I’m a big fan of Halloween, and now that we own a house in a neighborhood full of kids, I can fully indulge in my love of the holiday. This year, our treats on offer were: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (full size), Snickers, Milky Ways, Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Bottle Caps, Runts, gummy body parts, and skull and spider rings. I like to think we make a good showing, particularly by allowing two selections. No need to be stingy.

My sister-in-law, who helped us hand out candy to all of the trick-or-treaters this year, made an interesting observation at the end of the night. Whenever someone sees Nerds, they will, seemingly without fail and not even necessarily with any overt emotion, say “Nerds.”

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I stood at the coffee pot this morning, noticing our coffee grounds canister was low, so I reached up in to the cabinet to dump out more from the bags. As I brought them down, I realized suddenly why I’ve been so groggy after my morning coffee and why my weekend pre-coffee headache hadn’t subsided as it normally does.

Somehow, I neglected to buy any caffeinated coffee and have been blending two types of decaf beans into a distinct brew of…decaffeinated coffee.

Where’s my Nobel Prize? Where is it? I am leading the human race forward here, people.

Yesterday during an IM conversation about United Airlines shutdown with my friend Steve, I wondered aloud if the reason why legacy carriers are so terrible at managing the actual experience of commercial flight is because all of their tasks break down into two categories:

1) Things that can kill hundreds of people.

2) Things that won’t.

I could see a lot of office conversations at UAL going something like this:

Sir, people don’t like the food or the leg room on our planes. They also don’t like losing their luggage 25% of the time. I’M KEEPING PEOPLE FROM TURNING INTO PULLED PORK IN AN INFERNO OF JET FUEL AND TOILET SANITIZING AGENT RIGHT NOW. I’LL GET TO THE TRUFFLES AND BELLHOPS LATER, JOHNSON.”

I’m guessing when you have two daily to-do lists on your desk, the one that does not involve preventing catastrophic tragedy tends to get balled up and used for waste basketball more often than the other.

A brilliant idea, put forth by my man Jon:

They should rig things such that posting a comment on YouTube takes a month off your life. If you think about it, it’s win-win all around.

Someone should get to work on this immediately. Google, I know you’re watching this.

I understand that it may both be rapid and a test, but I’m going to have to still vote No on the name.

In marketing, it often helps to ask a few people about your idea before sending it out into the world.

I was taking the 1 train back to the office from a press check today and next to me stood a trio of 15-ish year-old girls, dressed in a punk-esque manner that simultaneously communicates an unsettling worldliness and a certain degree of naïveté, chatting about something or other. They had the appearance of the kind of subway chatterers I try to tune out. But as I queued up closer to the door for my upcoming stop, their conversation came into focus. They seemed to be discussing graduation requirements of some sort, as well as graduation ceremonies generally.

The first comment I distinctly caught was, “They said that we’re the future,” to which one of the others responded, “I hate it when they say that.” She laughed and they all agreed, continuing, “I just want to say: what does that make you?”

Indeed.

You know what I love? When news programs interview stranded travellers in airports during snowstorms, fog, etc. Their viewpoints are so refreshing and unexpected. They usually run something like this:

Reporter: We know that there have been 4,000 delays and cancelled flights this holiday weekend, stranding people like yourself here in Industrial Parkway International Terminal of Gray Dispair. How long have you been here? Traveller: I’ve been here for 3 days. Last night, I slept inside of my garment bag, on Section A, level 3, area K48 of the parking garage. My mouth tastes like Orange Julius all the time now. Reporter: Do you feel that aiport officials are looking out for you, the traveller? Traveller: Well, I don’t think the people in the airport can be held accountable for the weather, but the administrators are clearly a bunch of idiots. I mean, it snows, like, every year, right? So why do we have such problems? If I was a boss of an airport, I would just send my flights to another airport or call everyone up and tell them that they didn’t have a flight anymore as soon as the weather got bad. I don’t know what’s so hard about that. It seems like such an obvious solution. Reporter: Well, there you have it. Shit be mad nuts and managing airports is totally easy.

Seriously, I DON’T CARE. John Q. Public has no idea what it takes to run an international or national air travel hub (and neither do I). Airports are badly managed, but it’s not because they just aren’t trying. Also, I’ve been in an aiport before, so I know that simply stepping through the doors on a sunny day still makes your life notably worse. Just…just stop. Please.

