Happy Halloween!
Friday, October 31, 2003. Entry #228

To coincide with our children's Halloween party, the company decided that costume day would be last Friday, so the office is looking pretty much corporate normal today. The few die-hards in costume are standing out like well-bathed people at an Anime convention.

I copped out this year, and wore the 'Hello, my name is God' badge I swiped from Buffy a few years back. I haven't had the time or energy to put into making something cool. I was working on a Japanese robe for one of our LARP games which was going to double as my primary costume this year, but I managed to sew the stiff band that runs the length of the thing on backwards. Lisa was so good as to unstitch the entire 10-foot length of it for me, but I haven't had the guts to go back to the sewing machine.

Anyway, our tonight is going to be sitting at home, handing candy to whatever kidlets brave the snow and cold for their annual booty. "Aw, look honey! Another Eskimo!"

Because, once again, Calgary has had it's annual Halloween dump of snow. Seriously. I don't remember many years where it snowed at Halloween when I was a kid, but for the last dozen years all the eager children have had red noses and chafed hands, no matter how balmy the weather before or after.

It's NaNoWriMo time again!

I'm not going to attempt it this year, but lots of other local folks are making the effort, Joel and Connie included. Lisa has been vacillating back and forth on it for weeks, but I suspect she may make a go at it.

I can't wait to read it if she does. While I seem to have a natural style at narrative, my descriptive passages leave a lot to be desired. Lisa is the opposite, as she can evoke themes and imagery with ease, but she's not entirely certain how to carry a story from beginning to end.

Sorry for the technical breakdowns this month. Gary, my kind host, switched providers and it took FOREVER for the domain name to catch up. Not the six weeks like it took Sars, but still.

Anyway. We're back. Which is kind of obvious if you're reading this.

So you'll never guess who wrote me.

You may remember back in June I introduced a little feature called 'Where Are They Now', where I thought it would be a fun idea to post names of people I've lost track of over the years in case they Google their name and reappear.

So Jason Maskell wrote me an email. He was showing a young lady how to Google her name, and used his as an example. Wham! There he was! He's living in Edmonton, with his own little Internet company. We'll go for drinks next time we're in each other's city.

I'm so impressed with the power of the Internet. If only I could figure out how to use my powers for evil.

Let's try someone harder now. Let's try Jeanette Beaulieu. Jeanette was one of my online friends during the same BBS era I met Jason. Known as The Baroness, Jeanette Beaulieu was a fun and witty chick who kept us in stitches. We developed a whole backstory to our online personas where we determined that her character was somehow my character's mother, through some convoluted twists with a time machine.

Shut up. I was like 16.

Anyway, I lost track of Jeanette Beaulieu and would like to know how she's doing. So Jeanette, if you see this, fire me an email!

Oh, and before we get to the Survivor update (which 9/10ths of you skip, I'm certain), I should mention that I have a blog now too. It's for thoughts and ideas not quite important enough to make it here. As in, not really all that important at all.

Survivor! Woo! Boy was last night fun! The six evicted folks back for a chance to wrangle their way back into the game at the expense of the previous winners! And they did it!

The behind-the-scenes folks have a hard time of it, I'm certain, trying to make every season of this show fresh and surprising. I can honestly say I didn't see this little twist coming too.

All right, here's my theory for what's coming next. We know two players are going to be voted in, to take the place of Sean and Osten, one to each team.

Okay, I see one or two days for the teams to treat their respective Outcast with scorn, and then the merge. The remaining fragments of the Drake and Morgan tribes have to suck up to the very folks they voted off to get them to vote with them! Yeah! Reality TV magic!

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