Everyone has seen the pirate before. And the witch. And especially the ghost.

The best halloween costumes are those that stand apart from the rest, so to win costume contests they have to be both new and clever. An extremely well-crafted vampire costume is still one that people have seen dozens and dozens of times before, so the best halloween costumes are things that require a little more creativity to create. If you can get a few friends involved, concept costumes are always a popular choice. The key is to create a mix of the obscure and recognizable, something people have not seen before, but that's not so out there that you'll end up explaining your outfit all night. For example, one group decided to dress as the cast of Happy Days, and a particularly tall father dressed like the Empire State building, while his small children dressed as a gorilla and a woman in a fancy dress.

Try to avoid flavor of the moment costumes, as those end up being a popular choice for everyone and not particularly memorable. Are you still raving about the hilarious Balloon Boy costume someone had in 2009? Do you even remember what that movie was all about? Probably not. Instead, try for a clever but simple costume. One idea is to write Go Ceilings! on a shirt and carry pom-poms around all night. You're a ceiling fan. This list from the website Real Simple calls these costumes last minute, but actually contains come clever choices that could win you accolades at a halloween party.

Play off your abilities to make the costume work. If you are great at craft-making, use that to stitch together garments you find at a Salvation Army. If make-up is more your thing, try your hand at becoming the zombie version of your favorite celebrity. Even your natural attributes can make for an interesting costume. If you are unusually tall, try fashioning shoes just below your knee and planks of wood that extend from there to the ground. Voila: you're a normal-size person on stilts.

The presentation is also key to a winning Halloween costume. It isn't enough to dress like Bill Murray from Ghostbusters. You have to keep in character all night. If your group of friends dress like the McDonald's characters and you are the Hamburglar, you'd better be snatching people's food all night if you want to win best costume.

Over the years I've collected many items for blog reviews and neglected to ever write a lick of anything about them. This has gotten worse in the past year with all the house, wedding, and now pregnancy business I've been handling. Instead of letting the plethora of pictures of products go to waste because a review is long overdue, I'm going to give each of them a short spotlight. Here we have the first few representations of months and months of neglected blogs.

We're in a world where society seems like it's on the verge of banning children under 16 from even going down a grocery store aisle the contains candy under fear  promoting childhood obesity. The candy corporations have to fight for our attention now even harder than ever, and there's no better way to do that than to change something on our favorite treats and slap a big shiny "NEW" sticker on it. It certainly worked for me in the case of Hershey's Air Delight. It seems like some sort of scam that Hershey's is running, but I'm trying to think of it more along the lines of a whipped chocolate or even just a more air-centered candy like malt balls. However, trying to gain a different angle on this new candy bar by our beloved Pennsylvania based candy manufacturer doesn't eliminate the factor that's it's really not that great. I predict less than a year manufacturing lifespan for this confection.


Delight? Yes. In the same way that I'm "delighted" when I have a tickle in my throat and find an old, sticky cough drop in the bottom of my purse among the 500 pennies, lost earrings, and crumbs. If you want chocolate, it'll do the job. It's not bad, per se. The added element of air just does nothing to enhance the chocolate-tasting experience and the texture just seems unusual. Nestle has a similar product called Aero, which hasn't been available in the US market -- maybe there isn't much of a taste for bubbles state-side.

A recent sales ad for Boyer's Food Market displays a sale for Keebler Cookies, and in this small section a package of Keebler Magic Middles is visible. I visited my local Boyer's and was unsuccessful in finding Keebler Magic Middles cookies. I searched two other stores and neither had them in stock. I now have an email out to Keebler and to Boyer's to inquire about the product.

I'll keep you posted with the updates.



Coincidentally, Chips Ahoy has recently developed a chocolate filled cookie as well.

Lately Fridays have been notoriously long due to work running thin by the end of the week. There's only so much I can do to perk up that won't show up in a piss test. By noon I've already listened to my favorite podcast, Tell 'em Steve-Dave, and I'm hunting for a caffeine jolt to get me through the next few hours. The other Friday I had originally intended to leave the office during lunch for an ice coffee, but instead found myself at a Dollar Tree in downtown Allentown.

