The Truth About Tricks & Treats

A little story about the birth of this blog... when I first started up this blog it was mostly due to intense peer pressure pressed by peers who were unrepentant blog-whores of the kind that live their lives entirely for the moment when they can set themselves down in front of their computers and write about all of the things that they had done that day just in order to be doing things that they could later blog about. I hope to God that you understood that last sentence 'cause I am in no way going to go back and try to edit it into any sort of clarity. Anyway, you know the type, you've seen their blogs... "Today I saw 'Snakes On A Plane.' It was alright I guess, but I didn't understand what all those snakes were doing on that plane.", "Today, I had to take my mini van into the shop to find out what that shuddering in the steering wheel was. Turned out that there was a dead hobo wedged up in the front left wheel well.". "Today I ran into Cindy Jo at the Tastee-Freez. Forgot to tell her about the VD." Blah, blah, blah...

So I avoided the realms of blogdom, like most sane people do, thinking them nothing but a hostile desert landscape full of creatures with wheels where their hands and feet ought to be and self-absorbed people who seemed to think that they were the only ones to ever get a root canal or try Turkey-flavored Jones soda... but then I started Googling...

Turns out that there was a whole world out there full of people who blogged about interesting things in interesting ways all the while forming complete sentences and managing to type every single consonant and vowel in a word while keeping their 'rofl!!!' and "; p's" to a bare minimum. If you're interested in who some of these people might be then check out all those links over there on the right of the screen to give you an idea of some of my faves.

So anyway, taking a cue from these folks I decided to blog a blog that blogged about things that I thought were interesting or just stupidly funny and hope one or two other people might feel the same way. I called it 'Plastic Pumpkins,' fiddled around 'til I found a color scheme that I liked and thought up all sorts of cute little thematically-linked things to title the archive pages and links list. Then I showed it to all of my friends who, upon skimming over the first few posts, almost collectively said-

"Eh, it's cute, but it's not very Hallowe'en-y is it?"

To which I replied- "Why the Hell would it be Hallowee'en-y?"

To which they answered- "Well... it's all Hallowe'en themed isn't it? Pumpkins and ghosts and black and purple and everything, right?"

To which I responded- "You pathetic idiots!" and then spat in their faces.

Having been friendless and alone now for the last few months I've had a lot of free time to think about this and I've come to the conclusion that they may have been right. I can see why a person might think that this was a Hallowe'en-type blog. But the truth of the matter is... it ain't themed to Hallowe'en, it's themed to trick or treating.

Yeah, it's a fine line...

Now, I love, love, love Hallowe'en like it was the first gym teacher I ever saw naked in the showers, but the whole idea of the blog was a sort of 'life as a 24/7 round of trick or treating' metaphor kind of a thing. In my materialistic and tchatchke-infatuated brain I go through life seeing how much loot I can stuff in a pillow case in one day's time before taking it home to dump on the bed and sort into piles of 'cool enough to post' and 'not cool enough to post.' Life as trick or treating... get it?

I can see how I could have been more clear about that...

So what's the point of all the above? Absolutely nothing other then as a prelude to tell all those people who were upset about the lack of Hallowe'en-y-ish-ness around this blog to cheer up, because October is all about Hallowe'en! Like a lot of other better blogs out there I will be making sure that every post made during the 10th month of the year will be Hallowe'en related, even if only tangentially. I also promise to always use the archaic and pompous "Hallowe'en' spelling of the holiday's name, because I think that the day is cool enough to warrant a random comma or two.

Now several blogs will be doing a daily countdown to Hallowe'en kind of a thing which I will not be doing because that's just 42 different shades of crazy! I'm not going to be posting any more than usual... please don't cry... it's just that any post made during the month will be spiced with holiday goodness! If you do want a daily dose of Hallowe'en blogginess then you should definitely check out two of my year 'round favs- Secret Fun Blog and Neato Coolville who will both be doing the daily thing. You should also check out Old Haunts which hasn't actually updated since the end of March, but has enough Hallowe'en stuff already posted to keep you busy for awhile. Then if you're in the mood for some spooky Hallowe'en-type fonts go check out Fontenstein a site I've been looking for an excuse to mention for quite some time now.

Hope you come back for more of "A Very Plastic Pumpkins Hallowe'en!"

P.S. Just in case you thought I was ragging a little hard on those 'day-in-a-life' blogging types, then please go check out my Yahoo 360 profile where I do all of the boring things that I mentioned above and then some! rofl : P