
Andrew Harding had to take a picture during a 5AM train ride in Chicago, or no one would believe what he saw. It makes sense when you realize the photo was taken on October 30th. Link -via reddit

Halloween may be long over, but that doesn’t make this amazing machine gun leg costume any less impressive. While it looks unbelievably cool, it certainly doesn’t seem comfortable to be walking around in all night.

While I am not one of those people who likes to call all instances of animals being dressed up in costume “animal abuse,” it’s certainly verging on the borderline of abuse when you dress your horse as a pinata and carry around a pinata stick. For pictures of 19 more depressing horses, check out this hilarious BuzzFeed article.

Of course, while the stallion may be embarrassed beyond belief, the little girl looks ridiculously happy with her cute outfit and amazing costume.

Speaking of fashionable Halloween rides that only add to a costume, just check out this incredible Flintstones mobile that was actually driven through a drive through.
Halloween may be over, but that doesn’t make these eight month old twins playing the role of Goose and Maverick any less cute. Of course, the jet stroller is an unbelievably cute accessory.
Via Laughing Squid
This neat, albeit gory, illustration by Chris Schweizer shows Dr. Frankenstein hard at work on his monster. Pray he gets it right this time!
Link –via ComicsAlliance

Mashable has a neat post listing the Halloween edition of Google Doodle since 1999: Link
If you like that, you can take a look at Google's official Google Logo page and see all the variations throughout the years.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Where does the candy you’ll give to trick-or-treaters rank among internet users? Science writers David Ng and Ben Cohen put together a candy hierarchy lastyear and received a lot of feedback. They took those opinions into account when publishing their 2011 Candy Hierarchy. Some of the findings:
(1) That despite various lobbying efforts, clear consensus within the peer review process was wholly absent. No agreement on any specific candy was represented higher than 5% of the total comments (although status of fresh versus stale versus fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls was especially hotly debated). Indeed, consensus was only noted in the following: that last year’s hierarchy, in a word, sucked. In fact, the word “travesty” and similar synonyms were uttered more than a few times (Koerth-Baker, 2010).
(2) That with current data, Candy Corn is impossible to rank. It is liken to the “String Theory” of candy: largely theoretical nature and difficult to pin down. In the hopes of moving forward on this strange phenomenon, we are currently exploring a grant proposal that would give us time on the LHC.
(3) That this study was a great portal to science culture in general. This was demonstrated by an example of scientific plagiarism (link), as well as the prevalence of scientist bias, because despite repeated commentary on the contrary, we stubbornly stand by our evaluation of Whoppers.
Of course, the new hierarchy, published at Boing Boing, has already sparked a debate over the merits of a certain American brand of chocolate. Link
This dessert looks creepy, but it’s actually delicious cake with brain-shaped frosting and a bit of raspberry jelly for blood, all stuffed on a jar. The instructions for making your own are at Living Locurto. Link -via Everlasting Blort
The Google Doodle team carves giant pumpkins on the lawn at their Mountain View, California, headquarters. The finished product is today’s Google Doodle.
Buying a new home is a big commitment and for first-time buyers especially, it can be a little terrifying. Imagine just how horrific it would be then to discover your home ended up being home to thousands of snakes or the mummified body of the last homeowner. Read about these terrible discoveries and more over at Cracked.
The folks over at ComicsAlliance put together this spooky gallery of artworks featuring various monsters, creatures, and things that go bump in the night as envisioned by some of the world’s finest comic book and animation illustrators. Happy Halloween!
This costume will have people rubbing their eyes to make sure they didn’t imagine seeing the full scale sprite of Samus from the Nintendo game Metroid walking by.
Dan Cattell created these Metroid inspired sprite costumes, and Nintendo liked them so much they featured them in Nintendo Power magazine. Hit the link and see how cool Samus and a Chozo Statue look when they’re about to battle it out!
Link –Dan Cattell’s DeviantArt page
I remember seeing stacks of these awful things on the shelves when I was a youngster, and hearing parents say things like “look for the ones that say non-flammable” and “well, at least you can use the mask”, as their kids stifled tears over their terribly disappointing selection of flimsy plastic costumes.
Browse through this gallery of awfulness and see just how good kids have it these days when it comes to Halloween costumes.
Here is an animated short that is sure to delight, or fill you with fright! Watch as Marvel Comics’ M.O.D.O.K., dressed as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark tells “Strange Halloween Tales Of Suspense To Astonish!”
–via ComicsAlliance
Depending on how you feel about pop music, this could be the cutest or scariest pumpkin ever carved. Check out more pop culture pumpkin carvings over on the Huffington Post.
