Halloween is about pretending to be scary. Dressing up little kids as zombies and Dracula and Sponge Bob isn’t really scary, it’s cute. No one is really frightened of the kids, and the kids aren’t scared of each other. There is no real fear on Halloween. It’s more like an inoculation against fear. Kids toy with evil, and monsters, and the various horrors of the imagination, and in doing so, lessen their fear of them.

The only people really scared on Halloween are parents. Most parents are terrified of the idea that their kids are roaming around, knocking on strange doors, and bringing home the food given to them. It flies right in the face of the age old axiom, “Don’t take candy from Strangers”. On October 31st, the rule becomes, “Don’t take candy from Strangers, unless you are dressed like a giant pumpkin.”

But how dangerous is this? Do razor blades find their way into the fun sized Kit-Kat bar? Do devious criminals inject their candied apples, (which nobody eats any way) with powerful neurotoxins for their own sick amusement?

No. It doesn’t happen.

From about.com, referencing work by Sociologist Joel Best:

Despite a very few well-publicized cases of alleged Halloween candy tampering during the 1960s and 1970s — nearly all of which were found to be false or unverifiable upon further investigation — no child has ever been injured or killed as a result of ingesting adulterated candy, apples, or other treats collected on Halloween.

See? So chill out America. Yes, there are real monsters out there, but lets not ruin everybody’s fun, playful flirtation with the horrific by burdening them with their parent’s paranoid, much more damaging fear. The last thing a kid wants to think about today is being poisoned, or sodomized by a stranger dressed as Snoopy. We can get back to passing our anxieties on to the young of America tomorrow.

News is breaking that Robert Goulet, the Canadian Crooner, has died.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Robert Goulet, a Tony- and Grammy-winning actor and singer best known for his towering, romantic portrayal of Sir Lancelot in “Camelot” both onstage and in the movies, died Tuesday. He was 73.

Goulet died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles while awaiting a lung transplant after being diagnosed with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis in September. He had a cancerous prostate removed in 1993.

He had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

“Just watch my vocal cords,” she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

Sucks. I sort of liked him for some bizarre reason. Not his music so music, but the personality. He’s one of these really old school guys that we are starting to run out of.

This week JK Rowling, author of the little known Harry Potter books, announced that the predominant patriarch of the series, Albus Dumbledore, is a homosexual.

So here’s the problem I have with that: I wouldn’t have cared if she had outed him in book 7, in some scene where Dumbledore’s secret love letters to the Minister for Magic are discovered in a hollowed out boot or something. Whatever. My problem is that JK Rowling chose to divulge this information WELL AFTER THE SERIES HAD ENDED. I am starting to get really irritated with these iconic creators, coloring their highly respected works with off hand comments, outside of any narrative structure, for no apparent reason whatsoever. (Yes you George Lucas.) This senseless, haphazard character development is lazy, at best, and disillusioning, at it’s most sinister. She has laid out a pretty major character point, not in the books, where she could have tried to construct that part of his story with some grace, enriching the depth of Dumbledore’s complex emotional situation, broadening the scope of her story, and possibly opening a mind or two about tolerance in the process, but in front of a group of fans at Carnegie Hall were given no chance to absorb the information in the proper context. This is a divisive issue, and deserved clearer treatment.

Why? I mean, anyone could do that. If you consider any crazy ass thing said about a book after the fact by its author as 100% viable continuity, then you open yourself up for all manner of convenient revisions for all manner of reasons. Stephen King could just come out and say “Hey everybody, Pennywise the Evil Child Eating Clown from It? Yeah. He is secretly a member of Al Qaeda. And the group of kids that join together twice over 25 years to defeat him? Totally federal agents.” See? Stupid. No, my policy is this: If it wasn’t in the book, it didn’t happen. Couldn’t fit it in? Couldn’t make it work? Too bad. Either revise the story, and put out a new version, or stamp your comments as wanton character speculation. Now, with the way she’s done this, no one has any ability to evaluate the information for themselves. We just have to take her word for it, and assume that it would have worked in the story had she been able to cram that little tidbit in somewhere. It sells the work short, and is a little disrespectful to the audience. It’s weak. Dumbledore’s gay? Fine. She should have said so when she was writing Harry Potter books. Now that it’s completely over, arbitrarily outing him makes no sense whatsoever. Did he collect butterflies too? Oh well, who cares, it obviously had nothing to do with the story or she would have mentioned it in any one of the thousands of pages she wrote in the series. So lets make a deal. Anything an author says a about their story, that isn’t actually in the text, is bull crap speculation. Informative, yes, but speculation none the less.

