What did you do for Halloween?

[Bob_McMillan]

Was planning on doing nothing, but ended up having to drive my sister around while she trick or treated because it looked like it was going to rain. Normally I would balk at such a task but this is likely the last time my sister will ever be open to the idea of trick or treating with me, so eh why not. She's the youngest after all. Next time I do this will be with my own kids, if I ever even have any.

It's like the past two years were a major cock block for the Halloween enthusiasts in our subdivision, because people went hard. There were fewer houses giving out things, but at least 5 places hired ice cream vendors, someone was giving out gourmet popcorn, one house had barbecue, a couple of local delicacies here and there, and my sister greatly enjoyed the house that was giving out freshly fried french fries.

The whole situation made me reminisce about how much effort I wanted to put into my Halloween costumes (and some of them were genuinely good) as a kid, but I never had the confidence to wear them. That's why I insisted my sister take her costume seriously, because I just knew if she had even an ounce of doubt in her look, she'd back out and waste all the prep that had gone into her Halloween experience.

All in all, Halloween is definitely one of my least favorite holidays. The costumes and decor are pretty much the only things I enjoyed about it, and people seem to be putting in less and less effort. I saw some 5 year old girl, whose costume was literally just a dress (not a princess dress, just a dress), gobble down her candy and litter the wrapper into an empty lot. I felt like punting a small child. Which is a thought every sane man has had at least once in their life.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, Australia has to mindlessly ape whatever the US does, so we get some Halloweening over here. Some people go to some lengths with their decorations, so pay that, but apparently all the kids are wearing store bought costumes as usual.

 

[gorfias]

I live on a dead end street, houses at least 200 feet apart, no sidewalks or street lights. Still, we managed to hand out candy to a dozen kids. 1/2 of them toddlers with parents, 1/2 high school age. My wife tells me she continued to Trick or Treat till she was 17. Worse things a teenager could do.

 

[twistedmic]

I live on a dead end street, houses at least 200 feet apart, no sidewalks or street lights. Still, we managed to hand out candy to a dozen kids. 1/2 of them toddlers with parents, 1/2 high school age. My wife tells me she continued to Trick or Treat till she was 17. Worse things a teenager could do.

Free candy is still free candy even if you’re 17. And lots of people like dressing up in costumes.

I didn’t trick or treat much myself when
growing up but that was more due to a combination of a religious mother who disliked Halloween (pretty much thought it was Satanic) and moving halfway across the country and into an apartment complex when I was about ten.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I get and agree with the annoyance towards the creeping Americanisation of other countries including my own, but out of all the many whiffy farts of the US we have little choice but to inhale, Halloween is probably the one I'm more ok with. Mainly cause most annual celebrations are fucking dreary crap religious, soppy, monarchial tired old boring bullshit that all feel like cringe obligations. Whereas halloween is fooking horror for fooks' sake! It's fancy dress! It's party time! You can dress as weird as you want! And you can legally scare the shit out of kids without as many raised eyebrows! And you can introduce all those cool horror films to these kids, get them into some classy cinema under the guise of annual celebration instead of mental abuse!

Anyway, the point is its much more preferable to the slow top-down privatisation of our national health services, and qanon.

Oh, basically I just got drunk and stoned and played horror games and petted my cat cause she's a cute floofums.

 

[gorfias]

Free candy is still free candy even if you’re 17. And lots of people like dressing up in costumes.

I didn’t trick or treat much myself when
growing up but that was more due to a combination of a religious mother who disliked Halloween (pretty much thought it was Satanic) and moving halfway across the country and into an apartment complex when I was about ten.

I would have thought an apartment complex an ideal place to get some loot!
Your mom and mine would have their similarities.
When I was 7-9 she allowed me to Trick or Treat for a charity (UNICEF with a special box they gave you to collect change) but not take candy. Then I was not allowed to do that anymore.
Her reasoning is that you are extorting people. Give me a treat or I will do a trick against you. Like so much else, bit too literal there.

 

[EvilRoy]

That sounds horrifying. I get mad if I hear a crappy pop song twice in a nine hour shift (8+ 1 for lunch). I can’t imagine hearing them even more.

When I was in retail my store played something called "Galaxy Radio" which was a satellite TV station that was a black screen with music playing. It was ideal for stores because there were no commercials or DJs and between the dozen or so Galaxy stations it was easy to find one that was just inoffensive background noise for shoppers. I don't know how many songs were licensed to a given channel but I assume like 50 or so. Exactly the same every single day, same order, playlist updated at most every quarter assuming a given song had become popular enough to add without breaking the bank in fees I assume.

Everyone knew when their shift was up because when you heard the song that was playing when you started shift for a third time it meant there was something like 15 mins left. A guy I knew insisted on taking his break when a certain song was playing, something by Taylor Swift I think, due to passionate hate and it was weirdly perfect because everyone knew exactly when he was smoking every day.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

and petted my cat cause she's a cute floofums.

