Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!
I enjoyed dressing up this year as a flight attendant from "Snakes on a Plane." Wheeeee!

Picture this: black suit, neckerchief, flight pin, black pumps, pull suitcase.
And lots and lots of rubber snakes!!!

That's the Spirit! Hee!

One of my favorite house decorations EVER!

A Close-Up Reveals...

I saw this same Halloween decoration last year, and I laughed about it throughout the year, every time I passed this house. A plastic arm on a chain, hanging out of the second story window?!? Grotesque! And, hilarious!!!

Arroz con Pollo

This time, the recipe only took me 2.5 hours to make. I reduced prep time by 30 minutes since the last time I made it. And, yum!

Commuter Reading

Today, I saw a young guy on the train reading a book called, "My Quarter-Life Crisis." Disturbing! Apparently, this is some kind of new marketing phenomenon. A quick search revealed quite a number of young people trying to escape from their personal quarter-life crisis by capitilizing on this idea. See: this, and this, and this.

Sure, there is some truth that a lot of people in their 20s and 30s feel less than stellar all the time. But the packaging of this concept? Ick.

Any thoughts, readers?

Another planter box graveyard.

Skeleton Planter Head.

Monster in a Hosta

Love, the Old Fashioned Way

As I was leaving my office building yesterday, I saw a note taped to the revolving door. The note was addressed, in green marker, to "the girl who likes mopeds." Awww. I was excited for the possibility of romance for the girl who likes mopeds and her admirer, the green marker avenger. In the world of internet dating and "missed connections," seeing a simple love note was truly refreshing!

The Grim Reapaaah!

Another Hanging Ghoul

Zombies Can Make a Statement

Is that overalls-wearing zombie dude smoking? Uh-huh. How do you think he ended up that way?

CAN Beauty Come From a Bottle?

I bought an Evian water at the store this morning.

This is what the label says:
"Can beauty come from a bottle? Drink it and feel yourself bloom.
Evian: your natural source of youth."

Gross! Is subtlety dead?
Sadly, this is not water out of Holy freakin' Grail; it's water out of a plastic bottle. I think the reference to eternal youth is a just a touch heavy-handed. Aren't messages like that supposed to be subliminal?

Scary Midget Pirate in a Cage

This house had relatively bland decor, but for some reason this midget pirate in a pint-sized rusty cage put a stab of fear in my heart. It may not look so creepy from the photo, but trust me - it was!

Skulls at the Gate

A simple way to spook up the house. These skulls on either side of the gate, and the chain winding around between, is the only decoration on this house. It's tasteful, yet festive.

Halloween By Neighborhood

Homemade Tombstones. Freddy Krueger and Count Dracula buried here.
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Halloween is a holiday that is often more fun for adults than for kids. Yeah, kids get to pork out on a lot of candy, but adults get to decorate their yards all crazy and ridiculous, and dress up in fantasy, silly, or weird costumes, and don't have spend a lot of money on gifts for everyone.

I started to notice all the fun ways that people decorate their yards for Halloween, and I'll post some pictures over the next month of the way people express themselves during this zestiest of months!

The Other Side of the Coin

In the recent New Yorker issue (October 9, 2006), I noticed an ad campaign that was actually really smart. The GAP (RED) campaign is sexy, visually consistent in style, and clever with the way it plays with words throughout the advertisement. The spread really peaked my interest and I actually stopped reading my magazine to figure out what it was advertising. I hope the excellent style and interest the ads create actually does something meaningful to raise awareness and a percentage of money for AIDS in Africa. Of any ad campaign, I think it has a good shot at success.

It's Like Nothing You've Seen Before Because It Doesn't Make Any G-D Sense

This morning I was flipping through the October Martha Stewart magazine and I saw an ad that made absolutely no sense. It was a picture of a lady washing her face with a new kind of Dove facial wipes that have a scary amount of things within the wipe - cleanser, exfoliant, toner and moisturizer. The slogan on the ad said: "It's like nothing you've used before because it's like everything you've used before." Huh? Am I supposed to buy this product because I'm too confused to realize what it does? Then I'll be in such a daze trying to figure it out, that I don't realize that I put it in my cart?

That ad was just a few pages away from a Honda car ad that says: "ENVIRONMENTOLOGY: Honda thinking in action." Now, I've been studying for the GRE and I'm pretty sure that "Environmentology" is not a real word, and that Honda thinking in action does not form a complete sentence. Hmm.

The other ad campaign that is totally annoying is the Snickers campaign with made-up words. First of all, the branding style is totally ugly. To see some made-up word like "Snickaterifcellent" on the back of the bus in some ugly-ass huge brown letters when I'm on my morning commute just puts me in a bad mood.

I used to like Snickers.

Not anymore.

It's an interesting advertising technique to try to make people dumber by writing copy that makes no sense, and by making up some fake mispelled words, in order to sell them stuff. I'm going to go out on an optimistic commericial limb and say that it is not going to work. I hope so, anyway.

Miz M Dreams Again

I had a dream that I was walking in a field with a friend, and I saw a beautiful large tree that swept across the landscape. I said to my friend, "I am going to paint that tree in each season so I can capture how it changes."

Too bad I don't know how to paint or draw.

Then another friend of mine, a six-foot tall woman with red hair who, I must say with no intent of offense, is not very sporty. She was walking across the field towards my friend and I when suddenly she busted into about 5 backflips on her way over to say "what's up." It made the dream very funny and silly.

Thanks for the entertainment, brain! You are way better than watching TV on UPN.