Even if you think the idea of a zombie tattoo is kind of silly, you can still appreciate the awesome artwork in many of these great pieces that range from old school to incredibly realistic.
How do you make costumes designed around a 20-year-old movie work? You get all of your friends involved! The gang at Intense Individuals did just that last year, and dressed as almost the entire cast of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. See more pictures at their site. Link -via Buzzfeed
If you missed the 2011 Blizzcon, but are a huge fan of WOW and other Blizzard games, you won’t want to miss Geeks Are Sexy’s wonderful collection of the greatest costumes from the event. Some of the outfits are seriously impressive.
Who knew jack-o-lanterns had such stunning skulls inside. They must be pretty fragile because I never see them while carving my pumpkins.
BuzzFeed has a great collection of “sexy” costumes that make no sense. I actually think the one above is kind of cute, but it’s still idiotic to have a sexy version of Edward Scissorhands.
It takes a steady hand and a lot of planning to make your pumpkin into the one ring, but I’d say the effort is certainly worth the great result.
Link Via Geeks Are Sexy
If you’re still hunting for a few fun last minute crafting ideas to spice up your Halloween decor, WebEcoist has a great collection of fun crafts that are all eco-friendly as well. Enjoy.
If you love sock monkeys, but are tired of the classic brown and white design, then you might want to check out Sockmonkey Drawer’s collection of one-of-a-kind designs. I’m particularly taken with creator Kim-Ian Cornell’s special Halloween line of Spooky Sock Monkeys.
Link Via Laughing Squid
New York’s Tompkins Square Dog Parade is the biggest dog costume contest on earth and this year’s participants certainly did not fail to disappoint. You can enjoy 50 pictures from this year’s event over at BuzzFeed, but my personal favorite is this Bulldog of Frankenstein.
What does astronomy have to do with Halloween? You’d be surprised!
Halloween is coming, and while people are out trick or treating or enjoying a costume party, the Universe will continue to go about its business.
The business of DEATH, that is. Black holes will continue to tear apart stars and gorge themselves on the tasty, gooey insides; galaxies will erupt with high-energy radiation, blasting out killer rays for hundreds of thousands of light years; giant clouds of gas will collapse, form stars, and promptly have their interiors eaten out from within.
Bad Astronomy Blog has a gallery of creepy astronomy pictures that appear to have sprung from our nightmares, but are actually things that exist in our universe. The picture here is of the flaming skull of Perseus: actually Perseus A, a huge galaxy that blasts out x-rays. Link -Thanks, Phil!
From a hook being left on a door handle by a crazed serial killer to a gang that will shoot you if you flash your bright lights at them, Halloween is a ripe time for horrific urban legends to be spread around. While most of these are fiction, the reality is that some of these stories originate from real news stories and sometimes things that start out as urban legends eventually become real horror stories. Here are five terrifying tales with some scary truths behind them.
This one involves someone checking into a hotel room and noticing that something smells rotten. Eventually, they realize it’s coming from under the bed. So they move the mattress and discover a dead body. This story has been going around forever and has even been featured in movies like Four Rooms. It seems like this story is pretty unlikely, particularly given that you’d at least think a hotel maid would notice the smell of a rotting body before a hotel guest enters the room, but if you believe that, you’re giving hotel staff too much credit. In fact, the most disturbing thing about this story is how often it actually happens.
In 1982, a few auto thieves killed an accomplice and left him under the bed of their hotel in New Jersey. Four days later, someone discovered the corpse, but the room had been rented three different times in the meanwhile and no one noticed they were sleeping above a dead body. In 1987, a drug user overdosed and his high friend stuffed him under the bed and then ran away. Three days later, a family reported a nasty odor in their room, prompting the hotel staff to discover the body.
In New York 1988, a murderer was clever enough to actually put the body inside the box spring. Even so, the smell still gave away the body’s hiding place only a few days later. This time, at least two guests slept on top of the mattress, not knowing what was below.
There are tons more stories like this. Apparently hotel workers often shrug off these types of odors and go on with their business until a guest complains or even refuses to stay in the room thanks to the smell. If there’s anything to be learned here, it’s that you should never stay in a hotel room with a funky smell. And, if you do notice something off, check under your bed or mattress…or you might not want to, that is, if you’d rather not know what’s below.
Source: Snopes
Image Via neekatnite [Flickr]
No, I don’t want to wear a pumpkin on my head. No. Never. What? What’s that? You’ll let me eat chicken if I wear it? Hmm… What? You’ll hand feed it to me? As much as I want? Gimme that pumpkin hat!
This cat is named Jumbo Pillow. Isn’t that perfect? The food is boiled chicken dipped in pumpkin. (via Cynical-C)
Admit it, you’ve experienced this scenario yourself at one time or another, haven’t you? From the webcomic Loading Artist by Gregor Czaykowski. Link -via The Daily What

