Halloween - Warrior Style

Most of you who read my blog have probably already seen my pictures from Halloween via Facebook, but I still wanted to do a post about the weekend because it was such a good time! I'll admit, I've never been that much of a Halloween person. Even as a kid, we didn't get that into it. During college, I went through the motions because everyone else was doing it (okay, peer pressure), but I never got that creative with my costumes or even that excited about it. That all changed this year. After spending lots of time with L over the past year or so, I've learned a lot about his love for Halloween and for the craziness that is their annual Halloween bash. Each year, their core group chooses a theme, and they all spend the year leading up to it creating and preparing their costumes. Somehow, L and I got on the subject of it a few months back, and I was very intrigued. This year's theme? 80's icons. Not just, "dress up like you're from the 80's." We're talking full on characters and/or people who were iconic for one reason or another during that decade. I must admit, I kind of invited myself to the party (ha!), and from that point on, I was bound and determined to find a costume that'd be worthy. One of the first ideas I came up with was American Gladiators. I remember loving that show as a kid, and I thought the costume could potentially be pretty easy. After some investigating, I became a little less excited about it because I wanted my costume to be spot on and I was struggling to find the right pieces to make it work. As I did some more searching, out of nowhere, I thought to myself, "I should be the Ultimate Warrior." In case you don't know, he's a wrestler from the 80's, and he's incredibly iconic in that if you know anything about wrestling, you know him. I thought the idea might be weird (I'm a chick and I'm weak - aka: the exact opposite of him), so I didn't really tell anybody about it. Then one weekend, L was visiting, and we started talking about Halloween. Without any prompting, he goes, "Dude, you should be the Ultimate Warrior." I was like, "SHUT UP!!!!" The fact that he said that, and I'd already been thinking it, was clear proof to me that it was the costume I needed. While it looks like a seemingly simple costume, there were a lot of small elements that needed to come together to make it work. I spent a little more on it than I wanted to, but after putting it all together, it couldn't have been more perfect. Seriously. Loved it, and I was a huge hit. :)

Now, for the actual weekend itself. L's buddies from his hometown usually always make it for the festivities, and there are several other people involved too. I had to work until mid-Friday afternoon, so by the time I got to LAX, several of them were already there. I met them at Bodega, and we all just ate and had some drinks. Very good time. After that, some of the people wanted to get dressed up and head to Houghton's, one of their favorite hangouts. While I didn't have a costume for that night, it was still quite an enjoyable time. Saturday turned into quite the adventure as well. We met a few people for breakfast, and then a bunch of the main crew decided to hit up Bodega during the day. Obviously, no one else was in there at the time, so we kind of owned the bar. It was awesome. Drinks, food, trivia, etc. We all had a blast until we finally had to tear ourselves away and get ready for the big party! See all the photos below to understand how jam packed and awesome the weekend was!

FRIDAY NIGHT.

Me and some of the boys at Bodega on Friday night!

(Damico, L, me, and Eric)

Love this shot! The boys with their "Crispin Glover" drinks.
(Long story...but they look so happy!)

L and Damico at Houghtons on Friday night
(Anakaris and Megaman)

Sumo wrestler and American Gladiator!

I'm out of place with no costume, but still a good picture. :)

Superman carrying Sumo wrestler!

I laugh every time!!

Megaman getting a little crazy! Love this one for some reason!

SATURDAY (DAY TIME).

Some of the boys. No fear, Eric doesn't always have that creepy mustache. It's part of his Saturday night costume. :)

Just hangin' out!

SATURDAY NIGHT.
While this first picture from Saturday night is a bit out of order, I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of the actual Ultimate Warrior and myself. You've gotta admit, I did a pretty stellar job with my costume. (Credit L for painting my face.) As I mentioned, I was a huge hit. I'm not usually one to brag, but I was really happy with my costume. Thank God the weather cooperated, or I would've frozen to death. Good times!! ;)

Real Ultimate Warrior vs. Me

Part of our crew walking to the Eagle's Nest!
(They rent out a room at the Eagle's Nest, have a half barrel, all that jazz. I'm not lying when I say this party is a bit of a big deal;).

