Here's the beginning of my Hate List (in no particular order):

-People at four-way stops across from you that don't signal that they're going to make a left turn, and so you go at the same time as them, and then you almost crash and they honk all pissed because they had the right of way (which they did) and you failed to read their minds.
-When you eat at a buffet, how coming back from the buffet table your napkin always blows off of your tray.
-Web sites that give you error messages because some stupid ad banner didn't load. As if I care.
-People with such a sense of entitlement that transcends logic, who (for example) don't just whine about their job all the time as though it were compulsory, but instead say things like, "This is an outrage! They didn't pay me for last week just because I didn't work!" or "Our landlord's an asshole- he was all pissed off just because I paid rent two weeks late!"
-The fact that the majority of people in the U.S. and other countries enjoy watching, not playing, sports (a concept I cannot grasp, and let's not even get into how they can take pride in "their" team's victory), and as a result those sports game take precedent over anything else on TV plus the fact that this doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, since declining sports attendance figures is likely due to the expanding number of different sports that are available. And I can do nothing about this except accept it, which means that if I'm waiting for my show to come on I have to check in on The Game to see if it's over yet, and the sound of a professional sports game absolutely makes me cringe, so that I can't even bear to flip the channel and submit to three seconds of that sound, which means that the one show I watch on television, that happens unfortunately to be on Sunday, the Football Sabbath, I tend to just give up on the concept of watching TV altogether, so repulsive to me is the sight and sound of professional sports.
-Dog shit, everywhere, in the streets. Some guy in town got sued for posting "DO NOT LET YOUR DOG EXCRETE IN MY YARD" and then rigging his lawn with a number of nasty but nonfatal traps that let to discomfort and embarrassment on the part of both the dog and the owner who disregarded his warning. I don't see any problem with this, I'm thinking of posting signs that say "Please Help Keep Our Neighborhood Clean, Have Your Dog Euthanized" but I don't think it'll do any good since people with dogs tend to, you know, like them despite all of the things that make dogs unbearable, of which the shit is unfortunately not even the stinkiest.
-People who latch onto some way in which they are oppressed and then that victimhood becomes their entire identity. Also, people who do the same thing with some affected quality that they feel sets them apart.
-The way that people think that cars are like some sort of sheild that exempts you from any sort of concern for others.
-Parents who have developed a thick callous of ignoring their children but forget that noone else has, especially when you're trapped in proximity with a parent-child couple doing that "mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy" "SHUT UP!" *smack* SCREEEEEEEEEEAAAMMMMM cycle.
-Parents who bring their young children into decidedly adult entertainment venues, such as nice restaurants, R-rated movies, and bars.
-Oh, okay, I guess kids in general.
-Not the fact that Xmas exists or the fact that it's so commercialized but the fact that it's so compulsory as well as ubiquitous, so that even if you can get past the surprise people exhibit when you say you don't celebrate and the unspoken retribution expected when they give you some thoughtless piece of crap (since anyone who put thought into their gift is probably doing it out of the joy of giving and not just because it's What Good People Do At Xmas), you still can't avoid all of the stupid songs (ever notice that it seems that no new Xmas jingles have been written in 50 years?) and the decorations at every single business. Smeared on top of this is a gooey layer of expected, nay, demanded good cheer, even though most people are miserable at Xmas due to the stresses of shopping and family and people sort of scurry about with these jack-o-lantern grins on their faces, emphasizing through clenched teeth how cheerful they are. For the non-Xmas-celebrator it's kind of like being on a tour bus that stops to eat at Waffle House, and you don't really like waffles but you don't really hate them so you think you'll just sit and have a cup of coffee but people just won't stand for you not having waffles, and everybody around you is ordering them and going on about how tasty they are even though they're obviously greasy old Waffle House waffles and not even the good kind but rather a mass-produced imitation of the good kind, with the yummy wheat batter substituted with some sort of nasty polymer, so they're all forcing down these imitation plastic waffles and going on about how great they are and they start to smear the waffles on you and hold your nose and cram them down your throat and then, THEN, they wonder why it is you don't like waffles and are so miserable when they're being eaten and boy you must be one bitter scrooge, that person sure needs a dose of waffles HERE HAVE SOME OPEN UP THAT'S IT GRAB HIM! This year there's the added bonus of being told that if you don't eat waffles you're not only a scrooge, you're downright Unamerican.

