First and foremost… HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Here in Illinoisland, we trick or treated in some strange and quickly changing combination of blue skies and cool air as well as gray skies, snow, and high wind. And we were only out about an hour and a half. Weird.

And just like that… my season-starting seven-game win streak that has kept me at the top of my work fantasy football league all season has come to an end.

…we lose a Friend.

This weekend, we lost our first primary cast member from Friends, Matthew Perry. Chandler Bing himself.

As I enjoyed detailing what I did yesterday and again have nothing else to say, I’m going to detail a second visual effects job I did on a toy photo I took.

Just taking a moment to highlight a photo editing job I did for my hobby account. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Don’t ask me how, especially given my pitiful reading performance last month, but I managed, as of tonight, to finish all seven of the books I set out to read this month…

The three of us were planning on doing a Halloween theme cosplay of characters from Jurassic Park/Jurassic World this year. Katie was going to be Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Nate would be Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and I would be Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight).

I have seen some interesting methods which advertisers have used to lure people into downloading their apps.

WTF, Evite??? You assume that just because I set up the invitation and am hosting my son’s birthday party that I actually want to attend it???

I am so ridiculously proud of Nate for the photo he took today. This is the finished shot, post editing…

I decided to take all the books I could find that I have amassed recently and throw them in a must-read stack. It’s… big. Bigger than I expected. And it does not include graphic novels, e-books, or audiobooks.

Remember that show Designated Survivor with Kiefer Sutherland where he became president of the US because he was like 72nd in the line of succession after the entirety of the government was wiped out by a terrorist attack?

I think we have officially hit Peak Kelce (TM pending).

Polygon has released a day-by-day list called The Halloween Countdown that highlights some of the scariest stuff you can watch. As you'll see, "scariest" is definitely subjective. But what I like is that it's pretty diverse. 

The Bears are a really tough team to love. Incredibly tough.

Katie and I were caught off-guard this weekend when we looked in our cloud DVR and discovered that we had actual scripted TV shows in there waiting for us. Particularly, a couple episodes from this the final season of Magnum, P.I.

From apples to margaritas, that was our Sunday.

Throughout this past week, I ran yet another round of A Week of Victims on my hobby IG account in celebration of Friday the 13th. In case you need a reminder, this is when I take Jason Voorhees toys and have them menace other toys for fun.

22 years ago — under similarly downpouring conditions — Katie made me the happiest person alive by marrying me.

So how do Katie and I spend a Thursday night after Nate finally falls asleep?

A couple weeks ago, we placed the order for Nathan’s school photos online. The next day, he had his photos taken.

I found this on the web and thought it was pretty interesting. A state-by-state breakdown of the most popular Halloween candy by sales totals.

I was checking out my fantasy football (U.S.) team and noticed something weird...

I absolutely adore Google Chrome browser tab groups. I mean, it was pretty revolutionary when they introduced browser tabs way back whenever, but to then build on that by having browser tab groups where you can create a master tab with sub-tabs in them? I love being able to keep multiple tabs open that are related to a project and then group them under a client/project name. It has made my work life so much more manageable.

It’s so funny how obsessed I’ve become with Sam the little burlap-sack-headed kid from the cult favorite Halloween horror film Trick ‘r Treat.

Oh crap! I may have to add something to my October reading list. This is a must-read for this, the spookiest of all months!

Nate started the day like this…

As if it weren’t enough that we are paying out the wazoo to give Nate a beautiful smile, now he has to go and steal my lid!

Due to a lease dispute with the property owner, long-time downtown Chicago restaurant mainstay, the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the Hancock Center, is no more.

So a staunch Conservative Senator and Speaker of the House from California reaches across the aisle to come to an agreement with Democrats and avert a government shutdown — at least temporarily — and now one of his fellow douchebag Republicans — this one from Florida, which should come as no surprise — is threatening to have him removed from his leadership position in the party?

Ah, October! My favorite month of the year. I wish you could last forever. Alas, you’ll probably be done tomorrow.