The Halloween Trama of a Dark Jedi (Part II: Candy and Ninjas)

Oh and what a Halloween it was! By far one of the best in many years. I loved my costume and it didn’t matter if people called me a dork or “sci-fi nerd” because it was amazing and nobody could discount the sheer awesomeness of it, especially with the lightsaber alongside it. There is something about a Jedi all in black with a blue lightsaber that is so…right. People who thought they knew what they were talking about commented that I should have a red lightsaber, I just laughed and told them they obviously had not seen episode III which this costume is strait out of. So basically I hung out with Shawn or I should say Shauna, for he was dressed in full out drag, and it was quite…disturbing, but no less amazing. My costume however (if I do say so myself) toped anyone’s and everyone’s. So what UP does for Halloween is open up the dorms to the local children so they can go from door to door in a safe environment and collect candy.

So Shawn and I went to Mehling the large 8 story all girls dorm to beg for candy and to—of course—scare little children. I succeed in doing so, I put my hood up and ignited my lightsaber and waited around corners for little kids to coming running through the hall. A few jumped backed, a few screamed, and a few tried to fight me. One kid that was dressed up as Vader had a little plastic red lighsaber. He came up to me in the lobby of Mehling and attempted to strike me down. But I blocked and we dueled it out for a while in the lobby as about 50 kids passed by with their parents. I think some of the parents were more impressed with the costume then the kids, but it was defiantly a huge hit everywhere I went.

We then rendezvoused with Christine and Jessica and went over to Shipstad hall who was putting on the annual haunted house in their basement. Now I have changed a lot since the little puny 5^th grader that I was, and I hardly ever get scared (I laughed at times and was bored out of my mind for Saw III). This was no different, in retrospect it was probably the one of the best haunted house’s I’ve been to, and the originality was pretty good, ranging from a mysterious black creature charging you in the hallway to Samara from The Ring coming out from behind the TV and then start crawling over to you. Entertaining to say the least, and everyone else seemed to be scared, so it was fun.

But by far the most entertaining part of the night happened on our way across campus to get to the Haunted house in Shipstad. Along the way we met three Ninja, and I mean full out Ninjas. The lead one (whitey) sees me walking through the quad with my cloak flowing and my lightsaber glowing and he pulls out a three-prong dagger and points it at me. The other two turn and start walking towards me. I turn to them and exclaim, “You want to go? Lets go!” so they reach behind and Redy and Blacky pull out their num-chucks while Whity just steps back to let them attack. I raise my saber and twirl a few times seeing if I can intimidate them. I succeed and they slow their pace but still start to try to circle me. Shawn Jessica and Christine all step away and watch smiling knowing that three ninjas are no match for a Jedi corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force. Redy and Blacky come at me from two sides, I duck into a crouch then spring up to my right on top of Blacky and hit his num-chucks away from him, exposing his body, I swiftly spin clockwise pulling my saber back and bringing it back around to make contact with his crotch. He falls over on the ground, and Redy is charging me from the left, I step to my right facing him and turn my back to him spinning my saber backwards into his chest. This throws him off guard and he steps back a step to catch his balance, I then take the opportunity and strike a firm blow to his masked head. He stagers backwards toward Whitey as Blacky gets up from the ground retrieves his num-chucks and trots back over to the other two. Whitey has his dagger raised but quickly lowers it conceding. I nod my head and they walk off into the parking lot and we continued our journey to Shipstad.

So Halloween was something to look forward to and it is still something to look back on and say, “man those were the good times, back when you could beat up Ninjas and nobody cared.”

The Halloween Trama of a Dark Jedi (Part I: Near Death and Destruction)

About six months ago during my exploits on eBay I discovered an item that would make Halloween my new favorite holiday of the year. Okay perhaps that is a slight over-statement... or perhaps it is an under-statement. But still, it would be really cool. For my birthday Shawn had bought me (god bless his heart) an FX lightsaber, the blue Anakin one from Episode III (and actually the same one that Luke gets from Obi-wan in the original). So I found the ultimate costume on eBay, the complete recreation of Anakin Skywalker's Jedi costume. So I followed a few different versions of it for a few months. About the month before Halloween I started bidding on a few different ones. The guy who makes him has his own small company who makes a variety of replica costumes ranging from Star Wars to Kill Bill. So after losing two separate auctions and running out of time with shipping time factored in, I contacted the maker outside of eBay and arranged to purchase one plus a black cloak and belt, a total of about $50 more (which normally are not included) for just ten dollars more then the "buy it now" price. Amazingly he accepted and the costume was on its way. I received the costume a week and a half later, plenty early for Halloween.

The next week our family went through what was perhaps the most frightening moment in our lives, which was followed by probably the worst week of school this year. My dad was painting the gable of our house--the part above our front porch. My sister was on the computer, my mom was rinsing a paintbrush, and I was upstairs in my room working on homework on an ordinary Sunday afternoon. This is when I heard a loud crash coming from outside, as if my dad had dropped the ladder while moving it. I went over to the window and looked out thinking he was on the South side still, he was not. Not a half second later my sister starts screaming from downstairs, "Dad Fell off the Ladder!!!" My mom, "what?" We all ran outside and my dad was lying on his back about 8 feet away from the porch after taking about 15 foot drop from the roof. Somehow the Ladder had slipped out from under him causing it to fall on the railing of the porch, thus catapulting him backwards while doing a back flip (or two, he wasn't sure) and landing on top of a small prickly bush in the flowerbed. His feet were about 6 inches from a steel railing that climbed the steep slope of our front yard, his torso was about a foot away from the cement walkway, and his head was about an inch and a half away from a large volcanic rock that my mom is so fond of collecting. Had he fallen anywhere but there he would most likely be dead or seriously injured. three passers-by that saw the catipultaion ran over to see if my dad was okay, he was conscious and fully aware, but could not move; he instructed us to get a wet cloth. We called an ambulance, and the firemen loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him down the 24 steps to the street. I rode along with him in the Ambulance to the hospital and my mom and sister followed. We ended up being there for about 4 to 5 hours, until he could get checked out, which eventually he never did, and just got up and left because he had been waiting for 45 minutes just for the paperwork. Now he is mostly recovered and very lucky to be alive.

That week of school sucked ass. I had three tests on Wednesday; Microbiology, Anatomy Lab, and Statistics. I was finally able to arrange to take the Anatomy Lab test (all the muscles in the body) on Thursday, but by that time it was too late. I got a B on the Stats test and failed the other two...damn it. So I just kept going day by day. My cousin was pulled out of his private school which was difficult for him with his Autism and placed in the local public school alongside his twin brother who is also autistic. My grandfather continued down the destructive path of dementia, and nothing seemed to go right for a while. Halloween was starting to look better and better, at least I had something to look forward to.

"these procedures would be so much easier if you did them on healthy people" -House