Just a reminder, Eggnog Season started a week or two ago. Be sure to start drinking up* now, because after the new year starts, you’re out of luck. It’s a small blessing that the Christmas MindAssault doesn’t start until after Eggnog Season begins. Build up your good will now. It’ll keep you bright and cheery in the face of all that Bright Cheeriness looming over the horizon.

*Non-alcoholic eggnog. Rum is for pirates.

1) I went to WaWa this evening to get a sandwich and I remembered that they’re offering milkshakes now, so I ambled over to their shake-making device and decided to put the…the…I can’t believe they call it this…the “F’Real Shake”…to the test.

Now, I’m a fan of a good strawberry shake made with real ingredients and well-blended (no unpleasant strawberry gibs in my nicely-textured shake, thanks). So much so, that I even used to drink shakes at Burger King and McDonald’s (not anymore). My stand-by is the chocolate shake, but a good strawberry shake can really hit the spot. So I am always on the hunt for a good shake hit where I can get one. In spite of my doubts about WaWa, I had to know for sure.

The WaWa shake, unlike other frozen beverages, is stored in a separate freezer, to be blended in front of you in the body of the F’Real Shake machine. F’real. The beverage comes in a foil-topped plastic cup (also F’Real) which you open and fit into what I will now refer to as the F’Real Shake Seat of Ascendancy. Upon seating your cup in its steel chariot, you select your thickness as prompted by the little LCD display. Not wanting to tempt fate, I chose the regular thickness, fearing a syrupy goo or an unyielding mass of solid ice cream. The F’Real Frozen Shake Media in its F’Real Shake Cup is then carried aloft by the F’Real Shake Seat of Ascendancy into the Chamber of Shake Makin’ F’Real. The machine bumps and jostles a bit as it clearly uses some sort of terrible burr grinder to convert the F’Real Frozen Shake Media into a F’Real Shake full of urban cachet and dairy. The sound is uncannily like a dentist working in your mouth with powered dental instruments. The newly F’Real’ed F’Real Shake descends from the mouth of the machine, oddly only about 3/4 full, complete and remarkably smooth. In fact, I think I did remark to no one in particular that it was remarkably smooth, proving that to be true.

The shake was actually not that bad. It lacked the overpowering strawberry flavor of some shakes and didn’t have the disturbing texture that other fast food shakes have. It was, as I said, remarkably smooth. This, combined with the thickness, allowed one to drink the bottom of the shake out from under the top, which was a tad aggravating. But overall, a bearable shake. Though I don’t know that it’ll be a regular or even a repeat purchase, as the process still weirds me out F’Real. Plus, that’s the stupidest fucking name for anything, ever, anywhere (they don’t even use the name in the ads).

2) Last night, when I was in dire need of some sleep, around 10:00 PM, the power in our neighborhood went out. The whole area was dark, but that wasn’t really an issue for us, as we were a bit more focused on the lack of air conditioning. Philly was doing its best impression of an armpit and our bedroom was designed extremely well to restrict airflow as much as possible, particularly when one window is plugged with a large metal box that says “Cool” and “Fan” on the front. As I lay on the bed with successively fewer layers and progressively more water molecules gathering about me, I pondered the possible causes of the blackout and also the fact that I no longer had internet access. I concluded that we probably suffered a crippling initial strike by a functioning North Korean Nodong and was struck with fear that nobody would be able to post a warning blog entry about it, becuase the internet is meant to function during times of war, but only if your computer and router run on rubble and crying, rather than electricity. This progressed into making a laundry list of things that run on electricity and how screwed we’d all be if we all didn’t have any for a week. Then, around 2:00 AM, the power came back on and I was lulled to sleep by my conveniences.

3) Ze Frank’s the show is the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages and he does it every weekday. I’d like to thank my friend Adam for linking to this episode, as it set me on the path of Sports Racerhood. I’ve worked my way through the roughly 4 months of them he’s done so far. His delivery style is frenetic, with lots of fast cuts and quick, quirky humor. It’s sort of a DIY Daily Show with more in-jokes. Very, very worth it. I also recommend this one.

4) There’s a new Rocky movie coming out. Here are my thoughts on that: