finally, here's a growing mob of my horror related toys. There's a few more boxes to go through in the garage(which I believe are primarily McFarlane toys. At least Freddy and a second Thing figure are still to be unpacked), but here's what I've got out so far. The life-size Sally doll in the back was part of a promotion we did at Suncoast for Halloween a few years back. Every customer who had our club card was entered into a drawing for Sally. Our customer never came in for it, and after six months I was told I could do whatever I wanted with it. And there it is, uprooted temporarily from it's position directly in front of our back door. The year before we had done a similar promotion but the prize was a life-size Jack Skellington. I really would have loved to get the pair of them.

The tiny figures in the front may look like Marvel superheroes, but in fact they're the zombified version from the aptly named Marvel Zombies series. I have a larger zombie Spiderman, but didn't feel like cracking that one open yet. The Universal Monster mini-busts along the left side of the picture came with the DVD collector's set of all three of their respective collections(man, I really miss that Suncoast discount), and if you'll notice near the back, in the middle, I finally got a Creature From The Black Lagoon figure. It's a pretty sweet figure, even if it doesn't fit on it's base at all. That's fine, though; it's remarkably stable without it.

And that's all for tonight, I'm gonna go try and squeeze in a viewing of The Walking Dead before bedtime. I really need to demand Mondays off whenever Halloween falls on a Sunday.