No, I’m not talking about the awesome movie, The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, which many folks, myself included, would love to see released on DVD.

I’m talking about my Halloween dinner party last night. There were definitely points in time when I thought it just wasn’t going to happen. This quarter has been crazy busy for me at school, and I didn’t even start planning this party until rather late. In fact, I really didn’t start to start setting things up until about 3 days ago. Unfortunately, my last minute panicking did nothing to slow the march of time. Halloween came, and my guests came, and despite my reservations, I think most everything went well. Ss far as I know, I didn’t make any of my guests sick, so I’m going to consider that grounds for calling the party a success, even though there are some things I would have done differently given the chance to do it all again. If I get a chance later in the week, I might put a few pictures up, although I think I failed to take any pictures of the decor. That’s okay–it certainly wasn’t my best work this year.

For the first time in 8 years, I am pleased with the outcome of an American Presidential election. However, I am displeased with the lack of “I voted today” stickers at my polling place (it’s hard to set a good example for your students when all you’ve got to show is an unsightly paper receipt), as well as the fact that apparently Ben & Jerry’s was giving out free ice cream today and I didn’t know about it. Come on MickeyD’s, where’s our “burgers for Obama” day?

It’s a good thing there’s no release date for this yet, because I’m pretty sure that I’ll never get any work done again after this comes out. You know, because I get so much work done now and everything…

Click the image for a link to the game trailer!

This has to be a joke, right? Reportedly, a vampire slaying kit, circa 1800 was sold at auction in Natchez, MI, about a month ago for roughly $15,000 (http://antiquesandthearts.com/Antiques/AuctionWatch/2008-11-11__14-01-03.html). What seems incredible to me is not how much the thing went for at auction–I’d have actually thought some film promoter would have paid twice that to use it to market the latest tweenie-bopper sensation, the romantic vampire flick, Twilight. Instead, my mind is completely blown by the existence of vampire slaying kits from the early nineteenth-century. Sure, vampire folklore is by no means a modern invention, but who on earth would have actually owned a vampire slaying kit in the 1800s? Now, if we were talking early 20th century, post-Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it would seem less incredible to me since that story really popularized the idea of the vampire. But frankly, if this kit isn’t a total hoax then I think it raises some fascinating historical questions like, who would have had such a kit and why? Were items in the kit ever actually used–like the gun for example? And who authenticates something like this? Are there people out there with expertise on historical vampire-slaying kits?