That's it for now, that last one is a big, six-months-of-the-year Hate, the kind that ruins your summer because you know it's lurking around the corner. So I'll make a separate page for all of these, you can bet I've got plenty but I know if I go on I'll never stop and I'm really not that bitter of a person, I treat most of these as something you just have to accept and try and think of ways that I can eliminate them from my life. What's that the drunks say? Give me the strength to accept what I cannot change so that I don't end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle? Something like that.

My Grammaw Fern bought me a gift certificate to a restaurant called Heaven on 7, the "best cajun restaurant outside of New Orleans". I tell you, from what I tasted, I agree.

I knew I was in the right place when I entered and saw that the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with racks of hot sauce. If you bring one in they don't have, they'll put it up. Each table had no less than 24 hot sauce bottles on it, ranging of course from mild to "Mmmm... incapacitating." They of course have their own varieties as well, which you should check out on the website because of the hilarious pictures of the restaurant's founder going through successive stages of suffering according to each bottle's contents.

Hot Sauce aside: First off, I flat-out ignore a sauce that is all heat and no taste. While I admit that I enjoy the endorphin high associated with hot sauce consumption, and that high is probably what addicts me to hot foods, without a tasty flavor I might as well just slam my hand in a door for the same effect. So I immediately set three or four of the table's bottles to the side. Secondly, for the unfamiliar Scoville Units are a rating of the "heat" of a sauce. Pepperocinis are where the heat starts with 100-500 SUs, Jalapeno 2.5K-5K, Cayenne 30k-50k, Habanero 100k-350k, and Mace and other pepper sprays start at 1 million. The hottest commercially available* stuff I've ever had is Blair's 2AM Reserve, at 692k (I consider PureCap to be an additive and not a sauce). Thirdly, unfortunately the resistance I've built up is only to capsaicin, so "hot" stuff that doesn't derive its heat from capsaicin absolutely blows me away. But to sum up, I'm not happy at the dinner table unless I'm sweating, and I never sacrifice taste for heat.

I started out with a Cajun Martini: Habanero Vodka, straight-up, with a cherry pepper floating in it. Then as an appetizer I chose a dish called "HOT AS A MUTHA." It was hilarious- they brought me out a full-size plate. In the center of the plate was a single habanero pepper, stuffed with cheese and peppers and then breaded and fried. I'd take a teeny bite, moan in that odd mixture of pleasure and pain that is common to hot-food fans and S&M enthusiasts (I wonder what the S&M community thinks about people who self-inflict through pepper consumption?), and then take a big swig of my martini, which tasted just about like siphoning a tank of gas and not turning the hose downward in time. Then I'd scream again and reach for the water, which the waiters were wise enough to keep refilling every 30 seconds. The water, of course, didn't help.

As a lagniappe, a round of gumbo, the smell of which is the origin of the "Heaven" in the restaurant's name. It was too good to alter with a single drop of sauce. For a main course I got a sampler, which included red beans & rice, some jambalaya, a bit of andouille, and the best damn collard greens I have ever had in my life. It was upon this sampler that I inflicted the sauces.

I have found a new favorite restaurant in town. I'm gonna go back next time and eat nothing but collard greens, jalepeno cheddar corn bread, and cheese grits. The only new sauce I tried that I really liked was Aspirin ("For relief of bland foods") which has a little garlic and ginger in it and was quite unique.

If you go to Heaven On Seven, a few tips. Above all, try the gumbo. It's their motto: "People who come back from heaven all say the same thing: Try the gumbo." Also, don't pick up the hot sauce bottles by the caps, because it doesn't take much of the deadlier variety to burn you. If you do have hot stuff, wash your hands BEFORE you go pee. And after you leave, remember, it's gonna burn twice.

*The hottest sauce I've ever had was also the tastiest, this homemade stuff that a Mexican friend of my grandpa's made. He gave me a teeny little dish of it that lasted quite a while. Like with the habanero, irresistable taste and unbearable heat are a deadly combination.

A luxurious train ride took Singular Girl and I to Saint Looie for the holiday. Riding the train isn't even like traveling for me, it's more like part of the vacation. Watching the countryside roll by (in this case it was Illinois, so mostly cornfield but I can appreciate that agriculture is what this country was founded on), conversatin', stretchin' out... compared to the cramped drudgery of driving or the cramped brush-with-death of flying, I can't understand why anyone would choose any other mode, unless you had to be there ASAP. We had fun- dealin' cards with the old men in the club car, penny a point and noone was keepin' score. We passed the paper bag that held the bottle, and listened to the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor. I'm lucky to live in the train hub of the U.S., so anywhere I wanna go is readily accessible if I've got the time. In this case we were riding on the Ann Rutledge, and passed through Springfield where Abraham Lincoln is buried and just a short ways away from where the two met & fell in love.

