halloween costume of the year

Alex P. Keaton and his dream dateThere was a lot of competition for this year’s top spot. The Malcolm Gladwell, being Canadian, enjoyed home team advantage, as did the Alex P. Keaton. The Tara Reid, we imagine, was popular with a certain set (an unmatched, lopsided set), and looking around the Downtown Eastside it seemed clear to me that the most popular costumes by far were the Novelty Whore and the Hipster. Unfortunately, as this is the Downtown EastSide, nobody looked as if they were in costume; everyone here dresses like an extra from Hedwig and the Angry Inch anyway. Boys, if you’re dressed like Bing Crosby, you’re not in costume. Girls, if you’re dressed like the girl in a Benny Hill sketch and you’re on East Hastings, you’re not in costume, you’re in mufti (muff-ti?). But it certainly was amusing to watch the confused looks on all those women’s faces when the guys in the cars would try to strike a deal. That’ll teach you to wait for the light at Cordova and Columbia, missy!

But finally, we have a winner. Here, via BoingBoing, is the bestest little Halloween costume ever.

a tadpole of the Elder Gods

the revenge of Socrates

 the death of Socrates. It ain't over yet!

After an apparently-peaceful slumber of some millennia, it appears that the legended philosopher Socrates has returned to wreak vengence on his killers. ABC via Fark.

The only thing standing in the way of safeguarding Kentucky hemlocks is the lack of funding, said Tim McClure, a state forest health environmental scientist.

“If we don’t act on this and put some resources to it, we’re looking at a major problem,” McClure said at Pine Mountain State Park, the latest site to report infested [haunted, ghoul-ridden] trees… Large-scale destruction in neighboring states has cost millions.

McClure said it’s not a matter of “if” more Plato. Yeah, I'd duck if I were you.Kentucky hemlocks will be under attack, “it’s a matter of when.”

So far, the bug [revenant] has attacked at least 100 trees at Pine Mountain and Rebel Rock in Harlan County.

Plato better watch his ass.

Vicarious Halloween Vid

Stolen from Gawker. Not as much fun as my Halloween,  but theirs apparently doesn’t take several days of bed rest afterwards.

Gawker cover’s an event that needs no introduction, the Greenwich Village Halloween Day Parade. Watch as “hundreds of artists, 53 bands of different types of music, dancers and artists, and thousands of other New Yorkers in costumes of their own creation” take to the streets to celebrate this year’s theme “The Village Hearth.” If you’ve never been then this is a definite must-go event at least once in your life.

Carnival of Souls: the penultimate Halloween video

If only, if only I could have this video tonight.

Instead I shall make do with The Toxic Avenger and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, which at least has a lovely and gratuitous ass shot of Viggo Mortensen as Tex. The apron scene is a must-see as well.

[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY7lOYrnhBI ]

Oh, fine. Be that way.

Made in 1962 on an extremely low budget, Herk Harvey’s classic CARNIVAL OF SOULS has become legendary for its ability to create a tensely creepy atmosphere with virtually no special effects. A young woman (Candace Hilligoss) is involved in a car crash when her car falls off a bridge while drag racing with some friends. After she pulls herself from the river, she moves to a new town to take a job as a church organist. Meanwhile, a distinctly eerie and hollow-faced man seems to be following her wherever she goes, while an abandoned lakeside amusement park beckons her with an almost gravitational pull. The effective organ score enhances the film to great effect, as do the bleak landscapes of Utah’s salt flats. Of course, the colorization ruins everything that I just said.

And there’s also this Roy Orbison music video with scenes from the movie. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, do.

Camp Crystal Lake: seasons in the sun, serial killers in the shadows

welcome to camp jellyjamFrom Duct Tape and Rouge, via Defamer, even though I’m still mad at them, dammit. Okay, so they read BoingBoing too; that doesn’t mean I didn’t send them the Brian Atene 2.0. Remember that Star Trek where the green Batgirl recites a piece, saying “I wrote that yesterday” and her boyfriend yells “It’s Shakespeare, and he wrote it centuries ago!” to which she both rightfully and indignantly replied, “that doesn’t mean that I didn’t write it yesterday!”

Quite right, too.

Here is Camp Crystal Lake‘s post-season debrief, with an emphasis on increasing camper retention by decreasing the Gory Death Quotient.

With November’s cold weather quickly approaching, we’re once again faced with the end of another camping season here at Camp Crystal Lake. This will be the last newsletter until next March when we begin the staffing process for our summer camp programs. I’d like to thank our Cheerleader Camp!camp counselors for a job well done. As always, I’d like to use this final letter to talk about the things that worked this past year and also to address some possible changes we can make to make next season that much more successful and enjoyable…

Try to decrease employee turnover rate by 10%
While I love to hire new people for our camp counselor program each year, I would love to see some of our older counselors take a more proactive approach in pursuing a career with Camp Crystal Lake. At the beginning of the summer, I really felt like one of our counselors, Adam, was going to do great things with us well into the future, but sadly, he took his own life after a canoeing session by pinning himself against a tree and twisting his own head around 360 degrees. Of the remaining counselors, the ones who weren’t murdered are currently in therapy to help them cope with watching their peers get slaughtered like cattle. I went ahead and told some of them to stay in touch if they are looking for future employment, but I’m not banking on anything there since I really don’t know a lot about the duration of that kind of therapy.