Happy Halloween

So it's 2 days (1 day, 2 nights) until Halloween, and i have some fun times ahead of me.

I decided to go all out this Halloween with my decorations. Some people like to carve pumpkins, some build scarecrows, but in my true geeky spirit, I invested in Hallowindow. Hallowindow is a set of animations created by Mark Gervais. Mark created a collection of animation loops that can be projected into a window for full-frame viewing from outside.

I picked up a 42" x 10' roll of Vellum (a type of tracing paper) and hung it covering my entire livingroom window. Because Hallowindow was produced for a 4:3 screen, and my window has a 16:9 aspect ratio, I had to hang some black curtains on either side. I took my projector down from my ceiling and hooked it to a VCR and projected backwards at the window. It worked great. The Vellum, being slightly translucent made a great rear-projection screen. After purchasing a new DVD player to replace a broken one, and a lamp timer, I have been projecting halloween scenes every evening from 6:00 PM until 2:00 AM.

Tomorrow is work's annual Halloween costume contest. I've won just about every costume contest held. Previous costumes included a Spaceball, Medieval Warrior, Pac-Man, Voltron and even a Motorola SBV-5100 cable modem (I do work for the local cable/internet/phone provider after all!), Unless they find this blog, I'll surprise everyone tomorrow as the purple-grape Fruit-of-the-Loom guy :) I blew up 60 (or so) purple balloons, secured them to an oversized purple sweatshirt, and have matching sweatpants to wear in to work. It should be hysterical.

This part is a message to all the trick-or-treaters in my area. I've been living in my co-op for about 2 years now, and I haven't had ANY trick-or-treaters yet. Mostly because I don't get home until really late at night. I decided I may take some personal time tomorrow and try to get back home just before sundown. IF anyone does come to my home, I have full-size candy bars for the first bunch of people! If you're THE first and don't have too many people with you, You just may get a bunch of candy bars... I still remember the look on the face of the first trick-or-treater to come to our home when I lived with Carmine and Vince in Hicksville. We poured half a tub of candy into his bag, took pictures with him and frankly, I'm surprised we didn't have confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling!

Finally, What to do on Friday night? A bunch of people are heading into the city to see Rocky Horror. I wanted to go but other friends of mine cant make it. And, after buying the computer (which should be delivered tomorrow!!!) and last-minute Halloween supplies, I don't think I have any money to go. What to do... Hmmm

New Beginnings and New Toys!

It seems like it's been forever since I've updated my blog, so I figured now was as good a time as any. I'm in the process of cleaning my home and re-organizing my life a bit so I'd like to start up the blog some more. Maybe even give it some direction. I have so many interests that I might even start up a few sections. We'll see. I'll make this my new years resolution. New Blog, New Website and starting today, a new computer ;)

I just ordered it from NewEgg for about $750. Here's the specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 3.16 Ghz Processor (The beefy E8500 Wolfdale)
  
• Gigabyte P45 Motherboard (GA-EP45-UD3P)
  
• 512 MB GeForce 9600 256 bit Video Card (Gigabyte GV-NX96T512H)
  
• 4 GB High-performance Memory (2x2GB G.Skill 240-Pin DDR2 1066/PC28500)
  
• 1 TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive (Samsung Spinpoint F1, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache, SATA 3.0Gb/s)
  
• Samsung Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-R/RW/DL/LightScribe)
  
• 500 Watt Power Supply (PC Power and Cooling PPCS500)
  
• Windows Vista Home Premium (OEM)
  

And before anybody gives me any slack about putting Vista on the system, It's time that I learn it! It's been out a year and I can probably clock about 3 hours on Vista PCs. If it doesn't meet my needs, I have a fresh XP disc ready to go.