My aunt & uncle just bought a big ol' house and wanted to host the big meal there this year, since they finally had room to do it. It was all folks from my mom's side of the family, and though I'll tell you what a wacky bunch they are, don't get the idea that my dad's side isn't as... unique. In attendance:

Fern: The best grammaw one could hope for, raised her family by her self since my mom's dad died when my mom was eight, tough as nails but always jolly, worked at Redstone Arsenal for 30 years and incidentally was one of the first people in the world to receive a masectomy as treatment for breast cancer.

W.L.: Married Fern about 30 years ago, and yes his full first name is the letters W and L, which in the south comes out as "Dubby Yell". W.L. used to be married to Fern's sister, which complicates up the family tree a bit. He's my mom's uncle and my grandfather, which means he's also my mom's stepdad and my great-uncle. Ah, southern geneaology! In the war, the military wouldn't accept his name on his registration so they told him his name was William, so all his war buddies (he was at Leyte Gulf, among others) call him "Bill".

Yvonne: My mom's sister and the dark horse of that family, though she's mellowed out a bit. Was always the devil to her big sister's perfect angel. Yvonne is a Postmaster ("I'm the master of the mail, not its mistress"), and took me for a behind-the-counter look at her P.O., which I thought was infinitely cool. I got to see her $38,000 worth of stamp stock (she's Postmaster in a small town) and even got personally hand-canceled and stamped "Return To Sender". Picked up a sweeet sheet of Hubble Telescope Photo stamps. Yvonne also hired a psychic to come in and read everybody's cards for the holiday. I complied, figuring what the heck, I'll suspend my disbelief for something my aunt arranged special for the family to do. The news wasn't good.

Roger: Roger and Yvonne met when he pulled her over for speeding. She batted her eyes at him and pleaded innocence in a sweet southern drawl, and the rest is history. Roger's been Highway Patrol and also an East St. Louis K-9 cop, so he's understandably a hard-ass. However, I found, becoming a grandfather has mellowed him out quite a bit. It was great to see him, since the past decade or so has been a period of divorcing and remarrying for Yvonne and Roger. At least once, maybe more. You might have caught Roger on "Tales from the Highway Patrol", but they edited out most of his appearance because of his language and... um... gentle handling of the suspect. But you get to see him get in a good macing and a few billy-club whaps.

My mom and dad, of course. The best parents one could ask for and probably the sanest from either of their families. And I say that knowing they don't even read this page! Probably the most notable thing about them is how square they are.

Heather: The cousin who taught me all the dirty words when I was little. She has two kids, two babydaddies, and looked great, since "after I had those two kids I was 200 lbs and NASTY." I got to meet her children for the first time, Ashlyn the two-year-old (I'm not too fond of two-year-olds) and MaKayla the smartest 5-year-old in the world. Hangin' out with her was like hangin' out with someone my age, she was so on-the-ball. The thing about MaKayla is, though, that I think she might be one of ours. Now, lots of girls are tomboys and turn out to be perfectly femme and sugary like their mommas want, but just about every dyke I know describes themselves at five as being just like MaKayla. She made her mom buy her a boy's coat and then came home crying one day when the boys teased her by saying it was a girl's coat. She dressed like Robin (of Batman and) for Halloween this year. Her favorite animal is the lion, and she had the spirit of one. Hopefully her mom will wise up when the time comes and let her be what she's gotta be, because otherwise, she'll just be miserable until she's free to be herself anyway. Besides, Ashlyn is the golden-haired pretty-girl type, so momma will have at least one lil' angel.

Cute Kid Intercession:

MaKayla (after school one day in October): "Mom, can I go around the corner?"
Mom: "No, you can't honey, that's a dangerous street. You play in the yard."
MaKayla (the next day): "Mom, can I go around the corner?"
Mom: "No, honey, I said you couldn't."
MaKayla (the next day): "Mom, can I go around the corner?"
Mom: "Why do you keep asking me that?"
MaKayla: "Cuz the teacher at school said Halloween was just around the corner!"

---

Jeff: Soccer hooligan and all-around great guy. Heather's brother.

My brother: One of my best friends, but a quiet fella. Would rather be fishin', even if it's 5am. Surrealist painter. He don't say much.

