Another Halloween Has Come and Gone

I know I haven’t written much of late, but I have my reasons. I shall probably be writing more now, since I’ve cleared up some major issues—in case anyone missed hearing from me.

Ever since I bought my Dell laptop a year ago last January, I’ve had on-going problems with the operating system, and I know some of you have had the pleasure of hearing me whine about it. Yes, “good old Vista.” I never could get Service Pack 1 to install, even though I’d never had trouble with any of the other updates, and more things seemed to go wrong every day. It got so that I no longer looked forward to my keyboard time at all. It was a continuing episode of frustration and problems that were snowballing out of control, so one day I finally just quit—especially after signing onto Facebook (what a name) at the urging of several friends. Between a computer operating system that was giving me fits, my Office program deciding to go on the fritz as well, and the incredible time-suck that is Facebook, I just could not take any more. I went for an entire week without logging on at all, let alone reading e-mail, and it was wonderful. When I did finally log on, it was with very mixed feelings, but the laptop was still up to its old tricks, and I decided that enough was definitely all I could stand already.

So, I set about organizing and backing up all my files. I didn’t want to lose all the stuff on my computer—just the crappy OS, so this took some time to accomplish. Thank God I have a jump drive where I can store all my Word documents, an iPod to back up all my iTunes stuff, and CDs for downloading all the photos. Today I re-installed Office 2007 so I could get e-mail on Outlook again—and after going through about 250 e-mails, I got a wild hare to try installing Vista Service Pack 1 again. What the heck, my time has no value. Well, it hung there forever, so I did what it expressly tells you NOT to do—I turned off the computer. Then I got out the Vista installation disc and plugged it into the CD/DVD drive. I was going to re-install Vista itself if I had to, but then the computer actually started working! It even installed Service Pack 1, according to Windows Update. Golly gee whiz, I could have danced a jig, I was so thrilled! Windows Update is still prompting me to install Service Pack 1—why, I do not know, but I’m not letting that bring me down.

I abruptly realized last week that I had not written my annual “Best Halloween Movies” update—but then, you now know why. For some unknown reason, I couldn’t “get into” Halloween this year. My heart wasn’t in it at all, which is quite unlike me, kid that I am at heart. I even signed on to work a few hours this evening, rather than hand out candy to the little urchins. The candy went to work too, because there was no way I was going to be alone in the house with it! I’ve already eaten my yearly quota of fun-size Snickers bars! I did consider applying my Egyptian eye make-up for work, but then I thought better of that idea.

My Top 25 List from last year is pretty definitive, though from time to time there will be a new movie worth putting down. I have to confess that, all else aside, I am not a big horror movie buff. I generally prefer action movies or sci-fi thrillers, as long as they’re not too stupid, gruesome, or revolting. You will probably note that I tend to favor the older classics, when realistic special effects were beyond the capability of movie producers. This made the movies far scarier in my opinion, because the audience had to use imagination to fill in the gaps. Let’s face it. I don’t want to watch movies that are going to gross me out, nor do I care to inflict the antics of psychotic killers on my brain (thank you Saw 1, 2, 3, and 4 now—or Halloween however many there are of those). Some things are just sick—there’s no other name for it, and I won’t watch that stuff!

One thing I could share with you is my list of Halloween Hits: songs that for one reason or another are appropriate for the Halloween season. We listen to Christmas carols for weeks on end, so why not some nice, creepy Halloween tunes? Here’s what’s on my iPod playlist (there is no order of preference):

1.“Monster Mash” with Bobby (Boris) Pickett
2.“Ghostbusters Theme,” Ray Parker Jr.
3.“The Purple People Eater,” Sheb Wooley
4.“Love Potion Number 9,” The Searchers
5.“Halloween,” Cosmicity
6.“This is Halloween,” Danny Elfman (The Nightmare before Christmas)
7.“Thriller,” Michael Jackson
8.“Time Warp,” Richard O’Brien and the SAS Band
9.“Werewolves of London,” Warren Zevon
10.“The Addams Family Theme,” Various Artists (sorry, that’s all I have)
11.“Somebody’s Watching Me,” Rockwell
12.“Jump in the Line,” Harry Belafonte (re: Beetlejuice)
13.“Witch Doctor,” Sha Na Na
14.“Before You Die You See the Ring,” Fiachra Trench, Hans Zimmer, Henning Lohner, and Martin Tillman (The Ring, The Ring 2)
15.“The Cellar,” Antonio Cora (The Blair Witch Project)
16.“Prelude” and “Outer Space,” Bernard Hermann (The Day the Earth Stood Still—original movie)
17.“Gort,” Bernard Hermann (ditto)
18.“Boris the Spider,” The Who
19.“Destroy Tina” from the episode “Living Doll,” Bernard Hermann, The Twilight Zone series
20.“Main Title A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Charles Bernstein
21.“The Creation of the Female Monster,” Charles Gerhardt National Philharmonic Orchestra (The Bride of Frankenstein)
22.“I Put a Spell on You,” Creedence Clearwater Revival
23.“Main title Ed Wood,” City of Prague Orchestra
24.“The Twilight Zone Theme,” City of Prague Orchestra
25.“Night on Bald Mountain,” Mannheim Steamroller
26.“Main Theme The Shining,” City of Prague Orchestra
27.“Main Title Dark Shadows,” Dark Shadows soundtrack
28.“Eptesicus,” Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard
29.“De Profundis,” James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense)
30.“Main Theme Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Knightsbridge
31.“The Shed Not to Be Used,” James Newton Howard (The Village)
32.“Ave Satani,” Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen)
33.“Theme from Halloween,” John Carpenter
34.“Sidney’s Lament,” Marco Beltrami, (Scream)
35.“Nothing Stays Buried Forever,” Mark Isham (The Black Dahlia)
36.“Suite from Hush,” Orchestra (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
37.“Overture,” Original London Cast (Phantom of the Opera)
38.“Official Clown Business,” Tyler Bates (The Devil’s Rejects)
39.“Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” BWV 565, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
40.“Danse Macabre, Poeme Symphonique,” Op. 40, Luben Yordanov, Orchestre de Paris
41.“Night on Disco Mountain,” David Shire (Saturday Night Fever)
42.“Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, David Bowie

So, that’s all I have to offer this Halloween (and you can download each and every one of these songs from iTunes). Next year (!) I’ll do better I promise. Now I have to get busy with those Christmas cards—and now that my computer is working again, I should be writing much more often.