I’ve never been much of a Halloween person to begin with, but I did get into the habit of attending a few bar parties over the years. I liked to go to the ones with big-money contests for the best costume because those always draw great crowds. Plus, it’s fun to see all the costumes — I can’t believe how much time and effort (and money) some people put into their Halloween outfits!

This year, however, I’m just going to stay in. I’m planning on watching a DVD, which I normally wouldn’t do on Halloween because of the constant interruptions from trick-or-treaters. But I recently moved and am now in kind of a remote area that shouldn’t draw too many kids, so I figure a movie will be ok. (I did buy some mini Snickers bars just in case, though.)

So what movie do I consider scary enough to be viewed on Halloween night? The Exorcist, of course! I still think The Exorcist is one of the scariest movies out there, and it’s definitely the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. I have always been of the opinion that horror movies in which the plot has a chance of happening in real life are much scarier than stuff featuring monsters or whatever. So the Nightmare on Elm Street series and the Child’s Play series just don’t cut it for me. It’s movies like The Exorcist that make me look over my shoulder a hundred times or jump at the slightest noise.

Ok, I like junk food as much as the next person, but I think fried Coke sounds completely disgusting! According to this article from Yahoo News, the fried Coke craze is sweeping through the Texas State Fair and will likely hit other parts of the country soon. Here’s the description of what fried Coke is:

Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe — a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

Does that sound good to you? I think it sounds overly sweet and totally disgusting! But then again, I’ve never had the urge to try deep-fried Twinkies, deep-fried Oreos, a deep-fried Mars bar, or any other “deep-fried” version of an already unhealthy food product.

As far as I’m concerned, Texans can keep their deep-fried Coke. I’ll continue to take mine in a glass with ice, thank-you-very-much!

I wanted to believe that the Chicago Bears would have no problem against the San Francisco 49ers today, but after the near debacle in that Monday Night game against Arizona a couple weeks ago, I wasn’t going to take anything for granted. Apparently, neither were the Bears.

They came out storming!! Chicago scored 24 points in the 1st Quarter alone (a 43-yard field goal by Robbie Gould, a 7-yard touchdown run from Thomas Jones, a 5-yard TD reception from Muhsin Muhammad, and a 1-yard scamper by Cedric Benson). That was the most points the usually anemic Chicago offense has scored in the first quarter in the history of the franchise! (AP Photo)

But they weren’t done there. Rex Grossman added two more touchdown tosses to tight end Desmond Clark (from 1 yard out and from 27 yards out) and Gould kicked another field goal to put the Bears up 41-0 at halftime. From there, the team pretty much just coasted. Backup QB Brian Griese relieved Grossman in the 4th Quarter, and the defense recovered four fumbles and forced an interception while yielding just 10 garbage points late in the game. (AP Photo)

The Indianapolis Colts also won, which means Indy and the Bears are still the only two remaining undefeated teams in the NFL. Let’s hope one of them runs the table this year to finally put an end to that obnoxious tradition of the 1972 Miami Dolphins. (AP Photo)

The World Series is finally over (which means I can count on FOX to resume regular broadcasting of its primetime TV programs) and the St. Louis Cardinals came out on top. None of the sports analysts I read picked the Cards to take the Series. After all, they only won 83 games during the regular season and barely made it into the playoffs. The Detroit Tigers, on the other hand, won 95 games and were the best team in the league for most of the regular season. In fact, those 83 wins were the fewest by an eventual World Series champion in the history of baseball. How’s that for mediocrity?

I have a real problem with the MLB playoff system. There’s just no way the Cardinals deserved to be in the playoffs in the first place. I think the top four teams in the AL and NL (based strictly on W-L record) should advance to the postseason regardless of what division they come from. (The division pennant race is a joke anyway.) If the league adopted that system, then maybe we wouldn’t have a boring World Series like this.

Based on what I described above, there would have actually been only one change to the 2006 playoff entries: Philadelphia would have been in instead of the Cardinals. Otherwise, the Yankees, Twins, Tigers, and A’s in the American League all advanced as they should have, and the Mets, Dodgers, and Padres of the NL advanced as they should have.

Well, whatever. Baseball is the only sport where I don’t pay attention to the postseason unless a local team is involved. I mean, everyone watches the Super Bowl and NBA Finals regardless of who’s playing, right? But baseball… meh. Something needs to change. I didn’t watch a single at-bat live this year; I just caught the highlights on SportsCenter.

At any rate, congrats to the Cardinals. They’re the best team in baseball, right? Here’s a video clip of the final strike/final out/celebration if you’re interested.