Love this one! :)

Storm Shadow (L) and Cobra Commander (Damico) - G.I. Joe
(Not sure why, but I love this picture!)

Random group of us!
(LtoR: Ultimate Warrior; Dee Snider from Twisted Sister; Man at Arms from He-Man; He-Man himself; and Strawberry Shortcake)

Dee Snider and Warrior:)

Neenah boys!
(LtoR: Storm Shadow, Magnum P.I., and Mork from Mork & Mindy)

Storm Shadow and Warrior. In love with this pic!

Peg and Al Bundy (Married...With Children!)

Maverick and Goose (Top Gun)

Warrior and Jem (Jem and the Holograms)

Marty McFly (Back to the Future) and Warrior

He-Man vs. Storm Shadow

Warrior and Punky Brewster

Bench pressing Al Bundy. ;)

I don't recall this picture, but I'm eyeing up Biff Tannen (Back to the Future) like I'm about to take his ass out. Cracks me up every time!

Well... Doesn't get much more random than that!

Slim Goodbody (our bartender for most of the day at Bodega) decided to pick me up. A good sign that the end of the night was near. ;)

SUNDAY
While I didn't take any pictures on Sunday, we completed the weekend by all going out for Chinese on Sunday and talking about themes for next year's party (that's their tradition). Yes, no joke. This is serious business! The theme that won out? Board games. You can be a character from a game or create a costume that resembles a particular game. As you can imagine, this theme allows for some serious interpretation and creativity. I have no idea if I'll be there next year, but I will say, I do have a few ideas brewing in my head... :) Yep, overall, a fantastic weekend, and I got to stay until Monday, even better! Now I get the hype behind this weekend for them. Hope you all had a great Halloween!

11/11/11

Okay, so this post has no real significance (I intend to have a couple good ones this weekend), but I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that it's 11/11/11. No idea why, but this excites me beyond belief! Just think about it. The next time this will happen again is November 11, 2111. In other words, we won't even be alive to witness it! Am I the only one who thinks that's insane?! Yes, next year we'll have 12/12/12, but it's not quite as cool because not all the numbers are the same. ;) Anyway, I know a few people who get just as excited as I do about this, so that's my proof that this is kind of a big deal... Ha! Well, that's about all I've got. Just wanted to publicly make my excitement known. Yes, I'm easily amused. :)

P.S. A shout-out to all the veterans since it is indeed Veteran's Day!

Holiday Bacon Appetizers

No surprise here, but I found another recipe on Pinterest that caught my attention today. Most of the recipes I've acquired on there up to this point have been for actual meals, but today I stumbled across an appetizer recipe that definitely intrigued me. They're called Holiday Bacon Appetizers. Not sure why they're designated only for the holidays because they sound awesome any time;), but either way, here's the deal: There are only three ingredients, and those three ingredients are 1) Club Crackers; 2) Grated Parmesan Cheese; and 3) Bacon. Say what?!?! How does that NOT appeal to you, even without knowing what it is?! Well, because I have a free weekend, and because I also just so happen to have those three ingredients on hand, I am giving it a shot! I have included a few of the recipe photos below, all courtesy of the Pioneer Woman's website. As you'll see, you basically just sprinkle the crackers with the grated cheese and then wrap them in bacon and bake them. Easy peasy! (Well, minus the fact that it takes TWO HOURS to cook them!) Anyway, mine are currently baking, and I've got about 30 minutes to go before I can give you the official verdict.... Here's hoping they're as awesome as my kitchen smells! :)

Oh, and a few quick other things. First, I found that a half slice of bacon didn't quite cover the cracker completely like she suggested, so I ended up using a whole slice for each cracker. Yikes. So nutritious! ;) Second, I don't have a baking rack, so mine are just on the baking sheet itself. We'll see if that makes a difference! And third, I am not baking nearly as many as she talks about in her entry. I went with a solid 8 of them, just to give it a shot! Stay tuned for my ruling. I'll put an "UPDATE" section at the end of this entry once I try them! :)

Of course I used Smith Bros. Meats bacon for this recipe. :)

Sprinkle the crackers with the Parmesan cheese...

