Cheers and Jeers for Halloween

One of my favorite holidays has just come and gone. I must say I had my fill and I am ready to move on. So bring on the Christmas inundation. Ha! I am just kidding.

Cheer to the amount of horror movies and programs on cable this year for Halloween

I feel the genre was well covered. Not to say that there is usually lack of Halloween specials, but sometimes I find there are only horror movies the day of, or week leading into Halloween. This year I found there to be horror movies spread out over the entire month of October.

Kudos to AMCs Fearfest. I had never really watched all of the Friday the 13^th movies, but now I think I can safely say I have, and really, how can you go wrong with the Halloween

movie franchise. The name says it all.

Kudos to IFC and some other channels for showing some lesser known movies I had not

had the privilege of hearing about before. I could see why Maniac was not a huge hit, but could also see why it walked the line of favorable and unfavorable reviews on IMDB.

Kudos to Starz for premiering the remake of The Crazies on

Halloween. Perfect timing!

I must not forget some other mentions such as Dr. Giggles on Encore, or Pumpkinhead on This.

Finally, I once again got to watch It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on ABC. What could be better?

Jeers to the costumes I saw this year

I imagine the economy played a role in many a rehashed or low budget costume. Still, I was shocked that no one I saw out had on a Jersey Shore costume. They only reason I did not personally dress up as “The Situation,” is that I assumed there would be plenty of others in JS costumes out and about. I did not want to be one of many. I thought maybe someone would even go further and buy a JS costume, then put a twist on it, such as a Zombie Snookie, a blood sucking Paul D or She Wolf J-Wow. That would have been awesome. I

had no such luck in seeing such thing though.

Last year I saw a Lego Man, a Billy Mayes and more. This year the contest winner at the club was someone dressed as Jake Sully from Avatar. Not bad, but the fact that was the best and most original costume says volumes.

Cheers to all the trick or treating I witnessed

I do not personally have children, nor live in an actual house, so I have not been privy to the trick or treating scene in some years. All I can go on is hearsay, but word was that children did not partake in trick or treating as much as in the old days. New options for children and new fears for safety were cited as the reason for such decline. However, I am happy to report that I went with some friends to help take their kids trick or treating and saw tons of ot

her kids out in cute costumes going door to door. I also am happy to say most of the people in this neighborhood were home, with their porch lights on, and candy at the ready.

Not just any candy either, but good candy. Cheap Candy Corn be damned! Ha! Seriously though, seeing the tradition alive and well warms my heart.

Jeers to VUE Lounge in Augusta for poor business practices

We chose to go there because last Halloween they let people in costumes in free and it had a great crowd of people with original and diverse costumes. While we did call ahead to learn there would not be free cover this year, my friend’s wife was told $10 for guys and $5 for girls over the phone.

Once at the club, we did pay said cover prices. So that was not a problem. However, when my friend’s wife and I had to take my sickly friend outside (starting to the drinking at noon is never a good idea kids), I found out I was not allowed back in immediately to gather up our remaining friends who had rode with us. Though it was not exactly the club’s fault that a certain cell phone carrier had no service inside the club, the manager could have let me in to collect my friends once I explained this to him. Instead he said I had to get at the back of the end of the long line to regain entrance.

On top of that, I heard them start telling the people in line who had not yet been in that the cover charge was $20. I asked why they had raised the price, and they said because they were at occupancy and they could. A few minutes later I heard them tell some people $30!

This was good for me, as it thinned the line out. So not only did the club lose those customers and not even get $10 cover from them, but they lost any monies those potential customers were willing to spend on alcohol sales. Great business sense huh?

While in a way this shows the free market system somewhat working by way of people voting with their wallets, had my friends and I come up to the club an hour or so after calling we would not have paid the price they quoted to us. Plus had we, or anyone else who went in while the price was still $5-$10 called our friends and told them the price, they would have waited in the long line just to get to the cashier to find out that no, in fact the price was more. Thus they would then have to choose between paying the higher fee or going elsewhere and loosing much of the precious time to celebrate (last call is at 1:45 AM in Augusta after all). This to me again stresses that without any regulation or rules in place businesses will not use common sense and self regulate their own behavior.

Therefore, I write with the utmost sincerity, I hope you change your management DOODOO Lounge, I mean VUE Lounge, or go out of business.
To put it mildly, they suck.

In Summation

Overall, as usual, Halloween was great. There were a few disappointments, but that is life. I am glad it is over for now, but will be excited when Halloween 2011 rolls around.

Oh, and P.S., thanks for my good friend Stephen for showing me the movie Gingersnaps. I have been craving a good werewolf movie!