Bob: I saved Bob for last because he's definitely the most interesting. Bob is W.L.'s son, which means he's my mom's cousin and her step-brother, which makes him my uncle and my first cousin once removed. Bob's accident-prone, but it's served him well. He's flipped both his ski-boat and his fishin-boat. One time he was riding a motorcycle wearing NOTHING but cut-off shorts and blew the front tire. One time he was using a wrench to hold something on a drill-press and the bit caught and spun that wrench around and took off his right knuckles. One time he was driving down the highway in the fog and went under a semi that had stopped on the road for some reason. So eighty percent of his body is skin graft, and he has to walk with a cane, BUT he's living large. He retired at 43 and receives three checks a month: VA disability, social security disability, and his pension from his job. Also, he gets a lump sum every two years from the trucking company that lost the lawsuit. So he lives in a trailer on W.L.'s land, with no expenses but his car insurance and his utility bills, so he pretty much throws parties and goes to the casinos. Great guy, too, he told me a story about tossing a fellow out of one of his parties for "being a little racial". If you know Alabama then you know how things go down there, and that's pretty impressive to me. Bob took us to the local riverboat and taught me how to play three-card poker. Between Singular and I, we only came up $30 short! I reckon we beat the odds, since casinos average $175 from everybody who walks in the door.

My family may be odd, but I love 'em, and I'm glad to have seen them. Now, I gotta figure out how to get down and visit my dad's side of the family...

Europe will likely be the last continent I visit. It's not that I don't want to go there, it's just that I'm more interested in the other six and would focus my efforts on exploring then first. So imagine my glee when Brooklyn Mick obtained a bottle of absinthe, which to my knowledge is only sold (legally) within the EU.

Before you start huffing and scoffing about blindness and psychosis, trust that I'm not the type to swallow anything in any quantity in search of a killer buzz. Besides, I'd be much more worried about a substance that wasn't manufactured in a country (the Czech Republic) that takes its likker brewin' seriously. I would consider absinthe to be illicit rather than illegal, and illegal substances usually have far more dubious origins than this bottle of quality Czech-made green hooch that a coworker bought all legit-like while visiting his boyfriend's parents in Wales.

Still, while it had been a while since I'd come across a new psychotrope to experiment with, I wanted to take it slow and safe. Brooklyn told me that the wormwood content of a given bottle was rated between 1 and 20, 10 being the highest that could be sold in the EU, and this stuff was an 8. Plus, it was 110 proof, apparently because the active ingredients are alcohol soluble, which is why, when you add water, it turns white as the ingredients are drawn out.

Traditionally, you dribble the absinthe over a sugarcube into a glass of water, using a special holey spoon that would probably be found in most home liquor cabinets around the turn of the last century. We just mixed it up in the recommended porportions and did shots- with plenty of time in between each one to gauge the effects.

I tell you, I am in love with this stuff. It was like all the good parts of alcohol without the bad. Of course, I didn't drink enough to really regret it. What was it Oscar Wilde said? "After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world." For me, it was like being drunk while being completely clear-headed. I was euphoric, but I wasn't abandoning my inhibitions and better judgement as I have been known to do under the influence. I didn't drink enough to experience the tracers or visions that others have reported, but I was definitely three sheets to the wind. You know that point after three glasses of wine where you feel great and none of the lethargy or sickness of the alcohol has set in? Just imagine if you could reach that state, and then keep drinking in order to amplify it. That's the best I can do to describe the effects. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who had the opportunity to try it, as long as it wasn't homemade, and they drank it responsibly.

The only drawback was the fact that it also contained 110 proof alcohol, and that alcohol gave me a ripping hangover. I forgot to hydrate myself before bed. I was so clear-headed, mentally, that I didn't realize how drunk I was, physically. Bear that in mind when partaking. But I hope you get a chance to try it! And if you've got a source, send me some! :D

I've always wondered why so many employees of O'Hare airport live in my neighborhood. Sure, we're on the Blue Line to the airport, but that can't be all of it. I see them every day, with their teeny little rolling suitcases, going to and from various apartment buildings that cater to flight attendants and pilots. I found out why they're there.

My neighborhood, Logan Square, is in the midst of a fiery political battle. The neighborhood has seen others wiped out and the residents are very active in preserving what each of them considers to be the essence of the area, be it the ethnic flavor or the 1890's architecture or the family-owned businesses. But this realtor, Larry Ligas, wants to tear down the Fireside Bowl (the only place in Chicago that will let you enter if you're underage AND one of the punk-rock meccas in town) and build an 80-condo midrise.

