Well, I finally got around to updating our little Halloween site here. About time, huh? My apologies go out to anyone who waited patiently for close to a year for this tiny update or who emailed without a response. Truth is, I felt the need to concentrate on other things in life, which meant I had to ignore other things, like insane Halloween hobbies. I ignored it for so long, my email account was terminated. Thus, if anyone wishes to re-email a question, comment, or obscene hate mail, please do so and I'll get right to sorting it all out.

L et's be honest: Halloween seemed like kind of a bummer for 2002. First off, not a lot of Trick or Treaters this year at all. I have no idea why. Maybe the neighborhood is just growing up fast. A lot of the regular people who've joined us in the past were noticeably absent. We also had some equipment failure this year: our fog machine crapped out for no reason. Luckily, a local shop had a good model left in stock and I replaced it without much hassle. Additionally, I tried one of those professional web shooter devices but it didn't work well at all, either indoors or outdoors. Lastly, and most apparent, setting up the display this year felt like a chore. It was rushed, and there was very little time for updating old material or creating new props. To be frank, I've been feeling a little unhappy with the amount of attention I've given to a few of my projects. All my stuff seems a little stale or unimaginative right now to me, like my fences and graves - they need so much more detail to look somewhat authentic. It seems as if a big refurbishment is in order.

But anyway, we had a pretty good time once it all came together. As you can see from the pictures, we were feeling a bit rebellious this year. Must have been my costume: a washed-up 1980's-era zombie bass player (which actually isn't far from the truth). I got heckled by quite a few people, including an eleven year old girl who dissed me for not knowing how to play anything by Megadeth (where the hell were all the Geddy Lee and Steve Harris fans?). Evil Leslie, Joey, Peg, and Big Joe were around to put up with my Halloween antics once again.

The only new prop I got off the ground this season was another corpse in the ground, and I'm actually pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, any pictures I took documenting how to build it are long gone for some reason. It's basically just like all the other Monster Mud props: take the burlap and chickenwire, make a body, cover it with joint compound, paint on bones and gore, add a skull, some hair and rags, give it PVC arms and some hands...you get the idea. I also decided to build the crypt and ghost out in the yard this year, so people could see it better as they were coming up the driveway. That's it. Everything else was left pretty much the same. Same props...same sounds...etc.

So, after some consideration on what to do next, I think what I really need to do is get some new inspiration. And basically, the quickest way to get going on that is to see what happens in a different neighborhood. This year I'm going to move the whole display and hold it at our house instead (my in-laws are jumping for joy right now - I'm sure they could use a break from Halloween after six years of this!). I'm already feeling a spark of creativity just with this transition, and I'm thinking of a big update with new, more detailed fences and graves to start. Since the new neighborhood hasn't seen any of the original display, it will be new to them, and that way I'll be able to concentrate on updating a lot of my old stuff to look better, and not have all my time used up building entirely brand new props. So again, sorry for the really late update, and check us out to see how this year goes at our new location! Evil Jay says, "Have fun kids."