Well friends, it's almost time for Halloween. For the modern young adult, it's an occasion to put on a stupid costume, get wildly drunk, and act like a fool because nobody will recognize you later.

Some girls like to use it as an opportunity to dress like a whore, thereby having a "costume" such as "slutty teacher," "sexy librarian," or "naughty cop." While technically a costume, I am much more impressed by people who have a creative or unusual costume.

This year, I have decided to "build" my own costume. I think it will be a fun craft project, and it will save me the trouble of patronizing a store where I can pay $70 for a lumberjack outfit with a flimsy plastic axe.

I love this picture of the kids dressed as robots. What a slice of life from the 50's!

Speaking of robots, on my trip to Seattle, I ran into an old friend at the Science Fiction Museum. They're remaking that movie, starring Mr. Sci Fi himself, Keanu Reeves. I'm pretty sure it will suck, but a boy can dream.

Being unemployed like I am, I've had a lot of time to indulge other activities. A few days ago I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which I hadn't been to in ages. I go by it all the time, either running, driving, or riding my bike. Finally I decided I should just go in. It's free, it's five minutes from my house, and did I mention it's free?

It was a crisp October day, warm enough to be comfortable. Yet few people ventured out to the zoo. I had pretty much the run of the place.

Despite all the animals, I was most fascinated by the fellow pictured above. He was in a deep sleep, resplendent in his baby blue suit and pink tie. To me he looks like a mafia enforcer on his lunch break. Or maybe he's a city garbage collector?

There is no greater place to sleep than outside, on a nice day. Supposing it's a safe place, I love to lean up against a tree, close my eyes and absorb the sounds, feelings and smell of the day. Sadly, most days it is not like that, so when there is a chance to grab a comfortable outdoor nap, I say go for it.

A few days ago, a giant fly was pestering me. By no means was it like a half-man half-fly, but he was big enough that I could feel it when he landed on me. My initial reaction to having a fly buzzing around the house would be to kill it; but then I thought that it would be an insult to the sanctity of life if I simply killed everything that bothered me. (You would probably be dead, ho ho ho.)

Instead, I decided to let the fly go and so he could enjoy himself. They only live for a few weeks, so what's the harm?

Well I'll tell you: that damn fly annoyed the hell out of me. He followed me everywhere. Flew into my TV screen. Zipped around my head as I lay in bed. I even shooed it into the laundry room of my building, and he somehow found his way back into my apartment. It took all my willpower to simply not swat him out of existence.

Then, it also turns out this particular fly was suicidal. I went to brush my teeth, and I thereupon noticed the fly struggling for dear life inside the toilet. After a few seconds of deliberation, I concluded that I could no more allow something to die than to kill it. I reached into my toilet and rescued the fly. Then, he flew right back into the water! This fly was an idiot.

I rescued it again, and made sure to move it away from the toilet. I then left the room, washing my hands (literally and figuratively) of this fly business. I'm proud to say, he was back zipping around the room hours later.

Don't say I never did anything to save a life.

Cyclists here in Chicago - including myself - are notorious for selectively applying the rules of the road. The Police Department occasionally cracks down on cyclists, but pretty soon they forget about it. In Oregon, however, they are more fanatical about bicycles, as evidenced by two recent events. One involves a cop on a bike, the other involves a man on a bike attempting to evade the police:

The first incident happened 1 p.m. Wednesday in Salem when OSP Trooper Perry Rhoades was patrolling the Capitol Mall area on a bicycle and spotted a 1997 Ford four-door driving recklessly near the State Capitol building and nearly striking pedestrians in a crosswalk on Court Street near Winter Street.

Rhoades caught up with the car and made several attempts to get the driver to stop, including riding alongside the driver's door and ordering the female driver to stop. The driver, identified as Suzanne L. Futrell, age 44, from Dallas, refused to stop and yelled through her rolled-up window that she didn't do anything wrong.

Futrell allegedly continued driving in a reckless manner including driving through a red light as Rhoades continued to try and get her to stop as speeds reached about 25 mph.

Two other troopers set up near milepost 11 and as the bicycle approached, Frank tried to go around the patrol car and was tackled off the bike. Frank resisted arrest but was taken into custody at 7:50 a.m. on charges of disorderly conduct an resisting arrest. He was also cited for failing to obey a police officer.

This naturally leads to the next question. Should John McCain be elected president, and then die - which the Tribune says is possible - would Sarah Palin have the most comical accent in the history of the Presidency?