Now, I'm not idealist enough to think that a neighborhood can avoid gentrification, or that the safety of a neighborhood is related to its property values, or even that I myself, living in a refurbished but relatively expensive apartment, am part of the problem in some people's eyes. But I love this neighborhood, and I love where the victorian homes have been restored to their former glory, and I don't want to see this neighborhood become another Bucktown- and adjacent area filled with those gargantuan shitcitecture monstrosities of cement block and brick and vinyl siding. I believe that a neighborhood can pull itself out of ghetto status without complete displacement of the residents and/or razing everything and replacing buildings built with hand-carved stone in favor of the cheapest materials that "luxury" condos can be built out of.

His plan is against the local zoning, of course, and any change to that ordinance would require the approval of the community. But Larry got a zoning variance, and the residents were not consulted. The Alderwoman, Vilma Colom, just did it herself. The city acquired the property via eminent domain, somehow passed it to Larry, and bent the zoning so he could build this thing. Vilma Colom's campaign manager? Larry Legas. How did she become Alderwoman, when she's so unpopular? Well, the ward has 8000 registered voters. Sixteen hundred of those voters voted Vilma in via absentee ballot. Does your town elect its leaders with 20% of the vote coming from absentee ballots? Mine does- flight attendants and pilots who "live" here a few days a month. Ah, Crook County...

The Chicago Reader recently ran a cover story on the many murals in my neighborhood, with a cover picture of a particularly poignant one. It depicts a multi-ethnic band of neighborhood residents, embracing their homes, and fending off gangs and developers. It was painted in the 70's to celebrate the neighborhood's unity. The mural's on the side of a muffler shop, facing a park, and will be torn down to make room for this new development.

So I'm reading Infinite Jest, a fiction book which Spin called, "An acidic, free-styling, 1,088-page encyclopedia of hurt." Great. This book was all the rage when I was in college, it was the book to read, and so I didn't read it, which is the point of this post. But first, a little anecdote about the book:

Adding to its bulk is the fact that you have to carry a dictionary around with you, just to read it. This book is waaay over my head, and if anybody tells you it's not over theirs, then they're either a) not even wise enough to know what they don't know, or b) a self-stroking snot, whose recommendations for literature you probably wouldn't want to follow anyway, since it's obviously stuff read by conceited, high-falootin' jerks like them. So I'm lugging this tome around, and Cork Mick says to me, "How many hours of your life are you going to waste reading that book?" "You're absolutely right!" I said, "Temptation Island 2 is on! There's TV I could be watching in that time!"

I guess it's only funny if you, like, think books are worth reading.

So I'm reading this book, and I disagree with the author over a number of points, but he's smarter than me, and when I disagree with people who are smarter than me I take it as a sign I should pay attention to what they have to say. This is how I was able to read The Fountainhead despite the fact that Rand's philosophies make me physically sick, in that like the Bible if life must be lived as proscribed in the book then it is simply not worth living and even the suggestion of such a world is horrifying to me with the resulting physical consequences.

So I didn't read the book in college, and here's why: I have an overwhelming distrust of anything that people are doing just because people are doing. It's like I have this stubborn streak in me that refuses to participate. Sometimes it's pure angst, like the time that everybody wanted me to come sit in the grass and hang out but I didn't because everybody else was. When that happens, I can see that this is a flaw of mine. But sometimes it serves me well, like when everybody was getting tattoos of the Tasmanian Devil. Now it looks like my distrust is merely cautious prudence.

So all of my irony-dripping and so-very-po-mo colleagues were all about the book, and I flat-out refused to read it out of stubborness. I only picked it up now because Singular Girl bought it at a used bookstore and I voraciously consume any written text that I haven't read whenever its placed in daily proximity to me- if you want me to read a book, just casually toss it on the coffeetable, I won't be able to resist very long. Lo, I like it! It's not rearranging my life, since most books or music with that effect usually have some hook in them that causes me to override my no-because-everyone-else-is response, but I'm enjoying it. I don't consider it a waste of my train time, as Cork Mick does (who knows what more valuable tasks she accomplishes on the train and on the pot?), and I can't help wonder what else I've missed out on because I dismissed it as too trendy, versus what time or money I've saved by not being thrilled about the things that my peers tell me I simply cannot do without. What do you think? Am I an angsty snob for turning up my nose at anything that's too mainstream, or am I wisely saved from a flock mentality?