Wrap the crackers in bacon...

Put 'em in the oven for 2 hours (yikes!) at 250 degrees...

Voila!

UPDATE!!!

As I mentioned, I was going to pop back in and let you know how these little heavenly delights turned out. Sure enough, they were pretty much as phenomenal as one would expect! Yeah, I am awesome! ;) I ended up taking them out a little before the 2 hours was up because they were getting a little crispy, but thankfully, not having a baking rack did nothing harmful to these little guys. A perfect amount of crisp and crunch, and the flavor was f'in delicious. I will say, an entire piece of bacon for one cracker was a bit overpowering (I might retry half pieces in the future), but I love bacon, so it wasn't too big of a deal. :) I didn't eat all 8 of them, but according to the instructions, you can freeze them and reheat them if you make them ahead of time or don't use them all. So, that's what I did... Perfect! Perhaps a little snack for later tonight!

As you can see, my photography and presentation skills are nowhere near that of the Pioneer Woman, but I still took the photo so I could prove that I actually did this and that they turned out well! :)

Crabby.

I'll admit, while the title of this entry isn't intended to talk about my mood, it is coincidentally exactly how I've been feeling this week. Can't really explain it, but it seems like everything is just adding up, and I have been in quite the funk. Normally, I'd welcome this upcoming free weekend, but for some reason, all I can think is that I wish I had something to do. Anywayyyyy. That's not the point of this entry, so I suppose I could stop my bitching. ;)

A little under two weeks ago, L was in town for a conference, and he came to town a day early so we could hang out a little longer. Before he came down, we decided we wanted to cook something fun at my apartment rather than go out to eat. Originally, we were going to do some sort of Asian dish, but once I showed him a link to the Asian market near my apartment, he was instantly ecstatic about the fact that the store had live crab. So... That became our plan. Because L is a far more experienced cook than me, I basically let him take the reigns on this meal. I swear, someday I will cook for him. Until then, I won't complain! We went to the store and picked up a bunch of goodies to make our meal, and below are some photos that show what we (he) came up with for our dinner. I'll admit, I'd never really eaten whole crab before, and while it wasn't the easiest task, he remained patient and was proud of me for not giving up too quickly. ;) I apologize in advance for the sheer number of photos, but the whole process was fun, so I thought I'd show you everything!

All the crazy (and sometimes vicious) crabs in my sink!

Prepping all the goodies! (Andouille Sausage to add to the mix.)

Onions, Green Onions, and Garlic, oh my!

See that one looking at you? Well, we named him Sid Vicious. He actually "bit" L and made him bleed, eek!

Adding veggies into the pot!

Notice how the pan keeps getting fuller with crab.

Top it with asparagus and we're in business!

Taking a break from cooking to snap a photo! ;)

After cooking for awhile. Looks awesome, doesn't it?!

All the cooked crab!

The "stew" of sorts that was left over. (SO good!)

Complete it all with some garlic buttered biscuits topped with cheese!

And now we eat! :)

FAST FORWARD................

After we ate, we decided to play around with elements of my Halloween costume (stay tuned for an upcoming post on that), and this is L trying on my crazy wig. We laughed and laughed about this. In some crazy, weird way, this actually almost works for him, ha!

And then the next day, we decided to use the rest of our leftovers to create a slightly different concoction. We'd finished all the crab, so we went to the store and got shrimp to add into the mix and then we ate it with rice. So simple and awesome!

Our second meal. SO good!
Who's jealous??? ;)