Credit: Eric Bartholomew via Flickr

It’s that time of year again — that dark, cold, creepy, crawly time of year. Halloween is sneaking up on you. Boo!

The kids will be dressing up in their Halloween costumes. Cute little princesses to scary little monsters, they’ll all be knocking on your door. “Trick or treat!” Will you be ready? Do you have what it takes to have the coolest house this Halloween — the house all the kids will be talking about the next day?

While I can’t imagine why you’d want the best house this Halloween (after all it just means more money spent on candy and more time spent decorating), if you’ve got that competitive spirit here are a few tips for you. Don’t have just another house this Halloween. Have the coolest! Here’s how:

1. Forget those “fun size” candy bars.

Credit: Kelly Gifford via Flickr

Come on. You know it. I know it. All the little kiddies know it. There’s nothing “fun” about a miniature candy bar. Halloween, for kids, is like the ultimate treasure hunt. On one hand it’s a challenge to see how much they can get, and on the other hand it’s about which kid gets the best stuff! You know they sit around comparing their loot later. What will they have to say about your house?

The solution? Go full-size! Yep. Hand out full-size candy bars on Halloween and you’ll be the talk of the town! So few people do that anymore — you’ll be certain to bewitch the hearts of children all around your neighborhood. Yes it can get expensive. Then again, this is a holiday and it’s all for the kids! If you can’t cut it no one’s going to blame you. After all, the economy sucks. We all get it. Then again, bingeing a bit on Halloween can still be more affordable than doing the same on other holidays. If you have to choose one to go all-out on, this is the more affordable option.

Here’s one thing to keep in mind: unless you plan to give out those full-size candy bars next year too, you might want to skip them. You might be the coolest house this year if you give it a go, but you’ll be the biggest disappointment next year if you get the kids’ hopes up and then let them down. Then again, I guess they do ask for a “trick.”

2. Don’t skimp on the Halloween decorations.

Credit: Shane Gorski via Flickr

Kids don’t approach your average McMansion with a porch light on expecting it to be the coolest place on Halloween. Even if you happen to give out great candy, your house might still be pretty forgettable. How can you get around that?

It’s all about building suspense. You want kids to slightly fear you as they approach your home, but still be filled with anticipation. You want a lump to form in their throat. You want them clinging to mommy or daddy’s arm just a wee little bit. The more challenging it is for them to approach your home, the more they’ll feel like they’ve “earned” those goodies you’re giving out — and the less likely it is that they’ll forget you.

How can you spook out your place for Halloween? Certainly don’t neglect the basics — spider webs, grave stones, and some ghoulish (but not too corny) haunted house sounds echoing from around your entry way. But go beyond that if you dare. Consider a realistic (but old fashioned) coffin. How about having someone sit on your porch dressed like a fake scarecrow to turn their hair white with fear when they suddenly “come to life?”

You get bonus points if you have a naturally creepy old house that frightens the locals year-round. In that case, no decorations needed. Creaky front steps and a single dim light on the porch might be more than enough.

3. Play dress up!

Credit: Andrew Beierle via sxc.hu

Is there any bigger let down on Halloween night than when you’ve finally built the courage to approach that incredibly scary house your friends won’t go near, and then the door opens… slowly… slowly… and what do you see? A sweet little old lady in a flowery gown and fluffy slippers saying “Awwww, aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” What?

Don’t be a buzz kill. It’s Halloween people! Dress up. Have some fun. It’s the one night of the year where you can be anyone (or anything) you want to be. The last thing you should want to be is yourself. Let loose. Keep to the theme of your house decorations. If you went for something really scary, play it up and dress up as a ghost, witch, vampire, or other monster guaranteed to incite fear in the younger children and awe in the older ones.

Having the most popular house on Halloween doesn’t have to be difficult. All it takes is a little bit of planning (and okay, a little bit of money). But you can do it! After all, you do want to be the envy of that obnoxious neighbor across the street, don’t do?

Sometimes you find yourself stuck. Which seller should I prefer? Do I need to buy that thing at all? Which gadget should I choose?

Of course, the first and most obvious thing to do is to turn to your friends and relatives. After that you can do some online research and actually ask questions right at the mall. But still, very often that turns time-consuming and even ineffective.

Luckily, we’ve got free online tools that can make your life easier and this post is featuring one of the best web based shopping helper you are sure to find awesome: Hunch

The tool is designed to help you make decisions based n the smart algorithm which combines user-generated knowledge with mathematical framework:

Hunch is designed to soak up collective knowledge and then organize it in a useful way to help you make smart decisions. Hunch proposes custom decision results for you that it wouldn’t necessarily give to somebody else. But at its core, Hunch’s decision making algorithm is just a mathematical framework. It’s the users of Hunch who give the algorithm proper training and personality by contributing to it and making it clever, funny, and nuanced…. but most of all very useful in helping everyone to make smart, efficient decisions.

