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Kids With No Costumes – 8 PM rolls around and the kids aren’t coming as frequent. Then the doorbell rings and there are seven teenage boys with shopping bags asking for candy. No costumes! What’s the protocol on this? Do I give them candy? Let me tell you, with seven teenage boys at my door, I sure as hell was going to give them candy or fear the aftermath of what would happen to my car’s tires. There was even one guy with no bag! I made a comment and he asked if I had a bag that I could spare. I politely declined and whispered “Moron”.

Buying Candy – It’s pretty hard to find Reese Peanut Butter Cups at 5:30 on the night of Hallowe’en. But I managed to find some at Zellers. However, it was $10 for a bag of 90! I picked up two bags with the notion that I would return the other bag. This is a smart thing to do people! It’s like the keg party you’re at that has a spare in the back room JUST IN CASE. Just don’t let some thirsty partier crack the last keg before the others are finished, or you’re stuck there all weekend drinking it – or in this case, eating Reese Peanut Butter Cups. Anyhow, keep your receipt to avoid these hangups. For mental note’s sake for next year when I’m reading this entry, I didn’t get through a bag of 90 Reese Peanut Butter Cups. I probably used 70, along with Mike’s Rockets.

Peanut Allergies – The big thing nowadays is not to give candy with peanuts in it in case of allergies. Well, some may question my purchase of the Peanut Butter Cups but the way I see it is that it’s clearly labeled so if a kid can’t eat it, at least he has all that other peanut free candy that they got from the neighbourhood. We received some great compliments on the choice of the Peanut Butter Cups. Plus, if we get stuck with candy afterwards, it’s easy to swallow 20 of those in a day. Ugh.

Throwing Eggs – Let the following life fact echo in everyone’s head and stay there for eternity. “If thou thinkest an egg thrown at your buddy’s house is funny, you must also be prepared to find it funny when he retaliateth by dumping the leaves from his yard in front of your door.”

Ringing the Bell – Ah ha, I bet you thought I was talking about the kids at Hallowe’en ringing the bell? Nope. This is about ringing the bell on the public bus. Now, I consider myself a seasoned rider of the public transit system so I will give this person the benefit of the doubt. Anyhow, as I sat on the bus this morning, the lady next to me asks if I may reach up and ring the bell so that the bus driver knows to stop at the next stop. Well, the next stop is the building I work at…and where 90% of the bus unloads in the morning. Being a seasoned rider, I realize this is pointless as we all know that in the morning, the driver KNOWS to make the stop there. It’s just a given. It would be different if it’s an odd stop along the way. So here is my list of ‘When There is No Need to Ring the Bell.”:

• When you are getting to the end of the line. The driver knows enough to stop there.
• You don’t have to ring the bell if there is a major stop coming up. Granted, you would have to know this beforehand after many trips on the bus. A fine example is the mall. Someone is 99% guaranteed to get on or off at this stop. So there is no need to ring the bell.
• There is no third option.

So there you have it. Palmer’s Thoughts for the past 24 hours. Oh, plus I love cable for the sole fact that I can watch the Rick Mercer Report. That guy is freakin’ hilarious.

Spook yer socks off ladies and gents! It’s the night of Ghouls and Goblins and we’re not talking about your girlfriend here (except for you Bobby. Get your girlfriend some help.)

This year, the Hallowe’en bug didn’t really hit me at all as my Ghostbuster costume idea didn’t come to fruition AGAIN (2 years in a row) but I am hopeful for next year. I am also a fan of making a scary costume…so I have my second calling as Vero’s friends are having a Hallowe’en party this weekend. Yay! I think I’m going to go all out and zombie-fy myself.

Anyhow, in true spooktacular fashion, I present some essential Hallowe’en goodies that you need to immerse yourself in.

Candy and Kids – Nowadays, as most of us reading this blog are adults, it’s time to up the ante. We can’t go around getting candy, so we need to do the next best thing – scare the bejeezus out of the little ones. My memories fade back to how scary it would be when Nanny would pop out her teeth. Now that was a fright! Tonight, I have ambitions of hiding inside the giant hill of leaves that I have yet to take off the lawn. In reality, I will probably just hand out candy from the safety inside my house while watching a horror flick.

Horror Flicks – Come on people. If you’re too scared, you don’t deserve any candy. I’m a big fan of the horror genre, so I present to you my all-time faves:

• Evil Dead/Army of Darkness – I am scared of the woods at night, it’s no secret. So this just makes me wet my pants when watching it. However, when you get farther into the movies, they just get hokey which is awesome because Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor alive. He is the true B-Movie actor.

• Hallowe’een – Move over Freddy and Jason. Mike Myers was the cool stoic one walking around like nobody’s business and slashing you with that big kitchen knife. One of my personal faves of the whole bunch.

• Blair Witch Project – Alright, alright. I know, it isn’t that scary. But it is if you’re scared of the woods at night AND if you don’t know the secret behind the movie (which won’t be spoiled here on Palmer’s World.) I was blown away when I first saw this movie a few years back. This movie will make you cry out ‘Mommy!’

Costumes – All costumes must adhere to the principles of good Hallowe’ening while at the same time, provide a balance of practicality. For example, if you’re going to wear a pumpkin on your head for the event, leave enough room to stick your beer bottle in there so you can keep hydrated. No one likes a dehydrated pumpkin head. Let it also be known that there is no excuse for not having a costume ready by the day you are actually hosting a party. That’s just poor form. A bathrobe does not count.

Practicial Jokes – Hey, there’s a Gremlin in every bunch so it’s good to lay a joke out here and there on Hallowe’en. My personal fave is when you slash your buddy’s tires and when he gets up to go to work, there is a look of horror on his face. This, my friends, is what it considered a great practical joke. Or, the old burning of the front yard tree goes well on Hallowe’en also. I’m not a fan as of this joke alltomuch as there may be squirrels starting to collect their nuts for the winter.

TV Shows – Hey, we all love the Great Pumpkin. Krista tipped me off that this would be playing last Friday so Vero and I caught it on TV. Vero was very thankful she found out what the big deal was all about.

I hope everyone has a good Hallowe’en, and I hope that everyone makes an effort to watch SOMETHING that is spooky.

I never realized how much cancer really sucks until now.

We’ll miss you.

I wish to build this.

http://pervivere.blogspot.com/2005/09/holly-shelf-unit-batman.html

I just started watching the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. This is pretty good series so far. Follows “Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, U.S. 101st Airborne Division” (taken from the beloved Wikipedia.com).

I like the cinematography of the series so far – looks like the camera operators were in the trenchs with them documenting the series of events. Considering Tom Hanks and Steven Spielburg produced this…I’m thinking this came about after making Saving Private Ryan?

Mike and I just watched Episode #2 last night which really got into the action. Some of the stuff that goes on is just heart-wrenching. Sometimes I wonder if any of it really happened. It’s a little surreal to think about the World Wars and what was going on. I applaud anyone who served our country in the past and present, and heck, why not the future too!

One of the scenes that really got to me was when Easy Company were walking by some POWs and Malarkey made some snide comment but one of the POW replied in English. Turns out that the guy is actually from the United States from a town very close to Malarkey’s hometown but because his parents immigrated, there was a call to ‘return to the Fatherland’ to fight. So here he is, a man born and bred in the States that has to go fight for the opposite side. Then, he gets killed. Dang. That really hit me. I never even fathomed that stuff like this happened. Granted, some of you are probably history buffs and know a heck of a lot more than me about this stuff. I can’t say I’m that big of a history/war buff, but I like my occasional dose of it.

Anyhow, Mike was saying how his friend actually filmed veterans while working at Veteran Affairs so I’m going to take a look into what it takes to get an interview. Troy had me intrigued with his thoughts of interviewing Uncle Billy someday about his memories of the war.

Saturday brought Vero and I over to Eric and Annie’s place for a raclette which is essentially a grill on the center of the table and throw meat on it to grill. Then you have these little pans that you can fill up with cheese, veggies, garlic butter..whatever you want, and put it in a spot underneath the grill so it grabs the heat from the grill.

This was amazing! Consider it the Quebec version of the fondue. Meat and veggies, you can’t go wrong. We were treated to the best of the best – moose, fish, pork, sausages, shrimp…mmm boy! I think there was a little too much prepared for us to cook, but I’m sure they won’t mind eating the rest of it during the week!

Got to see Philippe also. I don’t know much about kids, so I’m unsure a child who has only been around for a few months now reacts to much. He doesn’t really react when I’m making zany faces at him. Perhaps his vision isn’t all there yet? Either way, he has broken down the shield of Palmer and I can admit the kid is cute. Plus, he has cool hair.

Thanks to Annie and Eric for the amazing times!

After introducing Eric to Borat and listening to some tunes, Vero and I headed downtown to Chantal’s place for her birthday party which for the most part – consisted of me in a room full of ladies watching the Carmen Electra Strip Tease Instructional Dance Videos. Do I complain? Heck no! Some guys did end up showing up which brought somewhat of a balance. Good times were had and we then headed out downtown but everywhere we went had lineups. Poor Palmer had to go to the washroom so ducked into the Chateau Lafayette to use the facilities. I was in for a treat! I haven’t been in the Laff since my first year moving here….9 years ago now. This place has changed! I remember it being a grimy old bike bar which served Kraft Dinner on the menu as an appetizer! I definitely have to go check out this place in the future.

We ended up at Helsinki Lounge which was a good time and the tunes were good. I enjoyed Helsinki as it had this ‘out-of-a-movie’ vibe to it.