2015 Nov 01 | Halloween

As soon as the tickets for Star Wars went on sale on Monday, everyone was trying to buy them. All of the major sites were overrun and weren't working. El Capitan...

... the Chinese Theater...

... and even Fandango's websites were down.

The Fandango app also wasn't working.

It's a 40-minute drive, but taking the other route would more than double that. Crazy.

My favorite part of watching football now...

... is reading the online comments live.

They're hilarious.

A trial run of our Halloween costumes. We got ready at Kendra's.

And went to Bullet Bar, a gay bar.

We went there because they were having an event called Glow Me where they had glow body painting.

The outside.

They also had a "maze," but it was really just a couple of black sheets hung up to make you zigzag back and forth a few times. There was nothing inside except this clown in one corner. Maybe at some point they had people hiding in it and jumping out at you?

Lots of bushes.

A semi overturned on the highway.

I wonder how that happened.

I guess it makes sense you could just buy these back-up cameras, but I didn't know it'd be that cheap.

I was going to buy some more caution tape for our costumes, so I went to Amazon and selected Prime-only products, which are supposed to arrive within two days. However, this was an option, even though it's not in stock and won't be until November 2nd, nearly a week later and obviously too late for Halloween. That shouldn't be in Prime then.

Driving to a lecture and a train came through.

Still going.

Most of the trains around here are really short, but this one was quite long.

Aw, I'm late to the lecture and I don't see an open seat. Oh well, I guess I'll skip it.

Amazon Movies is highlighting the three Back to the Future movies now that it's the day Back to the Future 2 is supposed to occur. They also had a lot of movie theater showings of the movies and even an outdoor one at the mall parking lot in the movie, although since I work on Wednesday night, I couldn't go to any.

The Roku updated to a Halloween background.

We finally got Ogii's computer after a month and a half, and after she tried to log in, it just showed a blue screen.

This was the only thing we could get to come up. Google searches said this might happen if it's trying to project to a separate display, but we couldn't fix it. Ogii called tech support and we finally figured out that when we thought we were shutting the computer down, we were just putting it to sleep. She held the power button longer, and when it came back on, it worked. I'm glad she tried that; I was so annoyed I just wanted to send it back. Now it seems to be working normally.

Three weeks and they still haven't fixed this dryer. They said they received the service request and fixed a different machine between then, but they said they didn't have the parts for this one.

Ogii is applying for UCLA jobs and she has to fill out this dumb suervey.

It seems like you're setting up an online dating site instead of applying for a job.

This is a problem of big companies; no small company would to stupid crap like this. It took over an hour for her to complete the survey and there was no indication of how much she had completed as she was doing it. I started thinking maybe it's a meta-survey; they don't care about the answers, just if you complete it or not. But then are they looking for people who complete it because they do thorough jobs or people who don't complete it because they realize what a horrible waste of time answering questions like this is?

This app always tries to update but it never can. It still seems to work fine, though.

I like these "flower pens in rocks" pen holders some businesses do.

Why is there cardboard on top of the tip jar? Ah, some customers must try to steal the tips. That's not nice.

The shoeprint of someone who pressed the elevator button with his foot.

The sun behind a downtown building.

Rush-hour traffic in downtown in the evening; always idiots stuck in the middle of intersections blocking traffic.

The beginning of his plate seems to say "stop."

Beach Barcycle.

We went to The Victorian for David's birthday. Good music.

Good thing we got there early; there was a pretty big line when we left.

Some children's tools for our Halloween costumes.

Saturday morning I went to Playa Doubles volleyball with Marie Grace and Dmitry. It was a pot luck and I had heard about this cool donut place near our apartment called California Donuts, so I decided to buy some of those.

The employees were dressed up for Halloween.

Cool donuts.

There were lots of palm fronds on the road near the beach.

Putting up the spiderwebs on the volleyball nets.

Drawing on each other for their costumes.

The whole group.

Our team, which didn't really have a theme, but oh well.

I like the turkey costumes.

She has a lot of drawings on her now. I like how Dave signed his name on the back of her left leg.

Nader trying a donut.

The next team we had to play against. We won a couple of games and lost a couple; overall it was really fun.

Black costumes versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Ready to go.

Celebrating a point.

Normally they play doubles, but for this they had teams of four. They also had some fun rules, like if your team scores an ace, everyone on the other team has to step off the court and drink. So everyone dove for any questionable balls that came over, not to try to play it, but just to keep it from hitting the sand.

Another rule was when a team was coming back onto the court, the other team could serve as soon as anyone stepped into the court. So people would try to remember to walk around the court to their location and then all step on at the same time, but as the day went it, people tended to forget and then had to sprint onto the court to play the ball. They also had various penalties, like having to wear an eyepatch or a hook or wear a backpack filled with sand or have your arms saran-wrapped together, although our team didn't have any of those. Really fun ideas.

Jump set.

Wait, does she have a costume on?

Hmm... it looks like there's something on her back.

Ah, she's a piece of sushi.

Big hit.

Hitting it around the blocker.

Hitting it over the blocker.

Ready for the ball.

Dmitry colored a volleyball to look like an Angry Bird for Marie Grace.

The players on our team don't like normal beers, so we had apple ciders.

Is that just a towel lying on the beach?

Nope, it's covering a container of beers buried in the sand.

Turkeys versus drawings.

Good save.

Sideways hit.

We went to West Hollywood for the huge outdoor Halloween Carnaval there. Kendra had some friends who lived just a couple of blocks away from the event, so we changed into our costumes there.

We upgraded a bit from the bar: we made the signs a bit nicer, added EL-wire to them to light up in the dark, and also had various toy tools.

With Maverick and a Roman.

The EL-wire in the dark.

One of the dirty construction signs.

And another.

I brought a backpack with a camera and some extra caution tape, scissors, and tape in case anyone had a wardrobe malfunction.

Kat drilling.

This guy is out here every year in basically the same outfit.

Mohawks.

Demons.

Minions love bananas.

Group picture.

I love the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume.

Great Predator outfit.

Even with the glove with the buttons.

Carries.

It was hard to stay together as a group with how many people there were.

Male Leia slave costume.

Jellyfish.

Even though it's only a mask, it's really well-done.

A man driving a woman around in this bicycle thing.

Another bicycle conveyance.

We ran into Boaz there and got a group picture.

The women having some fun with me.

One of those inflatable tube men with the wavy arms.

There were DJ music booths scattered along the street.

I really liked the music.

Tooth fairy.

White trash.

Kendra and Kat with zombitch.

A t-rex.

Funny fake greeting card.

Impressive fortune teller.

Blowjob.

A guy dressed as a demon in front the Bible sign guys.

These two were just camped out in the middle of the road divider. Good idea; everyone walks past them on both sides and they can see all of the costumes in comfort.