David Copperfield, who is under investigation for being a creepy pervert, is in even more trouble. He had to drop a bunch of shows, because he’s busy trying to clear his name, and is now being sued by the Promoters who paid him handsome sums in advance. He, of course, doesn’t want to give any of it back. Sucks for Copperfield. Everybody has lawyered up, and so let the games begin.

In further news, a bit more has been revealed about why FBI agents raided his warehouse:

During his show, Copperfield goes into the audience and chooses women to come on stage. If he likes a woman, he’ll use code words with assistants like “mama” and “secrecy,” TMZ reported.

The assistants mark the women on a map of the inside of the Hollywood Theater at MGM Grand. After the show, the women are brought backstage, and told that Copperfield may use them in his show when he comes to their hometown.

They are then photographed with a digital camera, asked questions like, “What is your favorite men’s cologne?” and “Where do you like to vacation?”

One of those vacation spots mentioned by staff is the Bahamas, TMZ reported, where the accuser claims she was assaulted. Copperfield owns a cluster of islands in the Bahamas — which he bought for $50 million.

See? Sort of creepy. And I still can’t get over the fact that he’s so rich. He owns a bunch of Bahamian Islands. That’s amazing. I’m gonna go learn a few card tricks.

Wanna play Donkey Kong? Alright then, click here. Still fun, even after 26 years. Enjoy.

What the hell is going on over at David Copperfield’s house? Read this:

FBI Raids Magician David Copperfield’s Warehouse

Magician David Copperfield has been linked to an FBI investigation, authorities confirmed Thursday.

A Las Vegas warehouse operated by Copperfield was raided by 12 agents Wednesday night, TV station KLAS reports. A computer hard drive, digital camera system, and nearly $2 million in cash were seized, the station reports.

Holy Crap. I had totally forgotten about David Copperfield. The most shocking part of the article came near the end:

Copperfield is among the richest entertainers in the world. According to Forbes, Copperfield earned $57 million in 2003, ranking him that year as the 10th-highest paid globally.

Really? I had no idea. I can’t believe that he makes that much money. I thought the real loot in the illusion game went to assholes like David Blane. Although I suppose that, depending on whatever that crazy raid is all about, magic might not be how David Copperfield makes his money. I guess we’ll find out.

Guess what?!?!? It’s only 69 more days until Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who else is excited?

Yeah.

Me neither.

Better start that Pre-Halloween Christmas shopping soon, because before you know it, the Pre-Thanksgiving Christmas shopping season will be here, and won’t you look foolish when November 22 arrives and you don’t have any shopping done.

The new episode of Fat Robot Radio is up here. Check it out.

Bobby Brown, musical genius, has had a heart attack. He’s OK I guess. He’ll be fully recovered and smoking crack in no time. I’d like to make some kind of a “My Prerogative’ joke right here, but I can’t think of one. Instead, I will present a funny picture of the man himself:

Here’s an article about it.

I was watching this thing on the History Channel about various cultures, and their inevitable predictions as to when the apocalypse will, in fact, be nigh. The consensus among a few of them, and I don’t remember which ones so don’t ask, was that the last day ever will be December 21, 2012. The Mayans have a calendar, one of the most accurate astronomical calenders in existence, and it predicts that the world will end on that day. It has something to do with the alignment of earth and the sun, and some black hole at the center of the galaxy. Or something. If you want to know more, watch the special. Or read here about the Mayan Calendar. It’s a good article explaining the whole Mayan calendar thing. Wanna visit a really crazy website about the date? Go here. He didn’t want to make the site, however angels told him he must. Bummer. I hate it when omnipotent beings boss me around. Screw them.

So, do I believe this end of the world buisness? Of course not. It’s total bullcrap. Still though, I find the idea of a specific end date, and that one in particular, intriguing. First off, it’s the day of the winter solstice. That’s only four days before Christmas. Nobody will know what they got that year. Secondly, its a little over four years from now. That’s not too long. It’s high school away from now. Even though it’s most likely another in the countless string of dates on which our marvellous civilization has been slated to expire, we nonetheless decided to provide a little public service. That is why I am pleased to present, the official, Brain Pan Online, Apocalypse clock:

Everyone You Know Will Die In:

So do me a favor. Just look at the clock. Watch it count backwards. Think about how, if the Mayans and countless other people turn out to be right, each little second that slips away brings you one moment closer to the end of you and everything you know. It’s a weird sensation. Even if it’s not December 21, 2012, it’ll be some other date. Everybody has a date, we just don’t all have the clock to match.