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OMFG, this weekend in Akron (Land of DEVO) and Cleveland (Land of Cleve) was the shizznat, and that's all there is to it. This is the first Halloween Weekend in at least two years that hasn't sucked the skin right off my wang. Two or so years ago, the whole Bighead Jennifer Hell was going on. Last year, I was saddled with that useless whining twat Vanessa. Now I think I see the pattern here: NEVER SPEND HALLOWEEN WITH A WOMAN...at least, if you're dating her, or used to date her. Maybe my opinion will change one of these days, but probably not.
Anyway. It kicked off in sedate, but fun style, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siliconedreamer and evilkellychan and I rolled on out of town around 5 and made our way into the evil depths of the nearby Red State on a mission of getting the fuck away from Pittsburgh. When we got to Akron, we went out to The Haunted Laboratory, one of a pair (with The Haunted Schoolhouse) of two venerable haunted houses that have been in continual operation for thirty-two consecutive Halloween seasons! And there's good reason for that: the Haunted Lab was one of the coolest haunted houses I'd ever been in, comparable to the North Park haunted house that I visited several years ago. Four floors of awesome, sci-fi/horror laboratory weirdness of d00m! The sculptures were all very nicely done, and generally involved lots and lots and lots of discarded old medical and scientific equipment, and aliens. My boner was astonishing. The boogedy-boogedy men who randomly jumped out to shock you were generally pretty well done, too--though the best character there was clearly Leatherface from the new version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I particularly loved the Tesla Coil chamber, in which you walked through an insulated metal cage surrounding a ten-foot-tall Tesla Coil that periodically fired off amazingly beautiful--and amazingly loud--blasts of lavender lightning, and the hallway of spinning stars, that literally destroyed my sense of balance (what little I have to begin with) and made me feel like I was drifting down the corridor to the "gateway chamber" aboard the Event Horizon. TOTALLY FLIPPIN' SWEET.
The next day, aRvin's mudder made brunch for us, and I got to finally spend some time talking to her--she is very awesome--as well as aRvin's sister Elizabeth, who is studying to be a teacher and currently student teaching English at the 8th-grade level. It was great to be able to talk shop with someone again, and she's just very nice and awesome as well. After that, off to Cleveland, where we spent a good portion of the day wandering around the Coventry region of shops and restaurants. Went to a store called Big Fun that sold alllllllllll manner of vintage toys and bric'a'brac, and...dear gods, people--kaspellsgoddess take note: the entire front window was a display of Ghostbusters memorabilia, from the movies, the cartoons, and so forth. I almost blew $100 on a boxed, never-before-opened Real Ghostbusters ECTO-1...but at the last minute decided to be sensible and instead only picked up another Ghostbusters t-shirt (a simple black shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it...just like the one I got years ago when the film first came out), a few buttons, and stickers. Oh, the stickers. See, these weren't repro band stickers--these were authentic bumper stickers from the 1980s. I landed a Ministry--With Sympathy era!--sticker aaaaaaaaaand...a Duty Now for the Future-era DEVO STICKER! YES! From 1980! It's currently chilling on the side of my computer, filling its circuits with proper de-evolutionary rays. The Spirit of Booji Boy is strong in the House of Pegritz tonight. As is the spirit of Gozer the Gozerian.
From there, we went to see Mirrormask at the Cedar Lee Theatre--the reason we'd gone to Ohio in the first place. The movie was simply awe-inspiring. What an incredibly beautiful film. I'll write more about it later, as it's a subject that deserves its own entry (as are all the new Lovecraft books I picked up as well), but...suffice to say, Mirrormask is this generation's Labyrinth. Only done by the holy duo, McKean and Gaiman. Not a perfect film, mind you, but a beautiful film that illustrates just how powerful a medium film can be when approached with reverence, wit, and art. Dear gods...the floating, betentacled head of the Dark Queen. Luscious. I felt that scene in my hip-pocket, let me tell you....
After that, we ate dinner at a restaurant called Tommy's or something like that--a vegetarian place that also had a number of incredibly good carnivore sandwiches as well. Yum. Afterwards, we were originally going to go to The Chamber and rock it out, but...we just weren't feeling that hot--too much food after too long a day--so we just went back to Akron and watched Batman Begins on DeeVamaDee.
And then today we drove home.
