Welcome To My Virtual Halloween Festival

Do you remember gorging yourself on free, little candies?  Do you remember the first time you watched John Carpenter's 'Halloween'?  Do you remember wearing your favorite costume two or more years in a row?  If so, then you might just love Halloween (All Hallows' Eve, Samhain, Parentalia) just as much as I do.  So, sit back and enjoy just about any and everything I can offer to celebrate this holiday, virtually.  Let's begin by "watching the magic pumpkin, kiddies":

What is there not to love about Halloween?  You get to dress up as whatever you want.  I've been Darth Vader, Jason Voorhees, a killer klown, a gothic vampire, Shazam!, a dead cowboy, Death and a living, breathing Crystal Lake Camp Counselor who was about to die at any moment - just to name a few, and then there's the chocolate, the carmel apples, pumpkin pie and my family tradition of chili and cornbread.  There's scary movies, of which my top 5 recommendations would be:

1. Halloween (original)
2. Poltergeist
3. Psycho (original)
4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I actually prefer the 2003 remake)
and a new horror film just released this year (2011),
5. Insidious

Then there's fantastic music to get you in the mood like:



or this AMAZING show set to 'This Is Halloween' from The Nightmare Before Christmas:



Now, I've stated that I am a Halloween fan, but I have a couple of friends who are more obsessed about the holiday than I am and put me to shame, including one friend Richard who nearly always decorates his home to the hilt, including faux cathedral windows, a Halloween tree and an entire village with moving parts:

Notice the detail of the bottles - very cool

Nothing is safe from a decoration...

... not even the exterior.

This Is Halloween Tree.

Then there is my friend Dawnda, the costume QUEEN!  This lady plans her Halloween costume as much as a year in advance and works on it the whole year long.  Unfortunately, she could not find a picture of my favorite costume she created, the Jackal from '13 Ghosts', but she did such a phenomenal job, it would be difficult to tell the difference if I posted the real pic from the film:

Here are some of her other creations, of which she's won her company costume contest every year:

A Killer Klown

An inbred from the film 'Wrong Turn'

Pyramid Head from the horror game 'Silent Hill'



Dawnda lives in San Diego and I've told her she really needs to get the most mileage out of her creations by dressing up for Comic-Con each year, especially The Jackal and Pyramid Head - she'd be a hit!

And then, there's all the pleasures of growing up and living in Southern California with great traditional activities made especially for this holiday like The Halloween Haunt at Knott's Scary Farm (which I have probably been to more times than I can count on two hands).  Here is walk-through somebody took in 2010 of just one of their 13 mazes, The London Maze.  It's pretty good quality because there is still a little bit of daylight.  So, if you've never been, you might enjoy:



Then, there's Disneyland's transformation of The Haunted Mansion to 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.  Again, for anybody who lives too far from either Disneyland or Disney World to enjoy the attraction, here is decent ride-through to give you an idea:



Alright, so that's about it and again, I ask, "What is there not to love about this holiday?"  I've always been a little obsessed about Halloween: the scares, traditions, films, music and food, so much so that my next planned children's picture book will be based on the origins of All Hallows' Eve, which I'll publish with 'The Night After Christmas' illustrator, Anita Driessen, who loves the holiday even more than I do (I have such rockin' friends!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Anyone Want To Guest Blog?

Although all of my little obsessions are fun, they have been keeping me quite busy these last few weeks.  The writing (completing the first draft of book 2 in my Chupacabra Series, "Curse of the Chupacabra", outlining book 3, working on TV spec at the request of a producer, making some final adjustments to book 1 "Night of the Chupacabra"), the fall TV season (catching up on my favorite shows while trying to find new ones to become obsessed out), beta testing a new video game and beginning this season's marketing for my children's book "The Night After Christmas", which is what caused the long hiatus last year after starting this blog. This list doesn't even include all the attention my cats Luna & Hermione demand on a daily basis, which any pet owner will understand (and sympathize).  So, I'll say it again... "incredibly busy".

Unfortunately, because of everything, its appears this blog has, once again, fallen into the shadows of unimportance when it really is not unimportant to me.  I swore I would not push it aside again.  So to keep this blog active and allow me time to clear my plate from the endless buffet in life, I would like to open the door to guest bloggers.  You can write about anything you are even remotely obsessed about.  My golden rule about these little obsessions is... if you're passionate enough to spend time writing about something then you're obsessed enough to be included into this blog.

Opening the door to guest bloggers was originally part of the plan from beginning anyway, I just did not expect to be doing it so soon.  I do not need to agree with your obsessions, although I do have some ground rules:  1) And probably the most important, no (or limited) negativity.  I do not want to hear how obsessed you are about hating something or someone as that's not what this blog is about.  There's already enough negativity in this world, I don't want to add more to it.  This blog is just about sharing a positive opinion and perhaps informing others of people, places and things (flashback of Schoolhouse Rocks right about now) of why something is important to you.  2) No pointless advertising or plugging.  I'm not saying you can't advertise or plug something, just make sure it's tied into an obsession.  3) No porn. This is a PG-13 rated blog, so yes, profanity is welcome.  4) No politics or religion. Both subjects would just suck the fun out of this blog as they are extremely sensitive subjects which easily offend people these days, in fact, I'm probably offending somebody right now with this statement.

So if you've ever wanted to express, in detail, why you are passionate about something or maybe you're curious about posting on a blog (testing the waters to start your own blog?) then send me an email expressing your little obsession to michaelhebler at gmail dot com and let me know what it is you would like to ramble about.  The hits on this blog are growing daily so the more the merrier!