Happy Halloween, everyone! Above are some of our jack o'lanterns (there are more on the Flickr site). If you don't have any yet, you can carve up some virtual pumpkins and pretend!

Tonight's episode of the Conan O'Brien show will be in skelevision, with everyone shown as skeletons. Yep. Our Emergo of Meet Cleaver Theatre is furious that he isn't involved!

Speaking of MCT, we have a new (very short) episode up. It's not for the squeamish, but you can sympathize as a lab rat's fantasies of hot guinea pigs are dashed to bits with a gory trailer.

Why not sponsor a vampire bat for Halloween? They need love, too!

The Vampyreverse probably needs some love as well. Although they may just need blood.

And finally, if you're trick-or-treating tonight, check out the streets you're on and see if they qualify as true Freak Streets. Every state has them! Have fun, everyone!

And here I am, back in time for Halloween. I will natter on about the conference at some point soon, but right now I'll get back to links.

• There's now another possible solution to the mystery of what happened to Agatha Christie during her eleven-day disappearance: a fugue state. (Bunny thinks he had one of these happen to him once, although it was for considerably less time.)
• Artist Michael Fleming is creating virtual monster cards for the Halloween season.
• The sounds of the season, meanwhile, can be heard at ScarStuff.
• The space invaders have taken over Amsterdam! Beware of the Amsterinvaders!
• Apparently TV show theme songs are dying out. I can't really say this is a bad thing, even though my brain still has several theme songs from the '70s and '80s playing on brain radio occasionally.
• Speaking of nothing, did you know David Byrne has an online journal?
• And finally, for the photography lovers, check out these images from 1930s German culture magazines. Great stuff.

Right now I'm watching a keynote address given by an esteemed librarian who is also known as Galataea, Level 60 Troll Priestess in World of Warcraft. This is the coolest conference ever!

The photos are going up pretty quickly on Flickr (others are putting them up too - the tag is il2006 if you'd like to see other points of view); text posts and links - lots and lots of links - are to follow soon!

The photos are starting to go up!

Hello from Monterey! Those of you following along can check out the Information Today's blog for some photos and info; I'm going to be uploading some photos to my Flickr account during the day as well. (It's only 10 am here. I'm early!)

Some fun information about the conference so far: 1250 attendees from 48 states and nine countries. What's the correct term for a large group of librarians? A shelf? A collection?

More as the day goes on...

Today: links from others! Thanks, everyone!

From Holly: Old School Sesame Street and Electric Company DVDs are coming out next week!

From both Holly and Bunny: an exhibit of gay animals in Oslo. Nice scarves there, penguins!

From Bunny: an invisibility cloak is on the way. Oooo.

Also from Bunny: wanna see what happens when you throw a live grenade into a washing machine? Sure you do!

From Glenna: a grisly story about body parts and funeral directors. Never trust a mortician. (I'm kidding, mortician readers; I know you're out there.)

From Zazoo: how WOXY was saved. Long live the future of rock and roll!

Okay. As I've said several times, I'm off to Monterey for Internet Librarian next week, and updates will happen but will be sporadic and probably pretty heavy on library stuff. But there may be pictures too! Have a spiffy weekend, and see you sometime next week.

First, a public service announcement: the stingrays are mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more, so look out.

Next week Folderol will go all erratic, all-library and on California time, since I'll be at Internet Librarian (and look, it has its own wiki!) Sunday-Thursday. I have a laptop and might actually use it to blog!

For Roald Dahl lovers: there's talk of a remake of The Witches. This could be good. Potentially. Maybe. I hope.

More childhood fun: Encyclopedia Brown for District Attorney!

And finally, not library-related but good clean spooky fun: combine LEGOs with LEDs to make spooooooky figurines. Awesome.

Tomorrow: links from others!

So I'm just going along this morning, working away, drinking some pumpkin spice coffee to get into the spirit of the season...and then bam! The cod are disappearing! They're remaking Sisters, which completely freaked me out as an urchin! Workers are being encouraged to transmogrify into robotic zombies! (That last link found via the Librarian in Black, by the way.) I'll be hiding under the bed for the rest of the day.

Spooky history link of the day: in the 19th century, a man made a God Machine, and then it was (possibly) destroyed by a mob. Or not. It's hard to tell.

I am not exactly a big Martha Stewart fan, but I have to admit she comes up with some good Halloween decorating ideas. So here is my one link of the year to the true dark side.

Tis the season for spooky candy! Via the CandyBlog, I found gummy brains, some organic Halloween candy, and a Fair Trade goodie bag.

If you prefer the candy of yesteryear, you can go on a virtual nostalgia trip. I think I remember that vampire bubble gum machine display.

The Graveworm points out an article that tracks how quickly the signs of human civilization would disappear if we all vanished tomorrow. The planet would do quite well, apparently. There are projects, like LongNow, which are attempting to preserve a bit more information in case of future visitors.

Or you could just wear a scientific scarf or tie. Carpe diem!

October art links mean that it's time for spiderweb construction photos and monster brains.

The Tate Museum currently has a slide as an installation! I'm loving this recent London obsession with slides.

Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag were companions for fifteen years, and Annie is now publishing a book of photographs.

Not really art-related, but fascinating in this election season: the Congressional Family Business Project is a bipartisan attempt to discover whose family members are accetping whose money. Interesting stuff.

It's (Spooky) Links from Others Day again. Thanks, everyone!

From Joseph: how to be properly evil, and (unrelated, unless you hate anagrams) the Internet Anagram Server.

From Courtney: the one, the only Fangoria!

From Glenna: a live production of Night of the Living Dead in California and a top ten list of immortals.

From Dr. Soooper Sloow Mann: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs invade Project Runway, and the birds and bees you learn about might be gay.

From Bunny: they're thinking of tracking airline passengers with RFID. Lovely.

From the Graveworm: the Battle of the Album Covers (genius).

Have a spiffy weekend and wonderfully spooky Friday the 13th, everyone! See you Monday.

Hi there. Internet Librarian is coming up and I've been way behind in current library events (due to work, ironically enough). I've been missing out on some great stuff going on in library weblogs, like the Digital Librarian meeting Mr. T and Target's new naughty librarian Halloween costume (!) and this ad for a fake 1987 library workout tape, which is hilarious to anyone who either has worked in a library or lived through the '80s. See, library weblogs are awesome.

Also, Al Gore is going to speak at the SLA conference in Denver next year. I'm scheming a way to go.

It's another day of linking to Dark But Shining, this time for a collection of great Halloween books for kids.

And finally, many librarians quoted in this article are going to be at Internet Librarian. Come to Monterey and meet them! And say hi to the shy spooky librarian in the corner!

Due to exciting network difficulties, Wednesday's post is going up this morning; later on Thursday's post will go live. Got it? Oh, good.

Lisa Snellings is having a Halloween sale on poppets! I love Poppet Grim.

Friday the 13th is coming! There are spooky things a-happening to mark the occasion, but in Copenhagen they're taking the high road and having a night of culture instead.

Consider the stargate (not the movie or TV series, but the actual portal to other dimensions). Is there one in Peru? Is there one in Arizona? Since stargates are not exactly portable, you could always buy an inflatable church instead and tote it around for worshipping purposes or performance art!

Dark But Shining has an excellent post which points out the similarities between today's alleged alien abductions and yesteryear's alleged faerie abductions. Spooky, fascinating psychological stuff.

Today's theme: crazy animals! Elephants are attacking humans to the point that there's an actual "Human Elephant Conflict" (HEC) category among researchers. (Thanks, Glenna!) The bones of a giant camel have been discovered in Syria (thanks, Mr. Graveworm). And then there are those freaky record store cats...

If you want to harass your fellow man (or woman), consider the Pikashoe. Zap! Pika pika! Or, if you're feeling friendlier, you could try playing Cruel To Be Kind, the game of benevolent assassination. Kill them with kindness!

I am back! Also, the Rookwood pottery in town is back! And Nightmare Before Christmas is coming out in digital 3-D on the 20th. Wow.

The Dr. Seuss School of Unorthodox Taxidermy would be right at home in the Haunted Mansion, or perhaps in the ultimate Halloween party, no?

Ptolemy makes creatures from hubcaps, and they're amazing. He also makes creatures from discarded shopping carts!

And Paris is planning a gigantic arts complex. It's a good art day.

Tonight I am off to Chicago to see Holly for a long weekend, so today is a combo day.

First off, the library links. I've been remiss in linking to the Library of Congress exhibits, which are always amazing. The Bound for Glory site shows America from 1939-1943 - in color!

Library Stuff has a great idea: the Library 2.0 drinking game at the Internet Librarian conference. I am going to be blogging (live!) from there in a few weeks. I will try not to post anything while drunk.

Here's a timeline in a state of constant flux, for the historians.

A site dedicated to the idea of an old-fashioned Halloween has sprung up, and it's quite lovely and Victorian-looking.

And now, the links from others! From the Graveworm, a fun little addicitive game in which you draw a hill and watch a doomed sled rider wipe out on your creation (read the instructions; I didn't and was confused at first). Also from the Graveworm: "Meanwhile, on Hoth, the rebels are fighting back."

From several sites: the Airport Security Game. It's hard.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday!

Today I am inundated with weird research requests. Without further ado, here are some freaky links; more may be coming once everything calms down a bit.

• Cows have regional accents. So do dogs!
• A story on Rennes-le-Chateau led to Pierre Plantard's page on Wikipedia, which makes excellent reading for anyone who read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and also has several offshoots into similarly bizarre people and places, like the Beale Ciphers in Virginia.
• And then there's Mount Weather, the probable "undisclosed location" that houses the higher-ups in times of great terror and is an actual place. Talk about freaky.

Last week the robot planes and taxis were on their way. This week we talk about real robots!

You may remember the Dark M&Ms "find the Scream painting" contest from a month or so ago. Since the painting was discovered almost immediately after the campaign began, the M&M site has a new contest: see how many scary movie titles you can identify in this painting.

With Celestia, you can pretend you're in space and zoom about the galaxy. Fun stuff. If you're feeling more earthbound, you can save up solar energy in a jam jar and use it at night to light your way (I think these would be awesome).

The new James Bond movie had a haunted plane on the set, according to crew members. Er, okay...

Happy October! Today we start the spooky links, plus some non-spooky bits as well for those of you not so attracted to the darkness. The first contributions: Headless Historicals , featuring a bevy of beautiful (albeit decapitated) dolls, and the Hippopotamouse Gallery, a spooky smorgasbord of Victorian surrealism. Ooooh, ahhhhh.

You can't keep a good station down; WOXY has once again risen from its deathbed! You go, 97X!

It turns out that art for the blind can get sort of annoying to its target audience; there's only so much tactile sensation one can take. This is an interesting piece on what art means to the sightless.

Was Shakespeare hungover while writing his plays? Well, sure, I bet he was, at least part of the time.