Sadly, there are no recordings of most of the presidents. Many of the modern presidents, however, were known for their accents. FDR and JFK were aristocratic. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were undeniably southern. George W. Bush, I think, is known for his unique way with word as well as his accent.

All these Presidents have interesting, easily-identifiable voices. But are they funny? Not at all. Sarah Palin, with hints of "Fargo" and lumberjacks in her voice, would be the gold standard of Presidential accents.

Comedians always say they want to most ridiculous person in the White House, as it makes their jobs easier. Sarah Palin is just the ticket. Her voice, combined with her sometimes shaky answers to foreign-policy questions, is the easiest target since Dan Quayle misspelled potato. We know who the comics want to be president - however, the rest of America has some say in it, too.

There was an interesting story in today's Tribune, about all the various people in Cub Fan Land who are trying to capitalize on the Cubs' success this year. The Cubs, surprise, are in the playoffs and have a real chance to (gulp) end their 100-year championship drought. One woman is selling a most interesting stuffed animal: a goat you can tear apart in moments of anger, like so:

When the Cubs take the diamond for their first playoff game Wednesday, Marge Flashing will be outside Wrigley Field celebrating America's national pastimes: baseball and making money.

The Wheaton woman is the creator of "Break the Curse" kits, a collection of items aimed squarely at a century of futility. In addition to a stress ball, balloons and other tchotchkes, the kit features a stuffed animal goat that fans can rip apart in times of frustration.

"We've suffered through high and lows for so long as Cubs fans," she said. "We wanted to do something to help the team."

Not to mention turn a buck. Flashing joins a flood of entrepreneurs on Internet sites, at craft fairs or on the Wrigleyville streets hawking everything from Lou Piniella-inspired T-shirts and stadium paintings to self-recorded music CDs and clothing for ceramic geese.

A retired accounting manager, Flashing came up with the goat idea in the middle of the night last year. And while the kits have been buried alongside a dead Cubs fan and in the sand in Iraq by a Chicago-born soldier, sales have not exactly skyrocketed. Profits would not quite cover the price of a scalped World Series ticket, at least not yet.

Of course, this all has to do with the Curse of the Billy Goat, which has haunted the Cubs since 1945. Many efforts to break the curse have failed, but that doesn't stop people from trying.

I like capitalism and all that, but I don't know how I feel about this tear-apart goat. It's kind of, well... Gross. It evokes animal sacrifice, or Jurassic Park, where a goat was fed to a ravenous T-Rex.

It goes something like this: Alfonso Soriano drops a fly ball, and spectators all throughout Wrigley Field are just wishing there was a goat around for them to slaughter, and rip in half. Being squeamish, instead they tear up a plush representation of the goat. However, this does satisfy their lust, and soon half of Wrigleyville is rioting and awash in blood and entrails. Good thing, then, the bars won't have beer after the 7th inning. Thanks Mayor Daley!

Oh yeah, and if you want to buy one of these delightful guys, click here.

Why is it so hard to keep a pair of socks together? To me, there is nothing more frustrating than doing a load of laundry, and when it is done, being unable to match two socks with each other. It is doubly annoying when it's a pair of socks you actually like. Lately I have tried tying the socks together, but then they get separated in the wash anyway.

Sometimes you can't find the right socks. Other times, you have a bunch of socks that look the same, but look alike enough that you can't tell which go together. I think sock manufacturers could solve quite a bit of this problem by making socks with little tags or marks on them that are unique, the same way golf balls have a number on them to tell them apart. Sorting socks would be so much easier: the number 5's go together, of course!

In the meantime, I have created a "lost sock basket," in which I throw my unmatched socks until they can be reunited. Many have entered the basket... Few have left.

This story reminds me of one of those silly anecdotes in Reader's Digest. It goes something like this: a wife and a husband were watching TV one day, when the wife mentioned to the husband that the socks needed to be put away: "These socks haven't been mated in a long time," said the wife. Without looking away from the television, the husband said, "Yes. I know the feeling."

It took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about.

I loves me some hyperbole, but this seems a little extreme. I noticed this sign for a garage sale whilst walking down the street earlier today, and it sure made me chuckle.

This garage sale is "wild"! I am imagining that at this garage sale, there are all kinds of wild and wacky things for sale: a time machine, perchance. Or a Monkey's paw. Maybe a live hand grenade. I hope no mogwais.

