I’m just going to wear a cybercostume tonight: the “South Park Me” in my Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo shirt.

We’re getting a good number of trick or treaters this year. There’s an interesting trend in demons and pale ‘might be vampires might just be goth’ costumes. I keep having to fight the urge to open the door and yell “Oh No! It’s de Debil!” Nah I’m mostly just trying to assure these small children that Winter is actually quite friendly and they really can grab as much candy as they want. We always over buy on the candy. It’s an old dream of mine to be the house with a lot of cool candy every year.

I’m building a huge Albuquerque-style house in the sims tonight. Hard to explain exactly what I mean by that but it’s not Santa Fe. I’ll post pics when I’m done and I might even add it to my really old Yahoo group.

New songs for the week! Be sure to right click please.

The Triplets of Belleville - Belleville Rendez-Vous (demo)
(buy album)

Ministry - Every Day is Halloween
(buy album)

Grace Jones - Walking in the Rain
(buy album)

Devo - Ohio
(buy album)

Tom Waits - Little Boy Blue
(buy album)

Did you know that if you have a site running Movable Type or Blogger that Ciao! My bella designs is offering a free redesign if you link and contact them by October 31st? It’s true!

I’m signing up for one because it’s just one step closer to eventually having every talented designer out there make at least one skin for my site. For a while I was planning for them to all be based on the same image but it was getting dull so I’m shooting for some more variety.

So go see the Ciao! My bella gals and see what they can do for ya.

This is what did it. It was the proverbial straw that broke my admittedly weak camel’s back. But it broke so, yes, I bought the Sims 2. I thought I could resist but it’s too late now.

Since I still haven’t installed Makin Magic I assumed it would take me at least a month to install Sims 2. But curiosity won out and I’ve been playing it all day. I’ve only just started messing around with build mode which is confusing as all hell. But my designer’s mouth started watering when I found out I can now build four floors.

I made a Sims 2 version of us and had fun figuring out the new career path, desire list stuff. It’s very complex with odd nuances. Even some unexpected career choices and changes. Here’s a good example - one time when he came home from work CodySim brought home a friend - that looked eerily like Jocelyn’s boyfriend with shorter hair. Really!

As far as gameplay is concerned I have to admit I’m very impressed. I do miss my usermade objects and Sim pets though.

In other gaming news I just got an offer from the maker of kung fu madness to beta test his new game, Drugrunners. I’ve been given codes for three other betatesters so let me know if you want to try this new game out.

I also have something like twelve gmail invites so just ask if you want one of those too.

The death and rebirth of punk in 1979 with Mick Jones as mother and Joe Strummer as midwife?

The reissued box set of London Calling.

Dear fridge guy,

I miss you. I know I’m supposed to be coy and pretend that I’m ambivalent about whether or not you ever call me back but I gave up on those silly games when I was twenty-five. When I realized that if you actually tell someone what you want they can decide whether or not to help you get it - and in a lot of cases if you’re nice enough they will choose to do so.

I saw you last week but that just wasn’t enough. So you said you’d come by today. I’ve been waiting all day for your call. I even cleaned the house so you wouldn’t think we live like the freaks we probably are. Well, ok, Cody cleaned this time but still..I thanked and praised him and took the garbage to the curb.

My refrigerator needs you. I need you. If you come back I promise I’ll let you hold the hedgehog again. I’ll bake you a cake (if you knew me well you’d know how big a deal that is). I’ll cut your hair. I’ll even take you to the store and buy you a big pack of socks.

Just please please please please call me. We all miss you so. We miss having dairy products. We miss not having to go out to the garage to get ice. Life just isn’t the same without you.

Love,
Noelle

P.S. Please come soon we really wanted to take the dog to the dog park today. And as you well know, a happy hundred-pound dog is a ‘not jumping over the toddler gate to try to get to you’ hundred-pound dog.

329 newspaper front pages from 41 countries presented alphabetically.

note: it didn’t seem to like firefox much so I had to use ie.

And LMAO Bush and Kerry…as Sims 2

Historical Fiction - How do medieval-themed restaurants get it wrong? By Mark Schatzker

snagged from Chastity Catt

also snagworthy- This Bible You Sold Me Is Clearly Defective and I’d Like to Return It, Please

another meme from Joelle -
It’s the “Last 10 mp3s in Your Playlist” game. So, go for it: no subsituting, no choosing, no matter how embarrassing. Hit random, let 10 songs play and tell me what they are.

1. Peace Orchestra - Who Am I? (Animatrix edit)
2. Nina Simone - The Look of Love (the random button is loving her lately)
3. Tony Bennett - One for my Baby (And one more for the road)
4. Penetration - Don’t Dictate
5. Stereolab - Stomach Worm
6. Nick Drake - Road
7. Miss Jane - It’s a Fine Day (ATB Mix)
8. Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams (are made of this)
9. The Members - The Sound of the Suburbs
10. Bob Dylan - Sarah (the randomizer had been favoring this one a lot too)

So there it is. Not the best I have but definitely not the worst.

We have a new celebrity in the house and she’s been exploiting her status to endorse a candidate.

Ok I’m kidding. She probably wouldn’t support Kerry she’d probably want whomever the green party candidate is. She pretends to be all spiky and tough but she’s just a big bug-munching hippie that spends most of her day on her belly with her head in a toilet paper tube. This anomaly is why I think hedgehogs might be my animal familiar but that’s another story.

Anyway, Dell mentioned a new pet blog the other day and they’ve been taking pet photo submissions! If one gets chosen you might get a fun prize for your pet! So I submitted one of zola, a few of winter and the kitties too. So right now there’s a loverly shot of Zola at the top of the page and we’ll be getting a surprise in the mail soon!

It’s a great site with lots of interesting articles (they also accept submissions for journal entries and such) and even pet related news so go check it out and we’ll try to keep Zola from demanding million dollar contracts and only whole brown roasted waxworms in the downstairs room of the cage.

Wearing:
a pink camisole with this froufrou black swiss-dotted mesh overlay from Torrid - yes it’s as weird as it sounds but it was on clearance, black yoga pants, a simple gold toe ring, engagement ring, wedding band, glasses that need new plastic nose thingies but are cute anyway

Drinking:
nothing but I’m about to go make some tea

Upset that:
my feet are cold

Luxuriating in:
a fairly mellow day after going out to brunch when Cody came home from work

Reading:
the sweetest little book called Lord Brocktree at Cody’s insistence. definitely a fantasy novel (which usually isn’t my thing) but has fun English accents and a baby hedgehog (or hedgebabe) named Skittles but he can’t pronounce his own name so he calls himself Skikkles. really cute. shut up.

Learning:
how to make a “skin gallery” page

Downloading:
a few itunes songs shhhh

Wanting:
the upstairs downstairs dvd set I bought on ebay to hurry the hell up and get here

Listening to:
Mellow stuff like Nina Simone - Suzanne, Mott the Hoople - Sweet Jane, Morrissey - Suedehead, Air - Sexy Boy, Roxy Music - Grey Lagoons

snagged from Joelle