Our list of great pet Halloween costumes contained a lot of costumes from the Thompkins Square festival, but it was completed before this year's event took place. Here are some of the highlights from the most recent parade, including Don Draper the dog.
Link Via Cute Overload
The White House has plenty of history, and plenty of former residents. Some are said to still be there, despite having died long ago.
After moving into the White House in 1945, Harry Truman wrote to his wife Bess about their spooky new abode: “I sit here in this old house … all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right in here in the study. The floors pop and the drapes move back and forth—I can just imagine old Andy [Jackson] and Teddy [Roosevelt] having an argument over Franklin [Roosevelt].”
Some White House ghosts stand head and shoulders above others. Read the reports of the most common specters haunting the president's home at mental_floss. Link
Sometimes old objects come with an extensive history. Could they be haunted? Maybe only if you believe so. And, of course, different paranormal investigators have different ways to explain that chill up your spine when you're in a certain place, or around a certain object. Some antiques have a profound effect on whoever may own them, whether they know the story behind them or not. Such was the case with the Dibbuk Box, a wine cabinet containing some personal items and a Jewish prayer carved on the back. It had belonged to a Holocaust survivor, now deceased, and everyone who came into contact with the box experienced strange dreams, bad luck, and illness. Local museum director Jason Haxton heard about the mysterious events and started researching the box.
Thankfully, Haxton heard from experts of all sorts—from rabbis and Kabbalah students to scientists, Wiccans, and demonologists—offering to help him solve the mystery of the box. In fact, so many people were calling and emailing him to ask him about the Dibbuk Box, Haxton posted a web site to address questions about it. He also had Hollywood calling, because horror director Sam Raimi had caught wind of the Dibbuk Box, and wanted to make a film about it. The eventual film, the box-office hit “The Possession,” released in August of last year, took pieces of every owner’s experience of the cabinet and created a new story about a little girl who gets obsessed with the box and possessed by the dibbuk.
The items in the box, the pennies, the hair, the candle, the wine cup, etc., are all items that are traditionally used to open a connection to God. Haxton believes the Dibbuk Box was actually used by its original owner as a box to pray to and get an answer to her life’s question: What caused the Holocaust that killed her parents, her siblings, her first husband, and their children?
After establishing a new life in the United States postwar, the woman had instructed her own children and grandchildren to never open the box, and requested that the box be buried with her. Haxton doesn’t believe the energy attached to the box is evil, but because its owner’s wish was not honored, the box made trouble for anyone who got in the way of its goal to answer this question.
Haxton eventually found what he thinks is the reason for the odd occurrences surrounding the Dibbuk Box, and for the cabinet's roundabout journey to Kirksville, Missouri. Read the entire story at Collector's Weekly -but be warned, it is a strange story. Link
Merry and Pippin learn the hard way that Halloween pranks can backfire! Enjoy this stop-motion LEGO animation by the Brotherhood Workshop. -via Daily of the Day
Looks like these two are ready for Halloween with their adorable little costumes.
Via Geeks Are Sexy
Is Amnityville Horror a true story? Has anyone ever actually hidden razor blades in candy apples? Do criminals really hide under cars and slice women's achilles tendons as they walk by? No. No. And no. But there's more to these myths than that and you can find out more in this fascinating Mental Floss article.
Every year, George Takei has a costume contest for his Facebook fans. This was last year's winner dressed as Angelina's baby.
Are You Afraid Of The Dark? brought chills to the slumber party crowd like few shows aimed at young viewers ever had, with monsters so terrifying they gave kids nightmares well into their teenage years.
The main source of terror was the weekly monster which threatened the lives of neighborhood kids who just wanted to lead a monster-free life.
Here's an exhaustive list of the 50 most terrifying monsters from the show, so you can see what you missed, or remember what used to keep you up at night as a child!
With the look of a creature drawn straight from our nightmares, this is one jack-o-lantern that won't be encouraging trick-or-treaters to ring your doorbell on Halloween!
Anyone who has the honor of smashing this sucker to bits will probably be heralded as the new neighborhood hero for exterminating this pumpkin menace.
I hope it doesn't have any monster babies lurking around in the dark somewhere...
Hong Kong Disneyland delivers the horrific Halloween goods like no other Disney park, with scenes and characters that would scare the pants off of the usual crowd in attendance at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Celebrations in the U.S.
Take a quick trip to Hong Kong, without having to get off your duff, and see what all those little kids in Hong Kong are screaming about!
--via Laughing Squid
Even sweet little swine enjoy the fall harvest, and pumpkins make for a fun and delicious piggy treat.
This is one instance where playing with your food is not only okay, it's encouraged!
--via Tastefully Offensive
Artist Clement Briend has a unique way of making trees seemingly come to life- he projects giant scary gargoyle heads onto them, and the natural texture combines with the images to create a terrifying light show!
This seems like a great idea for lighting up the trees around your house for Halloween, as well as being a cool way to brighten up those haunt in the park events that take place around All Hallow's Eve.
Who knew that all it would take to make seminal horror flick The Exorcist hilarious would be to add a laugh track and commercials?
The folks at Film School Rejects, that's who! They recut the devlish masterpiece into a sitcom that will haunt your dreams...with laughter!
--via Tastefully Offensive
Electronic magic toys brings us the weirdest halloween costume ever! Phil Burgess of Adafruit mounted LED matrices on a mask, and hooked up a voice changer to use as a stimulus for the animation. The tutorials on the various parts of the project are available at Adafruit. Link -Thanks, Becky!
