October Ramble: Halloween memories

After being shocked who knows how many times by the fridge my aunt had when I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine paying someone to shock me. It’s been more than 30 years and I can still remember the sensation of the electricity running thru me. I hated it.

I remember a couple years ago being so excited that my daughter was 3 and old enough to enjoy trick or treating that I didn’t want to admit to myself that we were both getting sick. I was so sad when I finally conceded to the fact that it was best to stay in.

Are the early ramble videos "lost media"?

omfg, caramel apple pops, omfg. This year, at Meijer, they had multiple flavors - different kinds of apple. Like, a granny smith apple or whatever. I bought at least 10 bags and gave a lot of them away.

This ramble and all the ones before it are marked private. Is that supposed to be the case?

I live in a weird backwoods town where we do have a day to celebrate aliens. we have a parade and everything

I think that part of the reason why aliens are associated with Halloween is because of War of the Worlds. The original radio broadcast that frightened some people was around Halloween. Also, part of Halloween is about the unknown, scary things with unknown natures - ghosts, monsters, fortune telling, etc. Ghosts are about what lies beyond the world that we see, and aliens are about what lies beyond the planet where we live.

Please tell me where your beanie is from

Is that a PutPut plush?

Imagine not only going to the 17th door, but going during COVID 😔

Wait are those new frames? I wear glasses too and like having something in common with my heroes.

Another great ramble, thank you! Here in the UK we never really made a fuss about Halloween when I was a kid, but I love spooky stuff so I’m glad that it’s caught on more since then… if only for the skull-shaped wine-glasses and such! Just after watching this, I happened to see a video of Lupita Nyong'o doing a surprise guest appearance (in character) at Universal’s “Us”-themed maze last year… that must have been a very strange experience for fans of the movie, freaking out and geeking out at the same time! “I love your work, please don’t stab me!” Oh, and I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: That Snoke costume is/was/ever-will-be FIRE!!!

jenny you should definitely check out underwood family farms corn maze in moorpark ca next year !!! i’ve gone through that maze like 6 years in a row and i still haven’t memorized it yet

Whew! I was worried about the Star Wars land video so I'm glad you brought it up! But I can see why now would be a weird time to roll it out. Anyway, as long as its still in the works I don't mind waiting :) your themepark content is always my favorite so im very excited for the knottsberry farm video too!

Shocktarts still exist! They just got rebranded like three times after their parent company kept getting sold. They’re now SweeTarts Extreme Sour Chewy candies. They’re sold in pouches and bags instead of rolls, but they ARE still out there!

I rented a spooky old house for a couple years and each Halloween a friend and I would fix it up a bit on the outside. I wired two LED lights to batteries and put them in clear plastic bags, I'd toss them in bushes to look like eyes. We wired up a ghost on a string that we could pull it raced toward the gate entering the property. Finally we put a couple speakers on the porch and my friend was inside with a mic. I was outside dressed in black hiding behind bushes with a headset on. As folks approached the house I would whisper to my friend things they said to each other or describe their costumes, anything he could use to prank them as they approached. It was great fun!

I would be sooooo excited for a Vampire Diaries video. Also excited for the reality tv one.

So I'm very past trick or treating age but this year I invited a few people from my covid bubble, gave them all a plastic pumpkin and had a scavenger hunt for candy with all the lights off in an attempt to emulate the excitement of it all . Like you said, when I get nostalgic for trick or treating it's not the candy part, it's the adventure/work/thrill that used to go into it (and of course the whole candy economy of post trick-or-treat candy trading)

so jenny, i'm a scareactor at universal studios hollywood! i was regan in exorcist and sam in trick r treat and a few others. i actually HIGHLY recommend going on halloween night. it's SO DEAD. and then of course the first weekend OR the weekend after halloween. i'm really glad you like going!! :)

SAW?! You're doing something related to Saw! It's a goshdarn Halloween Miracle!

Damn, being a kid sounds really fun if you have friends! My mom made me really elaborate costumes though. One time I was a Ninja Turtle with a giant head where I could see out of the mouth, it was like 10 pounds of fabric and cotton at least. There was a multi-part stuffed shell that strapped around me. We made little sais out of clay because I was Raphael of course. The next year, 2nd grade I think, I was Riker but the uniform showed what a fat kid I was and it was kind of awkward and embarrassing. I think that was the last time I tried to go all in on a Halloween costume.... On a study abroad years later though a bunch of us did the Ghost Busters and we went all over Thebes to find jumpsuits and the people at this work uniform shop were really confused about the dumb Americans. It was pretty fun though, we had 3 ghostbusters, Slimer, the marshmallow guy, and possessed Sigourney Weaver. The really weird lamps in our rooms were perfect for proton guns too.

Looking forward to the TVD video. I watched all eight seasons of the show as it aired, and just recently I binged the first spin-off show, and the two seasons to date of the second spin-off, Legacies (which is a lot of fun).

Thanks for making this. I'll probably watch it several more times to distract myself from the upcoming anxiety-inducing couple of days.

I needed this ramble! The Rona ruined so many things this year including Halloween. I had no trick-or-treaters yesterday, hardly anyone in my neighborhood decorated their homes and I saw very few people in costumes around town. All these stories reminded me of how good things used to be and hopefully how good they will be once again.

It's a long shot, but I'm crossing my fingers that the reality show is Mad, Mad House. It has everything ridiculous you could dream of.

The kids-outside-at-night thing is a three-tiered illustration of how child rearing has been changing kind of quickly. I'm not sure exactly how old Jenny is, but I'm roughly 10 years older. When I was a kid in the suburbs, my friends and I would wander around in the dark pretty much every night. Today kids finish trick or treating before the sun sets and their parents come with them. This despite crime rates declining measurably in that time span. Feel free to Google up the think piece of your choice about why parenting has trended in this direction.

They still make fog bubble machines, if you search on Amazon you will find one for about $235.

Proper dice pluralization is a top 5 human trait.

For a second when you said “my parents have them and I don’t know where they are so I probably won’t see them” I thought you meant you didn’t know where your parents were and I got sad.

pUmPkIn HeAdS

Sweet, was after something to !listen to whilst I lego.