The Dollar Tree was heavily traveled for a Friday afternoon, and the clientele were an issue from the moment I set foot in the door. As I was inspecting the Easter display in the front, I heard a frazzled, perplexed older woman asking the cashier in a very accusatory tone if he remembered to hand over her receipt. He told her he did, but she continued to stand there gawking and slowly repeating herself, thereby making everyone in line feel awkward. The store was full of people just like that, particularly in the ointment aisle. Thankfully there wasn't any interesting foaming blue raspberry ointment, so I didn't need to worry about beating down any slow elderly people.


I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, but it seemed like a great way to kill my lunch break. I hit a few jackpots. The bulk of it is up there. On the far left are diet Dots with Acai. Who knew the secret to weight loss could be obtained for $1 for 24 doses! Now I can save thousands on surgery connecting my mouth directly to my asshole. Bikini season, here I come!

Also on the health aids spectrum we have super hero soap. Specifically, Batman Bubble Gum Blast scented hand soap. There were 2 other scents available, but bubblegum is the go-to generic kid-exclusive scent. However, it's not very creative on incorporating the B-man part. I would have gone with names like "Brooding Bubblegum" or "Scowling Strawberry."

I took several "in action" shots of me using the Epil-Stop hair removal lotion, but I've come to realize that the internet is far better off without seeing my hairy spider veins. You'll just have to take my word that it works pretty poorly unless you want to apply it to your legs three times to get the hair off. The smell is almost worth it, though. Instead of that normal horrid cucumber melon, this lotion comes in a refreshing Margarita Lime. It REALLY smells like margaritas, too!

Dear God of portable breakfast treats,

Thank you for Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts, but I have already written about those dry, thin pastries 5,000 times. Can't you give me something else new in the cereal aisle? Something that is low in calories and has no high fructose corn syrup?

Your pal,

Mystie

Put down those Pop-Tarts, get out of the breakfast aisle and into the bread aisle! The breakfast aisle only pounds out one fun idea per decade, and to date there's still no sign of rainbow colored Wonderbread. This section of the grocery store is normally a total snooze, but during my last trip I found these awesome little Goldfish shaped sandwich breads.

They're based off the tremendously popular Goldfish crackers, a snacking staple. We've seen Goldfish crackers expand into some great horizons with their crackers, make awesome sweet graham snacks, and even dive into their own Campbell's soup. This was a movement I would never have predicted, but now can't imagine my life without. This is going to change the way I eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches.



Tonight it changed the way I eat veggie burgers with cheese, ketchup, and fried onions. My dinner was instantly 500x more fun. Next time I make turkey burgers, I'm going to mold them into Goldfish shapes, and my meal will smile at me while I devour it.

Extra long days at work often leave me forgetting to eat dinner until after 10p.m. and occasionally it's nice to just pick something up on the way home. Nothing hits that late evening fast food craving like a Happy Meal. Or tacos. But Taco Bell hasn't given me anything to blog about in years, if ever. McDonald's, on the other hand, has given me content out the wazoo. Besides, look at that box up there. No one can resist the simple lure of a Happy Meal box, saturated with the smell of chicken nuggets and fries.

When I pulled into the drive-in there was no boards displaying the current selection of Happy Meal toys. The teen on window duty that night must have been either new or highly distracted, because I asked him a couple of times if they had the My Little Pony Happy Meal with no response and then I just had him tell me which toys they DID have. I forgive him, because he kinda giggled when I grabbed my box all wide-eyed and smiley saying, "I love when they come in boxes." The emoticon translation of this interaction is such:





Holy crap. Someone laced the pony trough with ecstasy. When did they turn into Powerpuff Girls 'n Friends? This is too much saccharin for me. The eyes are huge, they're taking up the cheeks and everything. Even the logo has gotten cuter.

Only one side of the box was dedicated to ponies. You can see the G3 favorites like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. It also clarifies that the pony hiney markings are called "Cutie Marks," which was a term that was only coined in recent years. The only activity on the box is a small circle that suggests you design your own cutie mark. No pop-outs to turn the box into a castle, no connect-the-dots, no search and find -- just a blank circle. It's about the least effort possible on a Happy Meal box I've seen in years.


I got Twilight Sparkle, which sounds like the name of an Edward Cullen body lotion. She's very purple and accent in pink which makes for a happy Mystie. Her purple sparkle stand is supposed to double as a comb, but the teeth are so large that her entire tail fits between them. I can forgive this, because she's a unicorn, which makes her super extra special. She also has her hoof raised in a jaunty fashion like a pinky finger in the air. Judging by how big her picture is on the box, I think I got the pick of the litter. I will grow bored of her slightly less earlier for that.