My Thoughts are a Gas

Greetings from the Garden City (aka Beverly, MA). I need to come up with a Halloween costume. No, I'm not going trick-or-treating, although I will be taking Hannah out for a little while next Monday. On Thursday, my office hosts its annual Halloween parade for the kids of employees; we all get dressed up (well, some of us do) and decorate our offices and hallways and such, and then the kids show up at about 3 or so to trick or treat through the halls. Of course, some of the single folks use it as an excuse to leave early. But I always found it to be a fun event, long before I ever had kids of my own. Deb's going to bring Hannah and Lily right from daycare; they'll transform themselves into Belle (from "Beauty and the Beast") and Snow White, respectively. But I need to figure out what I'm going to dress as. Last year, I rocked it as Elvis Supafly; my profile photo to the right is from '03, when I was Mike Tyson and Hannah was a giraffe. So, got any costume ideas for this year?

Whoot whoot:

• Just watched the Leafs-Bruins game. As with pretty much every game I've seen this year, it was an exciting tilt, with Toronto edging the B's 5-4 in a shootout. Lots of end-to-end action, great goaltending, sloppy play, stupid penalties, nice goals. Definitely edge-of-your-seat stuff. The Leafs gave up a bad goal to go down 4-3, tied up the game while shorthanded and then had to kill off two straight penalties, including the first four minutes of overtime. Eric Lindros scored the only goal in the shootout to win the game. The two teams play again in Boston on Thursday.
• Met up with some of my peeps from the Webnoize days at Redbones Saturday night. I enjoyed some Texas beef ribs and entertaining conversation with Briggy, OJ and Amy, Cable Elk, Big Audio Douglass and his girlfriend Carrie, and some Russian friends of B.A.D.'s. Always a fun time. We'll be meeting again at the Miracle of Science in three weeks to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Black Friday, aka the day we all got laid off.
• So if you weren't old enough to see Led Zep, Pink Floyd, or AC/DC in concert in their 1970s heyday, Kmart will hook your ass up.
• I was excited to read the other day that one of my fave Canuckian bands, The Pursuit of Happiness, is back together, recording a couple of new songs, and going on tour. I suspect they won't venture down this way, but it sure would be cool if they did since I've only seen them once, back in the '89.
• Here's the lowdown on a couple of podcasts I've been digging lately: Cinecast is a movie podcast hosted twice weekly by two Chicago dudes named Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren. Intelligent, entertaining, thought-provoking stuff. Phedippidations (yeah, it's a mouthful) is a podcast about long-distance done by a guy WHILE he's actually running. Host Steve Walker (or "Steve Runner," his nom de pod) takes a portable MP3 recorder with him on his Sunday long runs and manages to provide insightful commentary about running, motivation, strategy, observations. It's really great. I actually had a similar idea a few months back, but I concluded that my podcast would basically just be 45 minutes of me breathing heavy and hocking loogies and saying stuff like, "Damn, I'm tired." Trust me, Steve's podcast is the real deal. And A Foot in the Crease is all about the Toronto Maple Leafs, produced weekly by Toronto hockey nuts Dave McCarthy and Jeff Hume.
• Less than two weeks to the New York Marathon. I'm getting excited. It's amazing how your attitude about running improves when you cut back on the mileage. I went out for 10 yesterday and felt great.