The End of the Night

Well, the night ended in with its usual flair of last minute craptitude. Everything was running pretty smooth and then everything went to hell in a hand basket. We were scrambling to get on the air of 11 and some how barely made it... many obscenities were said in multiple 100 yard dashes to and from the live truck.

Besides work, Franklin St crowd was a lot smaller this year and part of the reason seems to be the roads in and out of town (the police were routing most of the traffic through one street and because they did not close the street off till after 10. Yet there was much to be seen, the biggest costumes were pretty obvious

• Sara Palin


• The Joker


• Batman


• bee outfits (slutty and guy)


• pirates
  

As I mentioned last year I always love the "slutty" outfits, it’s strange that young girls (and some older ones that did not need to be slutty) strut around in barely anything and I have to look at it. I kept telling The Wife that they were everywhere and I could not but accidental gaze upone them for a split second.
Besides that it was a typical Halloween, maybe one day I will not be stuck in a giant truck doing work and I will be wearing a cool costume... maybe the sea captain from the Simpsons, or Ponch from CHiPs

BOO!

Even though I just did a rant about Halloween costumes I actually like Halloween. It's fall and there is a nip in the air, you get to play dress up and act stupid. Well, for me that is a relative term. For all the years in Ohio and knowing people in Athens, Oh I never went to the Ohio University Halloween party. Am I bummed, not to much, I heard it's just wall to wall people and it's hard to get around.

With that said I will tonight get to experience Halloween in Chapel Hill. From what I heard it's Athens light; lots of drunk college students and drag queens, but just not as many. The only thing is I am not going over there for fun, I have to work it.

The one big thing with drunk people is they see a camera and they flock to it, add lights and triple the number of stupid drunk people. It's not very conducive for live TV news. I have heard that we have permission to be on a roof top, but I have to park in an alley, climb a ladder to the top and haul all the equipment up that way. in other works, a lot of work for a few minutes of TV.

If I can get my laptop WiFi to work I'll try and take a few pictures and try to post during the night.

*picture above is from OU and that's ol' Wilson and no that's not a mask.

Halloween Costumes

A few weeks ago I need a to find a lion tamer or Indiana Jones costume for a bit at church. Since it's near Halloween, I though how hard could it be to find this standard costume. After I went to my fifth store and travelling 60 miles I gave up. I have come to the realization that if you want to buy a ready to made costume you are limited to a small selection:

Slutty (insert something here)- First of all don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing hot women in near stripper out fits for Halloween, but for women that's almost it. I was talking to a guy and his comment was in New york all women dress like strippers and the guys like batman. Everything is very short and cut very low. The most prevalent ones seem to be slutty police, slutty fairy tale character and french maid you get the idea. They even have them for young girls. I understand that we objectify women and this only continues the... way we... look at those legs... HOOOT! What was I saying?

Pirate- Ever since the Pirates of the Caribbean movies pirates are VERY popular. The thing is all the costumes are pretty much the same costume, just slightly different. instead of a large hat it's a smaller hat and a black sash. Oooo with this one you get a sword. Come on who wants to walk around as a pirate. You are not Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom, You know if you go to a party at least one other person will dress the same as you and have the exact same costume or be very close.

Ninja- At The Network we use to joke about who was better pirates or ninjas. It was a running joke that seemed to all over the country because there are just as many ninja outfits. One store had 5 different ninja outfits. I'm still confused about that, how can you have five different black outfits? Which one do you want the one has throwing stars or the one with a bow staff. Do you really want to go out with a black mask on, you'll get hot and start to smell. Pick something else or make it yourself, it has to be less expensive that what these clowns are selling.

Horribly inappropriate costume that one guy will wear and thing it is AWESOME!!!!- Look at the picture to the left, you know he was thinking "Dude this will so rock! I know the chicks will come over and talk and wonder how I made it. Dude I'm going to get some much tail that I won't need this doll by 10! WOOOOOOOH KEG STAND! Other costumes I saw were: Giant Penis, Snake Charmer (can you guess where the snake was?), "poo poo" platter and Wilson's favorite breast inspector. Most of the guys who wear this costumes will be passed out by 11 or trying to hit on the ugly girl at the end of the night and will get shot down, well "except Wilson."

Movie Characters/Action hero- I lumped these into one because they are pretty much the same. A bad spiderman outfit is the same as a bad Napoleon Dynamite wig and glasses. These will usually be characters that are really popular or ones that are a little old. At times I thought of going to a party as Kip, I'd even save my gotee into his sweet 'stache, but that was last year. This would seem a little too dates, but the costume shops had a rack of nothing my Kip and Napoleon. One int resting costume I saw was Shaggy, for 40 bucks you get a green shirt, brown pants and a wig. I have all of those except the wig and I can buy that for 10 bucks in another isle.

Something Dead or evil- You know the usual suspects where: zombies, Frankenstein, Dracula and the devil. Wow it's time for scary movies and you have a giant gash in your neck, aaaah! No Nosferatu don't suck my blood. I guess it is tradition for the time of year.

Annoying Couple Costumes- Oh come on, Raggedy Ann and Andy? Ham and Eggs? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Most of the costumes I saw were so sugary sweet that I almost went into a diabetic coma. If you want to be cute you can do it, but don't by a costume make it something interesting. I knew a couple who showed up as a priest and a school girl. Close to horribly inappropriate, but funny in a good way.

I obviously did not find the costume I needed, I just went to target and bought a white button down shirt and wore a pair of cargo pants and boots. It just seems that these costume stores just crank out low end stuff and pigeon hole people into getting some they might not really want, but it kind of works for them. Seriously, unless you want to be a giant banana, a gorilla, or some form or animal you can usual make the costume and it will look better than the crap in the store. My favorite costume I created was 30's newspaper reporter. I bought a really ugly tie that did not match anything and a fedora, put a note card on it that said "press", put on a nice white shirt, black pants, nice shoes and grabbed a cigar and my 35mm camera. To sell it I usually yelled out "What a scoop!" and take a picture. Everyone knew what I was and I spent 40 bucks (35 on the fedora). People, you just need to be creative.