This Week at Neatorama

On Tuesday, we're going into October, the month in which things turn weird on the internet, as scary stories, creative costumes, and generally ghoulish fun prepare us for Halloween. Here at Neatorama, we take Halloween so seriously that we gave the holiday its own blog! It's been updated all year long, but in October, you'll want to take advantage of the costume ideas, recipes, and spooky entertainment offered at the Halloween blog. 

Have you entered our Halloween costume contest yet? No, you don't have to have a costume ready. In fact, the "contest" part was actually an afterthought. We want to show the world your costumes from the past! Whether it was last year or decades ago, send us a picture of a Halloween costume you wore (or made for your kids) that made some Halloween memorable, whether it was awesome, funny, embarrassing, or just one you particularly liked. We want to share those pictures with everyone, so beginning Tuesday, we will feature a "costume of the day" on the Halloween blog! It could even be more than once a day, if we get a rash of late entries. We will give t-shirts to those who send in the best costumes. Send your picture, and the story behind it, to tips@neatorama.com and then look for the parade of Halloween costumes starting Tuesday on the Halloween blog!

Meanwhile, we had an abundance of great feature articles this week. Here's your chance to catch up if you missed any of them.

To get you ready for the new sequel this weekend, Jill Harness wrote Expecting Delicious Weather? Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Facts.

John Farrier gave us 12 Weird Cheetos Variants. Next, we need him to try them out for a Don't Eat It, John! post.

Eddie Deezen told us the story of The First Beatle to Visit America.

Alex came back to writing in a big way after taking care of other business most of the summer. He gave us two entries in the "5 facts" series: 5 Fascinating Facts: Echidna and 5 Fun Facts: It's All Greek To Me.

He also gave us 5 Surprising Things That Have Cow Parts in Them.

Alex also wrote 4 Surprising Facts About Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte.

And he posted a fascinating story and pictures in Don't Mess with Samurai Monkey.

The What Is It? game ran longer than usual this week, and it will be another day before the official answers are posted at the What Is it? blog, but since we wanted funny-but-wrong answers, we'll go ahead and award the winners. Erin Werra said, "These are the score cards the Russian judges WANTED to use at the Olympics. They're mounted on handy "persuasion tools" to encourage other judges to lower their scores as well." That one deserves a t-shirt! Randall had a great answer, too: "Gopher traps. Among the animal kingdom, gophers are statophiles, they love esoteric information and are fascinated by trivial numbers. When these are placed in a field inhabited by gophers, the little rodents will burrow right up to the number to read it (they are slightly nearsighted) and POW! it kills them with the spring loaded spike." So Randall gets a t-shirt from the NeatoShop, too! The answers to this and the other mystery items of the week will be posted at the What Is It? Blog on Sunday, and I'll update the contest post then. 

On the Spotlight Blog, we had a gallery of HAMuel L. Jackson and Other Wordplay Graffiti by Hanksy.

A notable post that started out as a link and turned into an essay was Should You Take Your Lottery Winnings in a Lump Sum or Annual Payments?

The Shower Experiment came from the Annals of Improbable Research.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader contributed How the West Was Won.

Isaac Newton: 17th-Century London’s Dirty Harry came from mental_floss magazine.

You can always access our latest feature articles by checking the row of images at the top of the main page. But this week we had so many exclusive features that I should remind you that you can use the little arrows on the sides of the banner to go to the ones that don't fit on the page.

We had one poll this week, in Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism vs Gnosticism. Here are the results as of this morning. You can still participate if you haven't already.



Hy Conrad's Whodunit this week is titled Blue Carbuncle, the Sequel.

Jill Harness, who keeps the Neatorama Pinterest board updated every day, announced another project: The NeatoShop Pinterest board! Bookmark it for an easy way to keep up with new offerings at the shop, and an easy way to share them. Watch for more Pin to Win contests coming soon!

While we're on the subject of the NeatoShop, have you seen what's new for Halloween? Different items are coming in every day!

The post with the most comments this week (besides the contest) was Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism vs Gnosticism. In second place was 4 Surprising Facts About Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte, and The First Beatle to Visit America was third. 

The most popular post was Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs? Which was followed by Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism vs Gnosticism and Don't Mess with Samurai Monkey. The bar was set pretty high this week, as many other posts would have made the top three in other weeks. Thanks to everyone who shared our posts!

The post that people ♥ed most was Deer Patiently Waits at Crosswalk for the Traffic Signal, with John Lennon's Imagine, Made into a Comic by Pablo Stanley coming in second and Fireman Recusitates Kitten: Another View was third.

The most emailed post was 12 Weird Cheetos Variants followed by The First Beatle to Visit America and Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs?

We so appreciate everyone who shared our posts on social media this week! I'll present our social media star posts in decending order.

The most Facebook likes went to:
Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs?
Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism vs Gnosticism
The First Beatle to Visit America

The most tweeted posts were:
Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs?
Don't Mess with Samurai Monkey
4 Surprising Facts About Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte

The most shared on Google+ were:
Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism vs Gnosticism
Why Didn't People Smile in Old Photographs?
Don't Mess with Samurai Monkey

Looking forward to next week, check out Neatoramanauts' featured costumes on the Halloween blog starting Tuesday, and even more great stuff here on the main page. Have a great week, Neatoramanauts!