Please let me go, Santa

Regular readers (Hi Mom! Hi person of indeterminate gender who keeps insisting you know me from scrap-booking class!) will know that I don't particularly care about the welfare of others. There is, however, one cause close to my heart that I feel it's important to share: The menace of the creepy Santa Claus. Fortunately the fine folks who've put together sketchysantas.com feel the same way.

  

Neil Patrick Harris makes everything better

via buzzfeed.

The 15 most popular words in the English language. This year

Yet another reason the werewolves need to get their bleep together and work harder to defeat the vampires.

"The Global Language Monitor has announced that Twitter is the Top Word of 2009 in its annual global survey of the English language.  Twittered was followed by Obama, H1N1, Stimulus, and Vampire. The near-ubiquitous suffix, 2.0, was No. 6, with Deficit, Hadron the object of study of CERN’s new atom smasher, Healthcare, and Transparency rounded out the Top 10. “In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the after effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words.  Twitter represents a new form of social interaction, where all communication is reduced to 140 characters,” said Paul JJ Payack, President of The Global Language Monitor.  “Being limited to strict formats did wonders for the sonnet and haiku.  One wonders where this highly impractical word-limit will lead as the future unfolds.” The Top Words are culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion speakers. Twitter — The ability to encapsulate human thought in 140 characters."

Twitter — The ability to encapsulate human thought in 140 characters
Obama — The word stem transforms into scores of new words like ObamaCare
H1N1 — The formal (and politically correct) name for Swine Flu
Stimulus — The $800 billion aid package meant to help mend the US economy
Vampire — Vampires are very much en vogue, now the symbol of unrequited love
2.0 — The 2.0 suffix is attached to the next generation of everything
Deficit — Lessons from history are dire warnings here
Hadron — Ephemeral particles subject to collision in the Large Hadron Collider
Healthcare — The direction of which is the subject of intense debate in the US
Transparency — Elusive goal for which many 21st c. governments are striving
Outrage — In response to large bonuses handed out to ‘bailed-out’ companies
Bonus — The incentive pay packages that came to symbolize greed and excess
Unemployed — And underemployed amount to close to 20% of US workforce
Foreclosure — Forced eviction for not keeping up with the mortgage payments
Cartel — In Mexico, at the center of the battle over drug trafficking

Have a terrifying Halloween

I shall be doing exactly two things this weekend: 1) Hissing at small children as I place unhealthy candy into their grubby little hands. 2) Reading my delicious advance copy of Stephen King's new thousand-page-plus Under The Dome.

If there is any candy left after the small children have visited, I may eat it while reading. If I'm not here on Monday, it's because the perfect blend of sugar and horror sent me into a bliss-induced stupor. I apologize in advance.

And, just in case you're wondering, I will not be baking. But were I baking, I would probably be torn between Rat Cake and Intestine Cake.

Worst Halloween special ever. Today

it's quite terrible and ... WAIT! Is that kid Ellen Page?

Rob Zombie's Where The Wild Things Are

I'm a bit late with this one. Saw it a week ago and completely forgot to post it.

Sometimes you just have to go for it

(Thank you, Garnet).

Scariest Halloween movie ever. Today

Warning! If you're of the opinion that language can be bad, there are a few words you will not like. Also, gore. You've been warned. Don't start crying if you don't like what you see.

Know your vampires

Someone at io9 has put a lot of work into this excellently handy vampire score sheet. Keep it with you always.

True Blood pumpkins

I'm going to carve myself a Bill pumpkin and a Sookie pumpkin using these stencils and my house will be the coolest Halloween house on the street. That is, of course, a total lie. I'll be lucky if I'm able to carve a simple evil face with triangle eyes without cutting off my own hand. Also, the insides of pumpkins smell like an ancient sea of rotten things. And, finally, I've already eaten 2/3 of the candy I bought and it's going to rain on Saturday. But you go ahead and make your fancy pumpkins. You and Martha Stewart.