I have had a pretty full Halloweekend, so far. On Saturday night, Kim and I got together with our Bible study group, had dinner and watched scary movies. We started with The Changeling, an excellent, 70′s-era haunted house flick starring George C. Scott and followed that with one of my new favorites 28 Days Later. After church on Sunday, I went to Mat’s house and he, Dave, and I played his new Call of Cthulu game and then watched The Grudge.

I never really had time this year to prepare a proper Halloween costume, so on Monday I simply raided my closet for a just barely serviceable costume, just like I have done for the past several years. This year, I’m “Mr. Stuck-in-the-80′s.” Wow. What a stretch. I’m basically wearing my ordinary clothes circa 1984: Levi 501 jeans, a thin leather belt, a pink Polo pullover, an unconstructed blazer, with shoulder pads and multiple lapel pins (“I’m the one your mother warned you about”), and black loafers over white socks. I have a bandana around one wrist and a black Swatch on the other. I spiked my hair and am wearing an earring. Anyway, this costume won’t win me any contests, but it’s brilliant in it’s own way. First of all, it was free and easy to put together. It is enough of a costume to qualify for the participant’s prize of free movie passes at my office costume contest. And finally, my office has a somewhat conservative dress code, yet here I sit in jeans, mussed hair and an earring, so I feel like I’m stickin’ it to the man! This is fun, but next year I really need to swing for the fence and try to win or place in the Halloween costume contest. The best costume I ever did was Edward Scissorhands. I think I could make it even better. Maybe Ken could help me with version 2.0 of the Scissorhands. We’ll see.

J I M M Y