Now let’s see what it can do:

Find Answers Which Are Right for You:

Let’s follow the whole process:

Let’s say you are planning to buy an mr3 player but can’t decide which one is right for you. So start by typing the question in the search box:

Which mp3 player is right for me?

Now:

>>> Choose your budget:

>>> Decide which one you prefer: the look or the features:

>>> Define which one is more important for you: the budget or the features:

… And you get it! All the options you may want to consider:

Get More Research on Each Result:

Besides the photo and the detailed description, you will be impressed to see even more in-depth research for each choice:

• User-lists it was included into;
• User-added pros and cons of the product:

Find More Questions and Answers Related to Your Product

Hunch offers a cool as-you-type search suggestions that help you find at a glance what questions related to the product you are considering other members ask and answers:

Now, how great is that? Plenty of way to help you make a decision right at you finger tips! Are you aware of any other similar tool? Please share it!

Post image by Roby Ferrari

Etsy is an awesome resource of unique hand-made products which could make a perfect present or a souvenir. But sometimes they are too unique and creative – to the level when they become odd and even creepy.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love creativity and don’t mean to say these things are bad or useless. In fact, even the sellers call them weird and creepy: that’s what makes the products cool.

15. Love Vulva Products

Description: The whole collection of various items all styled as vulva.

Foster understanding and appreciation of Vagina

Example: Uterus Lovin’ Menstrual Cup Pouch

Price: $7.99

14. Siamese Twins Doll

Description: 2 headed baby pillow person that looks both strange and somewhat creepy.

Price: $34.00

13. Newborn Baby Sea Snail

Description: Creepy? – yes! Cute? – ummm, not really…

Price: $35.00

12. Bubble

Description: An odd toy for your extra-ordinary child – do you think he will prefer it over the old good teddy bear?

4 snouts, 6 eyes and two ears is bubble. Quite fetching. Photos cannot do it justice.

Price: $36.00

11. White Deerman

Description: An odd-looking sculpture to match your weird interior.

Price: currently sold out

10. Pansies Pet Hood

Description: Who would have thought this is said about DOG’s hood:

Delicate pink fleece petals frame the face on an apple green hood background. Delicate ties under the chin keep this hat ON.

Price: $16.00

9. Undead Shadow Puppet Set

Description: Shadow puppet sticks are intended for supervised play with ages 4 and up. Please play responsibly.

Price: Currently sold out

8. Ochibos World

Description: Little Ochibos are all unique and not made from any pattern.

Price: about $5 per little unique creature

7. Holding Hands Necklace

Description: Before you actually read what it is, your imagination can picture various creepy pictures in front of your eyes. And then you sign with relief: oh, these are just cut-off hands on a string!

Price: $395.00

6. Toilet Paper Earrings

Description: earrings that look like toilet paper placed into the roller.

Price: currently sold-out

5. Hand Soap

Description: Wash your hands with hands – how awesome is that?

Price: currently sold out

4. Jaw Dropping Soap

Description: More creepy soap to amaze your guests.

Price: $8.00

3. Juicy Brain Bowl

Description: a cool bowl covered with juicy brain texture and lined with a lovely blood red color.

great for eating cereal or serving your favorite salty or sweet treat

Price: currently sold out

2. HOPE on a ROPE

Description: a bright eye-catching oddity on the rope that is advertised to give hope and to be vegan friendly:

We made him purple, because we here at dugshop feel that he’s a true uniter, there are no red or blue states, we’re all purple.

Price: currently sold out

1. Gay Superhero Cigarette Case Wallet

Description: a steel case with the funky image inside:

After the image is inserted the top is filled with a crystal-clear, waterproof, UV-resistant glossy polymer. This makes the image amazingly vivid and virtually indestructible. The case is perfect for a driver’s license, business cards, coins, bills, credit cards, cigarettes (long or regular) or nearly anything else.

Price: $9.99

Post image via

Does it drive you crazy to try to compare prices of anything you want to buy? Now here are a few cool tools and resources that will do this for you – no matter where you live.

Compare the Cost of Living:

CNNMoney has just released a new tool allowing to compare prices in two cities and define the new cost of living in another city.

• Enter your current salary;
• Choose your current location (state and the city);
• Select the destination (the place where you are moving to or traveling).

