All Hail Halloween

I have finally said my teary goodbyes to my favorite month of the year, October. The leaves turning orange (yes L.A. has leaves), the enchanting smell of pumpkin pie at Ralphs (no not the rotten fruit smell!), and getting the $H1T scared out of you! Let's take a look back at all the fun activities...

Knotts Scary Farm
In the annual tradition we went to Knotts Scary Farm. My favorite haunted maze this year was the Terror of London. The bloody midget that chases you at the end was a nice, yet terrifying, touch. The show was as stupid as it always is though they did make a crazy at Disney's World of Color which was hilarious. We also managed to scare a bunch of kids in line for the logride and survived the Xcelerator which launches you down the track getting up to 82 mph in 2.3 seconds. Overall, it continues to be a solid Halloween scare choice.

Pierce College's Halloween Harvest Festival
This is the place I told you about last year that I just happened to find. This year, believe or not, it was EVEN BETTER. Two of my girlfriends and a group of about five boys dared to venture into the festival. The boys thought it'd be hilarious to send the girls into the haunted corn maze first ensuring that they would get to watch us sprint screaming in different directions as ghostly creatures appeared in the night. A clever addition was an old shack in the middle of the maze that you HAD to walk through. An actor in a bloody scarecrow costume rocked in an old rocking chair staring at you as you enter. You are SO focused on him that the man in black that rushes at you from the side takes you completely by surprise. I bolted out of that death trap like a racehorse heading out of the starting gate.

I thought that this would be the scariest part of the night but that was clearly naive. We ventured next to the Haunted House. They told us they could only take groups of six so our group needed to split up. Of course, the boys opt to have the three girls go in alone although the operator assured us there were three more people inside that we would walk with. We enter a dark black box with a man dressed like Frankenstein. As the door begins to slide shut behind us we realize...it is just us. The gut-wrenching screaming ensued as we sprinted through the maze slamming into walls and each other and using spin-moves to jump past angry clowns and bloody zombies. It was like a fast-paced haunted version of Mario World only when you look at these ghosts - they keep moving. The maze ended with us in a sweaty heap outside the back door with a laughing clown staring at us from the entryway. I felt like I'd just survived a massive asthma attack. Only one maze to go...

The last maze was a new one this year that involved finding you way through a maze of chain link fence while zombies chased you. Not cool. The maze turned out to be pretty easy so I managed to escape without too much mental damage. This festival gets better and better every year.


Pumpkin Carving
Yes, we had a wine and drunken pumpkin carving night and, yes, I refrained from carving something inappropriate. I did want to be creative though so I went with a Pacman chasing the dots around the pumpkin. I later found out that my friend plagiarized me. Criminal.

My Pumpkin

The Copycat's Pumpkin

Hollywood Halloween at the Vanguard
Usually I avoid Hollywood like the plague when a major holiday is anywhere nearby. This year, Miike Snow was playing at the Vanguard so I was convinced to go. We planned ahead this year and made sure to be in line at the venue by 9:30pm already inebriated. Minus some bitchy girls in line who I had to man-handle it was an amazing night filled with great music, pink unicorns, and the cast of Rad Anthem complete with coke dangling from their nostrils. Someone also got the memo about how much I love ghetto street dogs because a lady with a cart was standing right outside waiting for me!


West Hollywood Carnival
It has been many years since I made it to the West Hollywood Carnival and it's a bleary memory at that. I felt it prudent that I go this year, it being on a Sunday and all. It was also my mission to photograph myself with as many other Lady Gagas as I could find. The carnival met every expectation that my faulty memory presented from a flawless reproduction of the Alice in Wonderland cast to Lady "CACA" covered in poo to Wolverine and Ariel and their MerWolf baby. Sadly, I was unable to find the beer gardens that I so vividly remember from last time...


And there you have it - the many festivities of All Hallows Eve. I hope you enjoy the ridiculous pictures.

Knott's Scary Farm - One of Those

October 1st begins my favorite month of the year culminating in my favorite event of the year, Halloween (after my birthday of course). And nothing starts the month off better than a trip to Knott's Scary Farm...

