Photos: Annual Baltimore drinking and baseball but mostly drinking trip

A life with no traditions is a life without the little things to sometimes look forward to.  For the last three years now, I have made it out to Baltimore at least once, in order to take advantage of the liberal beer availability with the company of various friends, just outsides of the confines of Camden Yards, which, despite my general disdain for the city of Baltimore, it actually is home to my favorite ballpark in Major League Baseball.  Mostly thanks to Pickle’s.

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Next year, it’ll be “Santa’s Little Filthy Dirty Slut”

A part of me is a little sad and disheartened that society is gradually headed in this degrading direction of objectifying women . . . actually, that part I don’t really care about, but the part where traditions, and concepts of childhood, purity, and innocence, turned into blatant capitalist pursuits of profit by turning them sexually suggestive is a little pathetic.  Look, I know that sex sells, but eventually, there will literally be no concept or idea that doesn’t have a sexy dark side somewhere out there.  Halloween’s already been sluttified, now I find out Christmas is too.  If it already hasn’t been done by now, I’m sure the Easter-themed sexy Easter bunny, complete with fluffy-tail g-string, carrot dildo, and pastel-colored diaphragm is awaiting in April, and the party industry is probably hard at work trying to sexy-fy Independence Day next.

But the other part of me would be doing backflips if there was a girl in my life who was willing to wear this, and be my little Ho-Ho-HO!.

A Holiday Tradition

Two years ago saw the weekend of Thanksgiving completely rendered lazy and nerdy, as Jen and I spent the entire weekend doing absolutely nothing but play Left 4 Dead.  Last year saw the weekend of Thanksgiving completely useless and lazy as just about all the time was spent playing Left 4 Dead 2.  Needless to say, it’s kind of been tradition to more or less do absolutely nothing but sit around and play video games during the weekend after Thanksgiving, in our house.

Seeing as how there was no Left 4 Dead 3, this year Jen and I were forced to go our separate ways.  Since we don’t really have any good co-op games, and I just didn’t really feel much like playing a shooter or anything that required that much thought, Jen opted to finish out the original BioShock, and I decided to seek, find, and blow the dust off of an old copy of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, and go down memory lane with that one.  The fact that there’s only one television in the living room was irrelevant, because the old 27″ tube and Piss1 fit fine in the other corner of the room.  And I didn’t feel like I was getting short-changed by not getting the 50″ plasma, because quite frankly, playing FFT on anything but a 3:4 tube television, and getting frustrated at enemy Chocobos, just doesn’t seem fitting.

It gets worse every year

Here comes the annual, regression of Halloween post:  Despite recent events, I don’t wish to let it really impact the way in which I live life.  That being said, I still partied for Halloween, and on actual Halloween night, I would still be a willing participant in facilitating trick-or-treaters.  Incapacitated front door be damned, it was agreed that myself, Jen and Tom would hang out up front and hand out candy to the children of the neighborhood, despite the fact that many of them were predicted to be teen punks in no costume at all, just doing it for the candy.  It was still tradition, that was something done when I was a kid all the way up to my sophomore year in high school, and now that I am a “grown-up” homeowner, something that I would give back to the current generation of children.

The first trick-or-treaters came around maybe 7:20-ish, but I wasn’t really paying any attention.  Tom’s zombie costume did a great job of scaring most all the kids that actually did come by, made one cry, and literally made at least six kids run away, and require assistance from parents to give them courage.  But the gaps in between the groups of trick-or-treaters were gigantic, and as predicted, there were a good bit of kids who simply didn’t even try; but to be fair, not nearly as much as I predicted.  But despite the lazy kids / overprotective parents who drive their kids door-to-door instead of walking like it was done when I was their age, and the impressive, albeit impromptu presentation of our house, we gave candy to at most, 40 kids.  By 8:45 p.m., the sounds of children were nowhere to be heard, and we closed the book on trick-or-treating for this year.

I know times have changed, the world is a little bit more paranoid and scared of everyone else, and there are legitimate psychopaths out there that do ruin it for everyone else, but I have to err on the side that there are still a good bit of decent people out there that still get in the spirit of this transitional holiday to Christmas.  If Halloween and trick-or-treating becomes a thing of the past, I think I’d legitimately be sorrowful for it’s once great tradition.  Waiting for the sun to set, trick or treating from 6:30 to 9:30, and walking several miles with friends, and earning an entire pillowcase full of candy.  Running into peers and sharing information on where the best candies or showmanship houses were, and legitimately embracing the scary houses, costumes, and traditions of the night.

Maybe it’s where I live, where pretty much, myself included now, everyone’s home has been attempted to have been broken into at some point, but it just feels like a once-great time-honored tradition is slipping away.

Photos: Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

Sometimes, without tradition, then we’d have nothing to ever really look forward to.  In spirit of Halloween is once again the annual pumpkin carving party held at Allison and Stuart’s place.  A fun occasion marked with cutting up pumpkins, real and fake, good food, company, and lots of spirited conversation about swingers and cougars, and puzzle video games.

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