I’d heard a few weeks back that Ford was planning on ending production of their Taurus line of sedans and wagons. Well, today the last one rolled off the assembly line at the Hapeville, GA plant. Instead of continuing with a Fourth Generation of Taurus cars, Ford will instead focus on three successors: the Five Hundred, the Freestyle, and the Fusion.

I’m a bit saddened by the news that Ford is discontinuing the Taurus because my very first car was a Taurus. I had a 1986 model (which, I think, was the first year the Taurus went into full production), but I didn’t get it until 1993. My mom bought it for me, and it was a real piece of crap. Seriously, there was one major problem after another with that thing. First, the heating system was messed up. I got the car in winter and when I turned the heater on, nothing would come out of the vents except white smoke. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Then, I had problems with the transmission. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but apparently the problem was common to the first generation Taurus models. It cost like $1200 to fix the transmission, which was approximately half the price that my mom paid for the car in the first place.

To make things worse, the crappy repair shop that we took the car to totally ripped us off. The car started having the exact same problems a month later, so we took it back to that place. They passed the blame off on us and said there was nothing they could do. In short, we ended up having to take the car somewhere else to spend another $1000 on fixing the transmission.

Even with all these problems, I still liked that car. I mean, who doesn’t have fond memories of their first car — no matter how bad the car actually was? That car took me everywhere I needed to go at the time and even served as my home for a couple of weeks when a friend and I decided to drive to Boston with only enough money for gas and food.

So anyway, even though I’ve been lucky enough to own several cool cars over the years, I’ll always have a soft spot for that old Ford Taurus… R.I.P!!!

I used to read Stephen King quite a bit when I was in junior high and high school. At first, I liked the straight horror stuff: Pet Sematary, Christine, Carrie, Firestarter, Misery… all the classic titles that most people think of when they hear King’s name. I also enjoyed some of the non-horror stuff. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas — The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, and Breathing Lessons — was a masterpiece, in my opinion. All four stories were of excellent quality and highly memorable.

But I slowly started moving away from King as I got too busy with classes and heavier reading assignments and I really haven’t read anything from him in about 15 years. I’ve seen a couple of movie adaptations of King’s works in that time (The Green Mile and Secret Window), but I haven’t bought, borrowed, or read any books of his.

This book review over on Yahoo today caught my attention. I don’t know who the author, Ted Anthony, is or whether his opinion should matter, but he really makes it sound like Lisey’s Story would be worth checking out. I’m not going to buy the book, but I’ll put my name on the waiting list at the library and see how that goes. Most of the time I don’t like it when an author strays from his or her usual genre (case in point: John Grisham when he’s not writing legal thrillers), but from the brief decription given in the review, I think I might like Lisey’s Story.

We’re halfway through the 2006 fantasy football season, and I’m stuck in 10th place in my league (out of 12 teams) with a terrible 2-5 record. I should actually be 5-2 (or at least 4-3), but three Monday Night games have cost me big so far this season. I know everyone with a losing record has their own excuses, but just check out what has happened to me and tell me if my whining is justified.

Week One: Going into the Oakland-San Diego game, I just needed 3 points out of my starting quarterback, Aaron Brooks. I know, I know …. why did I even have Brooks in the first place? Well, I got stuck with him because I couldn’t make it to the live draft and the computer picked him up because of his 2005 ranking. I figured I’d start him for one week (after all, Oakland has Moss, LaMont Jordan, and Courtney Anderson — three solid weapons, or so I thought) and then pick a different QB off waivers for Week Two based on the Week One stats. Besides, 3 points is nothing for a QB in fantasy football. So what happens? Brooks gets a big 68 passing yards and scores me a whopping 1.8 points, meaning that I lost by 1.2 points.

Week Six: I was down 10 points prior to the Monday Night game but I was still confident because I had three players left: Rex Grossman, Bernard Berrian, and Cedric Benson, all of them from the Chicago Bears. The Bears were going up against the lowly Arizona Cardinals, so I figured between the three of those guys, I’d get 10 points with ease. Of course, that just had to be the week that Grossman and the Chicago offense go MIA. Not only did those guys fail to score any touchdowns, but I lost points on the night thanks to Grossman’s horrific performance.

Week Seven: This was a much closer matchup that really could have gone either way. I had a slim one-point lead prior to the Dallas-NY Giants game, and still had Barber and Shockey in my lineup. My opponent had the Dallas “D” and Terrell Owens. Shockey had a touchdown grab, but Barber failed to find the end zone (yet again — zero TDs so far this year). Owens had 96 receiving yards and a TD, while the Dallas defense put up 5 points. I ended up losing by three points. As I said, though, that matchup could have gone either way. (Photo credit: AP/Matt Slocum)

So there you have it. I should be doing much better in fantasy football than 2-5, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Oh, well. Maybe my guys will come on strong in the second half!