And so as you may also expect from having kept up with me, I turned all my watching activity into a list. As luck would have it, I wasn't the only person on Listal who created a horror-centric list for October. So I provided links to the other people who had similar lists to mine in the sidebar of my list, & thus was able to check in on their lists throughout the month. This led to a lot of interaction among us, kept up my enthusiasm for watching horror movies, encouraged me to check out a few films that I hadn't originally planned to, and resulted in my feeling more connected to the site than I ever have before. (And for more of my thoughts on my viewing, if you're interested, you may also check out my October re-cap in my Watched in 2011 pt. 2 list.) To say I enjoyed it would be an understatement, as would be saying that I'm missing it a little. On the upside, however, I think it's safe to say we'll all be doing this again & I know I'll be looking forward to next October!
And before I move on from the subject of horror, I finally finished publishing all my lists of my favorite horror movies for each decade, all of which you can find links to from my My favorite Horror movies by decade list. Several of them were altered throughout last month, so I almost wish I'd waited to publish them until after October. But no matter.
So yeah, October was full of horror movies & not much else outside the usual working 4 nights a week & taking care of E 5 days a week. Halloween was pretty good, she & I dressed up & we visited our neighbors but didn't take her trick-or-treating.
We didn't see the point of it since 1) she can't say "trick-or-treat" and 2) she can't eat candy & we don't need to eat candy for her. So instead I kept my werewolf mask nearby & put it on most of the times I answered the door to give out candy. Got some fun responses from the kiddos, and we had several of them show up...definitely seemed like more than last year, and probably our Halloween decorations in the yard helped attract them. To see some other Halloween-related photos, stop by the baby blog if you haven't lately (V does a FAR better job of keeping that one updated than I do keeping this one updated). I know somewhere there's also a video of her saying "monster!" and "mummy!" but I'm not in the mood to go searching for it right now. :P Most recently, this past weekend was Fun Fun Fun Fest which expanded to 3 full days of music instead of the usual 2. That decision was made AFTER we bought our tickets, & we wound up not buying Friday tickets. Then when the schedule was announced I was bummed to see that the 2 bands I most wanted to see were slated to play Friday night, & seriously considered buying a ticket. Well, as it turns out it's best I didn't. You see, the 2 bands I most wanted to see were Murder City Devils & Danzig Legacy. I've seen Murder City many times, so while I was bummed about missing them it wasn't that big of a deal. Then when I found out that pitchfork.com planned to stream the entire festival anyway, I was happy when I managed to tune in for their set (and because I was home I was able to catch most of Public Enemy's set before the feed cut out for some reason). Danzig Legacy, on the other hand, sounded like a rare opportunity...Glenn Danzig tours with his current band members, the members of his pre-Danzig/post-Misfits band Samhain, and Doyle of the Misfits & does sets of material from all 3 bands. By the time I knew who Samhain & Misfits were, Danzig was on his 3rd solo album, so while it had the potential to not be worth the time/money, I figured I should catch it while I could if they were playing here. But by the time I went to bed on Friday night, I was glad that I didn't because Glenn ruined the set for everyone. Twitter posts & show reviews confirmed that Glenn probably wasn't feeling well since his voice was terrible the entire set (reviews from their previous set at Riot Fest indicate his voice was fine then, though), but because he made a big deal out of it he only had an hour-long set before park curfew forced him & his band to be silenced. Thus the crowd got Danzig & Samhain songs, but only 2 Misfits songs instead of the half-hour or so's worth they would've heard otherwise. Lame, yes? So had I gone I would've been pissed off about the money I would have wasted on the ticket. (Additionally, I was unable to watch the Danzig sets via pitchfork, as their feed for that stage had cut off & never came back up that night.)
Instead, V & I went on Saturday. We'd originally planned to take E with us, but reports of heavy dust blowing around the venue convinced V it was a bad idea. Fortunately my parents drove down to watch E, so instead we all went to lunch together & then left E with them. That meant a late arrival to the show, but E & my parents got along great (especially since they brought their 2 dogs, whom E showered with as many kisses as she could). We got down there in time to see Donald Glover of the TV show Community (one of our favorites), but hit a snag when they told V she couldn't bring one of her cameras in. Apparently they started a point-and-shoots only rule this year, so we had to walk the camera back to the car before we could go inside. Since there was no on-site parking, that wound up taking about a half hour & led to us missing his set. Bands we did see: Paint It Black, Kool Keith, Cave In, and The Damned, all of whom put on good/great shows. Heard a lot of talk about the Occupy Everything movement going on from various artists (all in support of it), and caught sight of actor Ryan Gosling who was in attendance (not a big fan of his or anything, I just thought it noteworthy that he was there). So we had a good time, though I think it's safe to say we most enjoyed being able to go out for several hours & spend time together without the little one to take care of.
Sunday I opted not to go. I decided that it would be best if I stayed home with E instead of having V's best friend watch her for us, so I told V to take her best friend instead of me. As I looked at the schedule for that day, there was only really one artist I truly cared about seeing (Henry Rollins) while V had several she wanted to watch, so it wasn't that big a deal to me. So V, E, and I spent the first half of the day together, and then I watched E until V got home from the show. They had a great time, & E & I did too for the most part. She didn't want me to put her to bed because she always wants mommy to do that, so instead we played until V got home & then E went right to sleep.
And I think that pretty much catches things up. We're flying out to Florida this week for several days to celebrate V's parents' 50th anniversary & see her family, and then it'll be a little over a week before Thanksgiving is here. Eek. For many years now I haven't been a fan of the holiday season, though I do enjoy all the free food. Heh. No, there are always moments I enjoy, but it's the whole commercial/shopping frenzy aspect I hate, and I doubt that having a kiddo will change that for me. If anything it may make it worse, though seeing her face light up on Xmas Eve/Day will definitely help me get over it. And on a related note I saw Santa at the local mall over the weekend, already set up & sitting in his chair waiting for someone to talk to him. Sigh. There really needs to be a worldwide agreement that NOBODY can decorate or sell items for Xmas until the day after Thanksgiving. It's bad enough seeing Xmas merch in stores before Halloween is over, but seeing Santa at the mall the first weekend of November and/or hearing Xmas music before Thanksgiving (which has happened) really irks me.
Well, I don't want to leave this on a downer note, so I guess I'll update you on my Listal lists since I haven't talked about them in a while on here. Shortly before I started my job, I put together several music lists...I made lists for what I feel are the best albums of each year from 2000 through 2009 (links to each are in that list), as well as a Hip-Hop showcase of the Hip-Hop artists that I like (of which there aren't many, or at least not many that are popular). And then I made a little movies rant list called Stop ruining my childhood jerks! which was fun since I rarely complain about things. Life's too short to do too much complaining. ;) And now I'm working on some other lists that I've started but am a ways off from completing. By the next time I post on here hopefully they'll be up.
All right, well, daylight savings has left me feeling more tired than usual today, so I'll make my way to bed. I almost went to bed instead of putting this together, but figured I should post while I wanted to....