Halloween is, of course, the most important holiday of the year to me. It's the holy day. I make it my goal each year to stretch the season (I saw Xmas crap on the shelves at Dominic's in July this year, which puts the beginning of the Halloween season somewhere in May) and my eventual goal is to have the house as decked out as any neighbor-envious suburban home around Xmas. The fact that I live in a house built in the 1890s only makes it easier to creepify.

Y'see, I can't let Halloween go the way of Xmas and become an icon of itself. A paper cutout of a skeleton isn't scary, a cobweb-covered skeleton is. Costumes can go two ways- you either look like you're dressing as a thing, or you look like the thing. Along those lines, all of this crap about toning down the scariness of this Halloween is directly contrary to the point. Halloween came about an exorcism of sorts, where you were scared by the spirits but laughed at them as well. A haunted house makes you scream and then laugh at yourself... whereas terror in real life just makes you scream. If you try to be not scary on halloween because your real life is too scary, then you lose the chance to escape your fear.

Of course, closing the "Escape from the Pentagon" haunted house that was planned (before 9-11) in D.C. is in good taste. But dressing up as Uncle Sam? That's for the Fourth. Funny costumes are good for shits and giggles but I want to BE something out of a fantasy for the night. That's why I dressed up as the Goblin King from 'Labyrinth'.

I took a roll's worth of pictures of the evening, and not a one came out- the only pictures that developed were the three that I snapped outside of Walgreens to use up the roll. It's too bad, too. I had lots of pictures of the more impressive costumes, including the only ones taken of mine. I'm royally disappointed, but what can I do?

I rented an outfit called "Gothic Vampire" that looked something like the threads that they wore in 'Interview With The Vampire'. Vest, red velvet coat with tails, lace cuffs, jabot. I replaced the pants with tights, and wore tall boots. Singular took a hatchet to a Tina Turner wig and also gave me an amazing makeup job- the only thing that kept me from looking just like Bowie was my bone structure. It was fabulous, however obscure. The only inaccuracies were a) Jared wears a pendant and b) if you watch the movie you'll see that Bowie has some pretty big tights to fill, if you catch my drift. The costume was completed by dumping an entire container of glitter on me, as everything in 'Labyrinth' is covered in the stuff (just like my apartment, now!)

On the train, one woman busted up laughing and said, "I love the earrings, they're the best part!" I said, "Uhh, not really part of the costume" and her smile melted off her face as she shuffled away with a look of fright.

We strolled out the front door and into our block party. Every Halloween they block off the boulevard and put on a show designed to "capture the original meaning of Halloween". I took a fantastic panoramic picture from my porch of the ten thousand attendees in my front yard, but alas, perhaps the folks who put it on will have some pictures. I can't describe the creepiness among the torches and the howling bottles they had strung up and all the skeletal performers screaming and beating drums...

Well, Labyrinth is a movie that if you've seen it, you've seen it hundreds of times. Thus, only a few people guessed who I was (most said "Bethoven?") but the ones who got it were very, very excited. I love costumes like that- heck, I saw TWO Max Fischers, one SpongeBob, and nary a single Osama or Tom Ridge.

We proceeded to the Stereolab concert at the Vic. It was mind-blowing. Ever had one of those experiences where you think you're tripping but you're not? The audience was rapt most of the time. I know I was. I always considered them an electronic band, but there they were, six of 'em, sounding JUST like they do in the studio. Drums, bass, guitar/keyboards, keyboards, vox/guitar/keyboards, vox/trombone/keyboards. Heavenly singing. One of those bands that causes the audience to pause before applauding the song, simply because the crowd is too speechless from the music to respond immediately. Go see Stereolab.

Best Costume: A guy dressed as a beetle rolling a 5-foot ball of dung.
Most Impressive: A fully lit-up Tron costume, in blue, complete with disc on the back.
Spookiest: A ghostly lady whose dress was on wheels so she seemed to glide down the street.
Most Offensive: A guy in scuba gear with an inflatable sex-doll tied around his face with his snorkled head between the doll's legs.
Most Disturbing: "Pre-teen she-wolf" complete with training bra and nasty toenails bursting out of his slippers.
Cutest little kid costume: The lightning bug with the flashing butt was a close second-runner to the little three-year-old mariachi I saw. As E-D put it, "Mariachis are cute even if they're old, so a little tiny one would be extra darling!"

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sigh...