God willing, Joe Francis and the Girls Gone Wild crew are there. Now that I think about it, there did seem to be a giant mushroom cloud right where this wild garage sale was occurring - did Cleveland Avenue spontaneously combust?

I also am wary of any event that bills its times as "3 pm to ????" It says to me, we're so crazy we don't know when it's going to end. In reality, these sorts of things often suck, because if you were truly that crazy, you'd have an end time that you don't adhere to, or you simply wouldn't prescribe an ending time at all.

The question marks are acceptable if you're talking about your kid's 8th birthday party, but not for adults. Adults know when a party is going to end - when everyone is too tired or drunk to care anymore. Instead, I think it should just say "3 pm," instead of "3 pm - ????" There is a subtle difference.

Family Feud is one of my favorite TV shows. I never miss an opportunity to watch it. But I think the people who write the questions for the show are starting to run out of ideas for good questions.

To wit, a recent question asked, "Name a famous person you think has no sense of humor." This is kind of a hard question anyway, but I was completely perturbed when the number one answer was revealed: George W. Bush.

Let me repeat that: George W. Bush was the most popular choice for a famous person with no sense of humor. I don't say many nice things about President Bush, but I will say this: he has a sense of humor. At the very least, he thinks he's funny. (I guess I think I'm funny, too. Doesn't make me funny though.)

This is the man who called his top adviser Turd Blossom. He's also the guy who joked about his inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

WTF, one hundred Americans? Do you not pay attention at all? At least the ones who didn't pick Bush made some good suggestions, namely Dick Cheney and Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson doesn't seem to be funny - just funny lookin! I'm not sure if Dick Cheney knows how to smile. He does grin, but his grin looks like somebody took a key and twisted his face until it became grin-like. Ah, I'm sure Dick is delightful in private company!

I read a lot of Chicago-centric websites, and every now and then a debate will arise about some annoying part of live in the Second City, such as the sorry state of the El, annoying fans at baseball games, the general crowdiness of the place, and the bucket boys who frequent crowded areas. As soon as the debate gets heated, somebody will drop this bomb: "If you don't like it, move to Naperville!"

Naperville, of course, is the utopian ideal of a suburb. It has lovely homes, great schools, lots of parks, a charming downtown, and chain stores out the wazoo. (It's also home to one of only two Chicago outlets of my favorite establishment, BD's Mongolian Barbeque.) It routinely makes the list of best cities to live in.

Despite all these advantages, Naperville frequently gets blasted by urban Chicagoans for its blandness, whiteness, and lack of personality. I can't say Naperville is all of these things. A person could have a quite fulfilling existence in Naperville, but indeed it would likely be relatively dull for a person used to life in Chicago. Simply having to drive everywhere would be a major change.

Nevertheless, I think the people who are dismissive of Naperville are missing the point. There's lots of problems in Chicago. High taxes. Crime. Vandalism. Corruption. It's something we all have to deal with, but suggesting somebody who complains about it ought to move to Naperville if he doesn't like it isn't going to solve anything. In fact, I think, much like a Hitler reference, any argument about moving to Naperville should mean you automatically lose the debate.

Why shouldn't we want to improve the city? Is it a bad thing to make the place more livable? It shouldn't be. Maybe, just maybe, trying to make certain things about Chicago more like Naperville wouldn't be a bad thing.

When I was a kid, I was worried about lots of things. Like the house burning down, or my cat Sam getting hit by a car, or a nuclear war destroying the world. I was a worrisome child.

One of my greatest fears, and the most realistic, was catching chicken pox. Anytime one of my classmates in school got the chicken pox, I'd keep far away, frightened that I might one day catch this horrific illness. It may as well have been the black plague. Or AIDS. I used to worry about catching HIV. I guess I still should, now that I think about it. But how's a 10-year old kid going to get HIV? (No suggestions, you pervs.)

So, eventually I did get chicken pox, in the fifth grade. It was one of the mildest cases of chicken pox you could ask for, so much so that my mom thought I'd probably get it again. I barely had any sores, it hardly itched, and I was only out of school for like a day. (Son of a bitch!)

Now, they have a chicken pox vaccine. Nevertheless, some parents are wary of vaccines - citing what I would consider a specious link to autism, for example. These parents aren't content to vaccinate their kids from chicken pox. But it's not enough to let children grow up without catching chicken pox, because it can turn into shingles when you're an adult, which I hear is kind of painful. And maybe deadly.

Instead, these parents have taken a page from swingers, dominatrixes, and anonymous sex enthusiasts: they're using the internet to arrange "chicken pox parties."

