October 2021 Q&A

Transcript

Hey, everybody, and happy spooktober. I'm a dork. I know it.

You know it. It's not a surprise to anyone. So first off, I want to thank everybody for joining the Patreon at the Sirius and Polaris tiers.

Excited to bring you another Q&A, and I hope that you can keep the questions coming in. Keep in mind, we do one of these every single month. Generally, try to get the Q&A form opened up early in the month and leave it open for about a week so if you do have any questions between now and then, feel free to jot them down and we can add them into the Q&A in November.

All right, so first question is from Marlo Hill. Do you have any Halloween traditions? Really, I kind of grew up in a very standard, typical American suburban family, and so trick-or-treating obviously was a tradition.

I was never one of the kids that went out and smashed people's jack-o'-lanterns and pumpkins because I worked hard on mine, you know? So I wouldn't want to go trash someone else's hard work. And then as far as an adult, you know, I've gone and played sardines in a cemetery.

I've watched some spooky movies. Usually, though, I kind of just lay low and hand out candy to the kids that come to the door. Jen asks, what was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid? So there was one Halloween that I went as, oh, which one was it? It was Charlie Brown that went as a ghost that, you know, when he cut his sheet, he had holes all over it instead of just two for the eyes.

And I did that one year. I went as a Charlie Brown ghost. But I think the costume that I went with more times than any other was Dracula.

The only bad part about it was like, the makeup that my mom put on my face to like, make me look like a vampire just itched like crazy. Jen's next question is candy or caramel apples? I would definitely have to say caramel apples.

Like, hands down. No, no question about that. Candy apples are all right.

What I really love is I go to like Walmart or whatever and get those caramel wraps. And then, you know, you stick on top of Granny Smith apple, stick a popsicle stick in it and then heat it up in the microwave. And so I don't know that that actually counts as a Halloween tradition.

But that's kind of a go to for me this time of year. I don't have any this year. I wonder why I should probably fix that.

Masquerading Dragon asks, do you have a favorite spooky story? So I'm going to dodge that question just a little bit. And actually it dovetails with when Tracy asked, keeping with the Halloween spooky theme, have you ever visited any haunted or spooky places?

And if so, where? And what's the history or story behind them? Without revealing anything about my location or anything, a few years back, I was living in a different state.

And there was a I was living on the east coast of the U.S. And there was, you know, some some some cities in the in the eastern United States have like an older historic part of town where they still have people dressing up in like revolutionary or colonial era clothing. And you can do tours and that sort of thing.

And so I was living in a place on the east coast a few years back. And I want to say this is probably 2014 or 15. And and there was a there was a one of these old, old, you know, colonial era parts of town, not too far from where I lived.

And they did a they did kind of a guided tour at night where someone dressed up like a colonial era villager took you around to these different places. And then there were spook stories and haunted stories that went around, you know, that some of them applied to those buildings or those locations. Others were just commonly told in that era.

And so I don't know that I have a very favorite spooky story, but that was one of the coolest things I've ever done. And and I I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what the story was behind a lot of them, but definitely some of them were pretty creepy. And then a few years ago, I was in San Francisco and in in October.

And my hotel was just a couple blocks from Chinatown in San Francisco. And so one night I paid for a guided ghost walk of Chinatown. And so the tour guide took us up and down the streets of Chinatown and told us these traditional Chinese spook stories that went along with, you know, some of them, again, specific to that part of San Francisco.

Others that that were ancient Chinese in origin. Just really cool experience. And if any of you are ever in in San Francisco in October, I definitely recommend looking up one of those Chinatown ghost walks.

Very, very cool. Unrefined sugar. And this first question is a shout out to Shai.

Do fish get thirsty? I would say it depends on if they're a saltwater fish in freshwater, in which case they probably don't get thirsty. But if they're a freshwater fish in saltwater, they probably do.

I think that's bonafide science. Don't look it up. You can take my word for it.

What is the fall food you look forward to eating or making every year? Well, apart from the caramel apples, I would have to say pumpkin pie and basically all things Thanksgiving. I just love the turkey, love the stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, yams, beans, green bean casserole, all of it is just marvelous.

Love it, love it, love it. Oh, and belated happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians that are listening to this and happy early Thanksgiving to the Americans. What's a Halloween movie you love, one you dislike, and one you recommend? Okay, this was a rather hard one for me.

