I was playing different versions of “You Can’t Reason With a Headless Man” for Ripley (the song from Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”). She liked Bing Crosby’s version, she didn’t seem to care for Thurl Ravencroft’s, and particularly liked Kay Starr’s rendition.

Then Jerry Vayne’s rocking rendition came on and Miss Ripley sat bolt upright and exclaimed “OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS ONE!”

So there you have it.

Had to move the pumpkins away from the window a bit. They’re doing great so far.

The mob has assembled. Now I just have to find a place for everybody to sit…

We decorate for The Season today. It’s hard to tell who’s more excited – me or Ripley.

I am currently covered in webs courtesy of the basement spiders. Thanks, basement spiders.

Got my 2010 Toxic Toons Trick or Treat Bag full of ghastly goodies. Great stuff again this year. Get yours before they sell out! http://www.toxictoons.com

Wonder when they go from sprouts to vines?

Please accept this sacrifice of tasty, tasty treats

After a perfect crisp, cool September day where every other store we drove past featured its 2010 Halloween decorations and wares, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I broke out the Halloween Music Collection for The Season.

This is no small thing. I’ve been making Halloween mix-CDs since 1999 and, with the advent of MP3s and websites dedicated to the Halloween Ephemera of Yesteryear, any given year could produce a huge amount of music and up to 5 mixes for that given season. Eleven years hence, and it’s safe to say I have a ginormous collection of Halloween-themed and Halloween-related music, sound effects, audio-dramas, stories and related recordings.

And whoa, I’m small potatoes. Jonathon over at Rotting Flesh Radio claims a Terabyte of pure Halloween Goodness, and I believe him. That’s a LOT of Halloween music.

BUT! Because of the way I was raised, I won’t listen to any of it outside of September/October. I usually wait until later in September, but the day was just SO PERFECTLY SEPTEMBER-Y, and the Halloween stuff was JUST SO HALLOWEEN-Y, that I couldn’t stand it. So I’m rocking out to 11 years’ worth of Halloween awesomeness. This year I have the added benefit of FINALLY understanding the importance of properly labeling and tagging ones MP3s, so besides listening to any given year’s mix, I can set the music player to play Genre HALLOWEEN on random, and I’m good to go for the next… oh, say, 200 hours.

I’ll post highlights here periodically, if I can. This is my busy season, after all, but I refuse to miss the season I love because I’m so busy during the season I love. Y’know?

The irony? The chili is vegetarian.