The Beginning of the End (of Times)

Greetings loyal blog readers and loveable randos!

We are less than 48 hours into 2012, or as the Mayans like to call it, APOCALYPALOOZA!!!! I rang in the New Year at Minnesota's own First Avenue with a friend who I've since before I was sperm.

A shot of the crowd dancing.

 Me attempting to look nice. Did it work?!

The crowd was wild, the drinks were strong, and everyone was having a great time. I was also pleasantly surprised at how responsible everyone seemed to be. I talked to more than a few designated drivers and the buses and taxis of Minneapolis were full. This almost led to us not getting home but thankfully, we met a nice guy at the bus stop who called a friend to come pick us all up and drop us off at home.

I wanted to take a moment to say thanks for reading. I happened to glance upon my blog stats today and I noticed that I have a ton of readers from countries that, well, I don't really know how/why they're reading my blog. I'm talking Russia, Austria, and Latvia. I understand all the US, Canada, and even England but some of these just baffle me.

Maybe it's because I'm actually really fucking famous. Yeah, that's what I'll choose to believe.

Anyway, happy New Year... wherever you're from! Look for (hopefully) more posts from me, especially related to music as I'm trying to do more music blogging and I hopefully will be going on at least one festival and tons of live shows. I'm also going to give album reviews a stab and see how that goes. Keep an eye out for what's to come!

All Hallow's Eve

For those of you haven't had the joy of living with me (or at least spending an extended amount of time with me), you probably aren't aware of how seriously I take holidays. I love decorating for the season and watching cheesey specials that every TV show seems to have for every holiday. My obsession extends so much that I even get pretty into holidays such as Easter (despite not being Christian), 4th of July, and Singles Awareness Day (my sort of pseudo-anti Valentines Day substitute). My favorite holiday, however, is Halloween. I LOVE Halloween. Maybe it's because I can turn off my inner skeptic for a while and pretend that ghost stories are real or maybe it's all the freaking sugar (or maybe it's that I can use it as an excuse to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch...), something about Halloween tickles my fancy like no other holiday does.

It seems as I've grown older, my Halloween celebrations have changed... or at least the last three years they've changed. Until I was 17, I would go trick-or-treating around my entire neighborhood... and my dad came with until I was probably 15. When I was 18, I did an abridged version of trick-or-treating, mainly to show off my Sarah Palin costume. Last year, despite having an epic Pikachu costume, I just walked around West Lafayette. This year I carved a pumpkin, watched the first 12 Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes, watched 5 of the Sabrina Halloween specials (not that I own them on DVD or anything... Haha), and will soon be going out to go dancing. Yes, I realize it's a Sunday and I'm in college but let's be honest: I need a day off. Like completely off. And that's exactly what I did. Despite being an adult, I think I'll always be pretty child-like when it comes to Halloween and I hope that someday I can help make Halloween a magical experience for my kids kind of like my dad did for me. Also, it means I'll get to tag along with my kids trick or treating... something I sorely miss.

While this Halloween season has been a bit busy and different than most (I'm living in an apartment and not at home) and I haven't been able to celebrate as much as I'd like to, it still was a great season as always. I really look forward to next October rolling around. Hopefully I'll have time for lots of spooky stories, going on a ghost tour, and other activities that make this time of year so great.