We left around 7:30pm on Sunday to head down to Buena Park from L.A. We chose to go on a Sunday because there would be less crowds then Friday or Saturday and no traffic. We also have a secret parking spot we park in for free that is just a block away from the park so we knew we wouldn't have to wait in the two hour line to get into the parking lot (Nice try I'm not telling you where it is).

After parking we wandered towards the entrance since we already had printed out our tickets. If you buy four tickets online in advance it's only $25 a ticket instead of the standard $53. The lines went pretty quickly so the four of us got right in.

We started off in Ghost Town because there are three mazes right next to each other including the newly redone "Lockdown," which has a high-security prison theme and "Club Blood," which as the name suggests is a bloody hospital experiment gone wrong. Club Blood featured a very visual section of the maze with mannequins wrapped in saran wrap with tubes up their noses being drained of fluid. So gross. So awesome. Club Blood also featured the disco room complete with bloody goon strippers. Man I love Halloween.


After these two masterpieces we walked back towards the main area of the park right past the line for the movie-inspired "Stepfather" maze. The line wasn't too horrible so we got in it. Usually the movie mazes are the best because they have the most money backing them from the studio. As we were waiting in line a tall blonde and her posse cut in front of us in line. Luckily, I boxed out her friends so she was alone in front of us. I of course had to make a snide comment which she just smiled at because in her mind she has already won. Right up until the point when we walked into the entrance and the guard told her to get in the back of the line. Karma. Is. A. Bitch. Suck it Blondie.

We walked into the first room of the maze only to be attacked by a falling table saw and three goons. After this the next door opened and we shuffled right out into... the main walkway outside. Yeah. That was it. I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAITED IN A LINE FOR TWENTY MINUTES FOR THAT! It was worse than finding out Santa doesn't exist! In a rage I walked along the line letting everyone know it was a huge waste of their time.


Discouraged we bought hotdogs and funnel cake and ventured towards the log ride (our mutual favorite at KSP). The log ride line was long but not unbearable. Just so you aren't confused if you go the log ride is renamed "Pyromaniax" during Halloween because they make the ride scary. While waiting in line we determined that we would all be making very serious faces when we went down the waterfall at the end.



We got on the ride and floated into the darkness. The ride is pretty fast which makes it exciting and it is really dark right in the places where the guys jump out at you. It's totally freaky awesome and I screamed my way all the way through. Here is the result of our "serious" faces...


Infected with a lust for fun rides we walked past the Boomerang, saw another reasonably short line, and decided to ride the rollercoaster. On the Boomerang, you are first lugged up a huge incline and then released causing maximum speed straight downward that then culminates in a sidewinder straight into a full 360 degree loop and then up another steep incline. They release you again and this time you take the loop and the sidewinder going backwards. It is really fast and definitely makes you lose your stomach. Unfortunately, because the ride is set up this way there is only one at a time unlike most rollercoasters which can have two cars going at the same time.

This meant that the "short" line took 1.5 hours to get through. We were MISERABLE. The only entertainment was two ghetto people getting a fight about who got which seat on the coaster. The guy was gigantic, bald and holding a stuffed Elmo. The lady was also huge with pink hair wearing a tiara. It was like watching two bears mate. Awesome. The best part was once they stopped fighting, rather than take her tiara off, the lady pulled out a scarf which she then used to anchor the tiara to her head. Buena Park - What a kick in the pants.


The ride itself was almost worth the wait. It was fast, it was high and I was literally shaking with adrenaline when I got off the ride. From there we headed back to the car because the park had closed at this point only to find that our friend's car had been towed. Poor girl parked in the Walgreen's parking lot. What a night!


Overall, my recommendation is this: Don't go on the rides unless they have something to do with Halloween because otherwise there isn't any point in going to Knott's Scary Farm you should just go to the regular version of the park. Also, find a secret spot.... because you can't have mine. Worth the $25 entry for sure but not worth the 1.5 hour line for Boomerang.