We've been getting ready for it all month, and finally Halloween arrives this week. Have you ever noticed that Halloween always falls at the end of the month? That can be a pain, as my neighborhood draws hundreds of trick-or-treaters, and no matter how much candy I get, we will run out. It's a good thing I remembered to buy my supply early -but don't tell the family, because it's been hidden all this time. We've had a lot of Halloween stories, costumes, recipes, and decorations. If you missed any, you can catch up on all the Halloween goodies at our Halloween blog. And here's what else you should not miss from this past week at Neatorama.
Jill Harness gave us the experience of Fantastic Frights From The Purge: Fear Night.
Alex told us 5 Fun Facts about Mole Day (which was Wednesday).
Eddie Deezen wrote about The Strange Life of Benny Hill.
Coexistence of Vampires and Humans Is Possible: Proofs Based on Models Derived from Fiction, Television, and Film came to us courtesy of the Annals of Improbable Research.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader gave us the story of The World's First Video Game.
How to Find Sunken Treasure was from mental_floss magazine.
This week we launched something new: graphics with neat facts in an easy-to-share format that we will archive at our NeatoFacto blog. The first one is Disney Imagineers Tested the Haunted Mansion Special Effects on the Unsuspecting Night Time Cleaning Crew.
We are also having a good time with the column Great Pics of The Week. This week's list was Just Plain Horrifying.
Our poll this week asked Did the "Pepper Spray Cop" Deserve $38,000 in Workers' Comp? Neatoramanauts overwhelmingly said no.
Oh, and we had plenty of puzzles for you! There was Solve This Pzzlr: Bicycles.
Our Conceptis Puzzle this week was Classic Hashi Light.
Hy Conrad's Whodunit this week was The Ring-stealing Ring.
In this week's What Is It? game, the mystery item is a bread slicer. Using a knife and this device you can make a 1/2" thick slice of bread into two 1/4" thick slices. Why you would ever want to do that is beyond me. But we were looking for funny answers and we got them! Carlos Pfister had a funny one: "Thats a Decepticon Pop Tart. It transforms into a mean little bastard." Another good one came from mowog, who said: "It's a cheese 'Swisser.' Insert cheap, plain white cheese, puncture - PROFIT!" Both win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop for those answers! See the answers to all of this week's mystery objects at the What Is It? blog.
The post with the most comments this week was Words That Are Different in British English and American English followed by Say Hello to the World's Largest Ball of Fluff.
The most popular post was 15 Easy Last Minute Costume Ideas For Halloween. In second place was Little Girl on an Enormous My Little Pony Plush, and Tips For Surviving, Monsters! was third. Strangely, those three were all posted on the same day.
The Most Popular Girls' Names, State by State, from 1960 to the Present got far more Facebook likes than any other post this week. Pug "Wrecking Ball" Costume was the big hit on Pinterest, and This Is the Hardest Golf Shot in the World was the most shared post on Google+. Thanks for sharing our stuff on social media -we really appreciate it!
The post that people ♥ed most was Say Hello to the World's Largest Ball of Fluff. Coming in second was Who Doesn't Want to Play With A Platypus? and Josh Sundquist's Flamingo Costume was third.
The most emailed post was LED Stickman Costume, followed by a tie between The Strange Life of Benny Hill and The Most Popular Girls' Names, State by State, from 1960 to the Present.
Bringing up the rear in the Neatorama costume parade is little Nicole and her painted face, which she was particularly unhappy with that one Halloween from her childhood. Sometime this coming week, we'll select a few out of those who submitted pictures of Halloween costumes and award t-shirts from the NeatoShop!
We would like to invite you to join us on the Neatoramanauts Facebook page every day! You are also invited to follow Neatorama on Twitter and Pinterest, too!
Have a great week and a Happy Halloween!