I wanna see the cat =O

 

[twistedmic]

I would have thought an apartment complex an ideal place to get some loot!
Your mom and mine would have their similarities.
When I was 7-9 she allowed me to Trick or Treat for a charity (UNICEF with a special box they gave you to collect change) but not take candy. Then I was not allowed to do that anymore.
Her reasoning is that you are extorting people. Give me a treat or I will do a trick against you. Like so much else, bit too literal there.

Very few children were in that complex and it wasn’t really a social place. Outside of the people that semi-regularly used the pool, I barely saw any of the other residents.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm not a child or American.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I wanna see the cat =O

Ask and thou shalt receiveth.

 

[Piscian]

Played MTGA, worked and had all the lights turned off indicating I had no compassion for blasphemous pagan festivities, under his eye.

We had torrential rain and gales so there were no trick or treaters to ignore, thankfully. So I curled up on the sofa with the missus and watched the last episode of the latest series of The Last Kingdom on Netflix.

How was it? Idk, the new season started off seeming like nonsense in the first episode. I enjoyed the first couple seasons, but it feels like in season 3 it really went off the rails into pure fiction and silly dramatics. I keep meaning to give it another shot, or is this the chinese zombie thing? I was thinking of the viking one.

 

[Baffle]

Nothing, but more because I have a terrible sense of the passage of time since COVID (the period, not the illness -- AFAIK I haven't had it) and didn't really register it being Halloween than because I have anything against it. I went to B&Q (Lowes equivalent) then to a friend's house and we were angry together about what a shit tip country we live in. Then I came home but realised we were out of bread so I went to get bread.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Ask and thou shalt receiveth.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa~ So floofy and cute

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

...but out of all the many whiffy farts of the US we have little choice but to inhale...

As an American, I ask: How is this our fault? I mean, if we do our shit, and people in your country decide to do the same shit, we're at fault for doing our shit? Are we just supposed to shut up and go away?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

As an American, I ask: How is this our fault? I mean, if we do our shit, and people in your country decide to do the same shit, we're at fault for doing our shit? Are we just supposed to shut up and go away?

Please don't interpret my words as placing blame on anyone, that was not my intention at all, sorry! I understand that culture and individual people are not inherently tied, the same as the abstract idea of a country should not be tied to any of the country's individual citizens. Like, for a recent example: despite me nor anyone I know not caring about the queen's death here, it didn't stop the whiff of our horrible tabloid rightwing culture spreading across to other countries to where they seem to feel like it's all the big shit and they have to talk about it too, and when the progressives in those countries engage in the many passionate criticisms of this such horrid media circus culture, I know they're not directly blaming me (or at least I assume so, based on their previous attitudes towards foreign countries). So when the whiff of US culture reaches us here, it's understood there isn't really much that could been done and it's just not logical to put the blame of any of US citizens, as us here we don't have control of these stinky national farts neither. Also, umm, for some reason I thought you were Australian till now. Sorry! (I shall adjust my insults accordingly )

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Also, umm, for some reason I thought you were Australian till now. Sorry!

...really? I honestly do not have the faintest idea how you figured that! I thought my milquetoast American status practically shone like a star.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Yeah, Australia has to mindlessly ape whatever the US does, so we get some Halloweening over here.

We totally half-arse it, though... like most things we do.

I remember in Primary school back in the late-70s and early-80s we got told every year that under South Aussie law 'trick or treating' was classified as 'panhandling' and therefore illegal and we shouldn't copy things we saw on US tv shows... and also that Bonfire Night was less than a fortnight after Halloween so look forward to that instead (because apparently UK cultural hegemony was ok until the mid-80s). Bonfire Night then went and died out as a thing here partly because some people realised that it was a bit silly to do it when it was already Bushfire Season in a large swathe of Australia and also partly because people had mostly stopped giving a shit about it.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I worked. They don't even pay you extra for working the holiday :/

 

[Zykon TheLich]

How was it? Idk, the new season started off seeming like nonsense in the first episode. I enjoyed the first couple seasons, but it feels like in season 3 it really went off the rails into pure fiction and silly dramatics. I keep meaning to give it another shot, or is this the chinese zombie thing? I was thinking of the viking one.

Viking? Saxon and Dane thank you very much

Assuming were both talking about season 5, I actually quite liked king Constantine, but otherwise the 5th series has been kind of meh. The original batch of charaters that made the show interesting are pretty much all gone by the end and the newer ones aren't great replacements.
I felt the arrival of the Danish Instagram hippy witch in series 3 (I think it was 3) marked a downturn for sure and Alfred and Aethelwold were the best characters, once they were gone it lost a lot of it's appeal.


It seems I've forgotten how to do spoiler tags so please scroll down instead if you don't mind spoilers














[SPOILER:]Seeing as Uhtred succeeded in his long term goal in the last episode IDK if there will be any more seasons, but as a finale it felt like a bit of a damp squib.[/SPOILER]