Keller did not trust the chickenpox vaccine, so she was arranging for her children to get immunity the old-fashioned way, by catching the disease from an infected child and muddling through weeks of itchiness. Such chickenpox parties were also held in the pre-vaccine era because some experts argued it was safest for kids to get the disease early in life, when the effects tend to be relatively mild.

Although most pediatricians today advise against chickenpox parties, some parents who avoid the vaccination for medical or religious reasons seek out such get-togethers on Internet message boards. Those who have tried it say the strategy takes commitment, persistence and a dose of good luck.

Keller, a stay-at-home mom from Burbank, said going to the party also required resisting some of her instincts as a parent.

"It was so ironic and strange to be driving out to this house, hoping that my kids would get sick," Keller said. "That's pretty much what you spend your entire life avoiding.

Most pox parties resemble an ordinary playdate, with extra measures to aid infection. Many parents encourage the children to share whistles, lollipops or Popsicles. One mom said her kids shared T-shirts with the infected kids, and another said they rubbed lollipops on the sores.

Looking for an extremely attractive female
to make ex-girlfriend jealous. Just hang out at a Wrigleyville
bar for a couple hrs. a few times. That's it. If
interested please send photo and contact info.

* Compensation: $50.00/hr

I mean, I can hang out. You don't even have to pay me. Buy me a beer, is all I need!

I don't know think if this guy's ex saw him hanging out with another guy she'd be jealous. She'd probably be horrified to think he turned gay, or more likely, wonder who his fiendishly handsome new buddy is. (That's me, obviously.)

You know what? I'm over this whole hurricane business. As I write this, Hurricane "Ike" is bearing down on Texas, and is likely to flood the bejesus out of Galveston and Houston. I truly hope that all those in the way of the hurricane are safe, and that they return to find their property also safe.

However, I think I've had it with the hurricane naming system. It's simple, really. Each tropical storm and hurricane is given a name, so as to make them easier to identify in case multiple storms should form at the same time. Also, it helps to portray storms as almost humanlike. It also helps for songs. (Incidentally, when I make a mix CD, I also give it a person's name. So there.)

The current system, though, is unfair. It always starts with A, then goes in alphabetical order. So, unless there's an exceptional amount of hurricanes, the people with names lower in the alphabet get the metaphorical shaft. Do you know there has never been a Hurricane Tim? Sure it made the list once, but what are the odds of there being 20 hurricanes in one year? Scant, I tell you, scant! I, and all people with names like Rick, or Zach, or Wanda, ought to consider this a personal affront. What's so cool about an A name, anyway? Everybody knows the people who get called on first are all brown-nosers anyway.

There's only one way to remedy this. One year, the list starts at A; the next year, it starts at Z, and goes in reverse alphabetical order. This shouldn't be too hard of a concept. Anyone who's sober can say the alphabet backwards, so it shouldn't be so hard for naming storms.

It's only fair.

Conversely, I get why Jewish people might be concerned about their children marrying gentiles. For example, one particular dentist was so adamant that his grandchildren marry fellow Jews, that his will disinherited any of them who married outside the faith. Naturally, the grandchildren disobeyed this wish, and now they're involved in a lawsuit wherein the Illinois courts must determine whether they can enforce such clauses in wills. The arguments for are that to cancel the clause would destroy the wishes of the decedent, and as it is his money/assets he can do with it as he pleases, even if such wishes are politically incorrect. On the other hand, opponents argue that courts shouldn't enforce discriminatory clauses like this, and that to do so would allow a "dead man's hand" to control distributions of assets.

Not to get all legal-googly on you, but the courts should keep the will as it is. The will isn't taking property from anyone, it merely expresses who it should go to. And although the will is not a "nice" or even prudent thing, it's his directive and it should be obeyed.

Now, back to the Indians. Here's Devendra Banhart's music video for Carmensita, which features non-Indian (but Israeli) Natalie Portman as an Indian princess in a Bollywood-inspired video. After this, the pube-showing Banhart and Portman started to date, which really is just kind of gross. I should have learned to play a guitar. And sing. And also express myself emotionally instead of hiding behind jokes about other people... God I need a hug.

It was a little before my time, but the 1968 Democratic National Convention took place 40 years ago here in Chicago. It was, to say the least, a mess.

The Tribune has a nice retrospective about it, including a photo gallery, newspaper articles, and the like. It makes the shenanigans in Denver and St. Paul last week look like small potatoes, doesn't it?