So one that I love, I honestly don't know if there are any that I really love, but I remember when I was in college, there was a cheap movie theater that was near campus. And they would play on weekends, they would play movies that had not been in theaters for ages, like stuff from the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. And I remember in my freshman year of college, one time they played the old, I don't even know what year it came out, but Pet Sematary, really cheesy, really bad.

Scared the living crap out of me, though, because it's just spooky. And I have a really vivid imagination. And so when I see scary movies and stuff like that, it feels real, even though I know it's fake, like part of me doesn't.

Okay, another Halloween movie, I was just on the tip of my tongue. Oh, and I wouldn't say this one's necessarily Halloween, but it's horror that I love is The Ring. The American remake of the Japanese classic still scares me to this day.

And again, another spooky thing that I highly recommend, it's not really a movie, and it's not necessarily Halloween, but The Haunting of Hill House. If you haven't seen that on Netflix, then you need to stop this Q&A right now and watch every episode of that. And then you can come back because it's outstanding.

I've not seen The Haunting of Bly Manor yet. I have been told that I need to see that. And so I will watch that soon, hopefully.

Halloween movie that I dislike. I'm really not a fan. And this actually is going to answer Unrefined Sugar's next question.

I'm really not a fan of slasher flicks. So Halloween flicks, Friday the 13th, I just not, I don't care about the slasher flicks so much. One that I recommend, well, I just did The Haunting of Hill House.

If you haven't seen that, then you have chosen a path that you need to remove yourself from immediately. Get on Netflix, watch it. Do you prefer paranormal horror or slashers? Even though I can't say it apparently, paranormal horror is, I prefer that greatly over slashers.

I mean, The Ring, paranormal. Haunting of Hill House, paranormal. Pet Sematary, mostly paranormal.

Yeah, I just not a slasher flick guy. Is there a movie that really scared you as a kid? If so, what was it and why did it scare you? Well, so if we define kid as being when I was a freshman in college, then again, Pet Sematary really scared the crap out of me.

But that's not to say it's the scariest of movies. It's just, you know, well, I mean, it was kind of stupid of me to go see that movie in the theater, you know, as a dollar Friday night, you know, rerun kind of thing and then walk home in the dark. I mean, that was maybe not the best decision I've ever made.

But a movie that really scared me as a kid that I never saw was Arachnophobia. So I there was a book when I was when I was younger, there was a book I found that was basically written based on the movie. And I read the book.

And I there are a few things in life that I have a truly irrational fear over. But spiders are at the top of the list. I just I can't stand them.

I'm scared to death of them. And so even just reading that, I mean, it's bad enough. Like when I was younger, like if I had a book with a picture of a spider on it, I could like I could not touch that page.

I would use something else to turn the page of the book rather than touch the page that had a picture of a spider. It's that bad. And so the fact that I man up and kill spiders in my house, you guys have no idea that that was my Everest.

But yes, that movie scared me without ever having even seen it. K to Curtis, I already answered your question. Favorite horror or Halloween movie? So sorry to have not mentioned you up there with unrefined sugar, but you got a shout out on your own now.

So there you go. Yuki asks, Are you scared of clowns? Only if you're dressed as one Yuki, only if you're dressed as one.

And what's your favorite thing about Halloween? Um, honestly, it's the social stuff that Kat has worked out on the Discord server. It's just a lot of I mean, it used to be like trick or treating when I was a kid.

But the last two years, October last year, and then this October, Kat has spearheaded just this on Saturdays, we have different social things going on. And it's just a lot of fun. It's an absolute ball.

And so that I think is probably my favorite part of Halloween. Final question asker is Jessica college football or NFL? I really don't have a preference between the two.

They both have their charms. I really just love watching football. And definitely the NFL is a faster game.

Because you take the cream of the crop from college and put them there. College has more pageantry and the the traditional university rivalries and all this stuff. And so I think there's I mean, I like both really.

And then what are my thoughts on daylight saving time? And I'm going to be a bit of a nerd here. People always say daylight savings time.

It's actually daylight saving time, because it saves daylight daylight saving time. So anyway, I'm a nerd, you already knew this. My thoughts on daylight saving time.

I don't care about it, honestly.