The year without a Halloween?

Last night I got together for dinner at Bonefish Mac's (an Irish/sports grille, but with the emphasis on sports -- I've only ever seen and been to one Irish restaurant: The Harp in Cleveland, Ohio) with my old friends Reid and Casey. My sister went along too. My sister and Casey had fallen out, but surprisingly, they got along just fine. Reid, whom I hardly get to see anymore, has always been into acting, and now he's in his third year at a distant artsy school where he studies it. He's even been to L.A., and next year his family is moving either to California or Australia (for his dad's job). California would be more conducive to building an acting career. While the four of us were chatting, my sister said that mentioning Hitler was a great conversation stopper. Reid answered, "Yeah, you can't laugh about Hitler. It's against the rules."

Today is Halloween. The effects of Hurricane Wilma have sure dampened Halloween spirits (har har) around here. The storm canceled two parties (a week apart!) that I wanted to go to. And since many people are more concerned about getting electricity and ice than candy, trick-or-treating seems to be down from previous years.

So I exaggerate a little by calling this "the year without a Halloween." But truth be told, I don't really feel like trick-or-treating this year for several reasons. First, I never eat all the candy I get, and I just started the No S Diet. Second, it's not going to be too exciting anyway, especially because it looks like a ghost town (har har) outside. Third, I would be spending it with my friends, and right now I'd rather be alone. Introverts need to "recharge" alone after spending time with other people. Extroverts do not understand this, and I cannot explain it to you.

So here I am waiting for more kids to come for candy. Only a handful have showed up, but it's still early, I guess. Daylight Saving Time ended yesterday, and so we're spending our precious daylight by making it get dark earlier (actually, this is how it's supposed to be). Maybe now that it's dark, people will be in the mood for trick-or-treating... or, considering the circumstances of this unfortunate Halloween, they won't.

High-speed photography + liquids + a lot of spare time = Liquid Sculpture.

Wikipedia is full of pages linked to each other. So you know that this had to come up eventually: Six Degrees of Wikipedia. For example, how many links to you have to follow to get from "Michelangelo" to "lima bean"? In this case, precisely six.