Now, I must get to the grading of the way-too-many papers. Finally, the Vicodin is killing the day's worth of incredibly annoying pain and I can think straight without being distracted by that shit. Time to get busy and listen to AFX and assorted other twitchy electromusique. Sayonara 'til later, bitches!
Anyway. It kicked off in sedate, but fun style, as
siliconedreamer and evilkellychan and I rolled on out of town around 5 and made our way into the evil depths of the nearby Red State on a mission of getting the fuck away from Pittsburgh. When we got to Akron, we went out to The Haunted Laboratory, one of a pair (with The Haunted Schoolhouse) of two venerable haunted houses that have been in continual operation for thirty-two consecutive Halloween seasons! And there's good reason for that: the Haunted Lab was one of the coolest haunted houses I'd ever been in, comparable to the North Park haunted house that I visited several years ago. Four floors of awesome, sci-fi/horror laboratory weirdness of d00m! The sculptures were all very nicely done, and generally involved lots and lots and lots of discarded old medical and scientific equipment, and aliens. My boner was astonishing. The boogedy-boogedy men who randomly jumped out to shock you were generally pretty well done, too--though the best character there was clearly Leatherface from the new version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I particularly loved the Tesla Coil chamber, in which you walked through an insulated metal cage surrounding a ten-foot-tall Tesla Coil that periodically fired off amazingly beautiful--and amazingly loud--blasts of lavender lightning, and the hallway of spinning stars, that literally destroyed my sense of balance (what little I have to begin with) and made me feel like I was drifting down the corridor to the "gateway chamber" aboard the Event Horizon. TOTALLY FLIPPIN' SWEET.The next day, aRvin's mudder made brunch for us, and I got to finally spend some time talking to her--she is very awesome--as well as aRvin's sister Elizabeth, who is studying to be a teacher and currently student teaching English at the 8th-grade level. It was great to be able to talk shop with someone again, and she's just very nice and awesome as well. After that, off to Cleveland, where we spent a good portion of the day wandering around the Coventry region of shops and restaurants. Went to a store called Big Fun that sold alllllllllll manner of vintage toys and bric'a'brac, and...dear gods, people--
kaspellsgoddess take note: the entire front window was a display of Ghostbusters memorabilia, from the movies, the cartoons, and so forth. I almost blew $100 on a boxed, never-before-opened Real Ghostbusters ECTO-1...but at the last minute decided to be sensible and instead only picked up another Ghostbusters t-shirt (a simple black shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it...just like the one I got years ago when the film first came out), a few buttons, and stickers. Oh, the stickers. See, these weren't repro band stickers--these were authentic bumper stickers from the 1980s. I landed a Ministry--With Sympathy era!--sticker aaaaaaaaaand...a Duty Now for the Future-era DEVO STICKER! YES! From 1980! It's currently chilling on the side of my computer, filling its circuits with proper de-evolutionary rays. The Spirit of Booji Boy is strong in the House of Pegritz tonight. As is the spirit of Gozer the Gozerian.From there, we went to see Mirrormask at the Cedar Lee Theatre--the reason we'd gone to Ohio in the first place. The movie was simply awe-inspiring. What an incredibly beautiful film. I'll write more about it later, as it's a subject that deserves its own entry (as are all the new Lovecraft books I picked up as well), but...suffice to say, Mirrormask is this generation's Labyrinth. Only done by the holy duo, McKean and Gaiman. Not a perfect film, mind you, but a beautiful film that illustrates just how powerful a medium film can be when approached with reverence, wit, and art. Dear gods...the floating, betentacled head of the Dark Queen. Luscious. I felt that scene in my hip-pocket, let me tell you....
After that, we ate dinner at a restaurant called Tommy's or something like that--a vegetarian place that also had a number of incredibly good carnivore sandwiches as well. Yum. Afterwards, we were originally going to go to The Chamber and rock it out, but...we just weren't feeling that hot--too much food after too long a day--so we just went back to Akron and watched Batman Begins on DeeVamaDee.
And then today we drove home.
Now, I must get to the grading of the way-too-many papers. Finally, the Vicodin is killing the day's worth of incredibly annoying pain and I can think straight without being distracted by that shit. Time to get busy and listen to AFX and assorted other twitchy electromusique. Sayonara 'til later, bitches!