Step 1

Step 2

Compare Local Gas Prices

GasBuddy.com is USA national gas temperature map (there’s also the Canadian version) which allows you to see what gas prices are around the country at a glance. Areas are color coded according to their price for the average price for regular unleaded gasoline:

• Click and drag to move the map around (or use arrow keys) ;
• Double-click to center the map on your mouse pointer and zoom in.
• Right click on a county or zip to retrieve its average gas price.
• Roll the mouse wheel upwards to zoom in one level, and downwards to zoom out one level (or use + and – keys).
• Generate and email any location URL to a friend to show them the exact same spot on the map you were looking at before clicking the Link to Map button.
• Use the search box to search by city, state or zip.

Find Most Affordable Cities

Based on the Housing Opportunity Index (released by the National Association of Home Builders) LifeHacker has created the housing map where you can see most affordable cities throughout America:

Ten Most Affordable Cities:

1. Indianapolis-Carmel, IN
2. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, MI
3. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA
4. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI
5. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI
6. Syracuse, NY
7. Dayton, OH
8. Akron, OH
9. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH
10. Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, PA

Local Prices Directory

SalesCircular is a great place to find local prices and deals. Just click-through various states and then browse the necessary categories.

ShopLocal is another huge local pricing directory allowing to browse through local deals:

• See the index of top cities;
• Search by city or zip code.

We’ve discussed how to save money numerous times. Why not see how to spend it for a change?

Luxury things you may want to have are numerous. But what about those you never want or need?

Here are most expensive things you would buy only if you had already bought everything else in the world.

Most Expensive Dog Collar: Amour Amour

Amour Amour dog collar from I Love Dogs Diamonds.

Price: ~$1.8 million

Luxury details: crocodile leather, platinum and 52 carats of hand-set diamonds, including 1600 diamonds with a seven-carat, brilliant cut center diamond. At $3.2 million each, only

Why you don’t need it: OK, this thing does look luxurious. But it will never make your pet happy! Why bother?

Most Expensive Dog Bed

Price: ~$1,400 (via pid.se)

Luxury details: 10mm thick acrylic and furnished with luxury faux suede cushions. The dog bed pillow is filled with shredded ‘memory foam’ incorporating a wealth of innovations.

Why you don’t need it: if one wanted to spend that much money on the dog bed, why not buy a real bad for it? And this one even doesn’t look like a luxury item!

Most Expensive Piece of Art: Diamond Skull

Price: $98,000,000 (image source)

Luxury details: 2156 grams of platinum in 32 individual plates, welded together by lasers. The skull is covered inside and out in 8,601 sparkling diamonds and has a main stone that is a 52-carat pear-shaped diamond fixed upon its forehead, this stone is further bordered with 14 additional diamonds.

Why you don’t need it: luxury skull? Seriously?

Most Expensive Cell Phone: “LeMillion”

Price: $1.200, 000

Luxury details: 18 carat white gold and 120 carat diamonds. And that isn’t the only thing why this phone price is 1.2 millions USD!!! Others characteristics are not special at all. Mp3, bluetooth, digital camera… You can buy normal phone with these characteristics for 300 USD.

Why you don’t need it: too much money for a phone that looks like a lighter.

Most Expensive Cupcake

Price: $30,000

Luxury details: festooned with eight ideal cut round brilliant diamonds around its circumference and a two carat Asscher cut diamond in the center (via luxuo.com)

Why you don’t need it: what happens after you eat the cake?

Most Expensive Bikini

Price: $30, 000, 000 (image source)

Luxury details: no fabric, only diamonds. This bikini contains over 150 carats of D Flawless diamonds, including a a 30 carat D Flawless Emerald Cut, 51 carat D Flawless Pear Shape, a pair of 15 carat D Flawless Rounds and a pair of 8 carat D Flawless Pear Shapes all set in platinum.

Why you don’t need it: I can’t even imagine how awfully uncomfortable to wear this thing is.

Most Expensive Handbag

Price: ~$1, 400, 000

Luxury details: made out of platinum and set with over 2,000 diamonds – totalling 208 carats;

Why you don’t need it: if you have that much money, why would you need such a little purse?

Most Expensive Watch: Chopard Watch

Price: 25,000,000

Luxury details: Three heart-shaped diamonds, a 15 carat pink diamond, a 12 carat blue diamond and an 11 carat white diamond. 163 carats of white and yellow diamonds bring the total of 201 carats of diamonds.

Why you don’t need it: it looks like it is not that easy to tell the time using this watch

Most Expensive Saucepan: Fissler Pan

Price: $197,630

Luxury details: solid gold handles studded with 200 diamonds. The gold alone weighs two pounds.

Why you don’t need it: if you are so rich, why care about the kitchen at all?

Most Expensive Saxophone

Price: $62,632

Luxury details: embellished with 10 two-carat diamonds and 2.82 ounces of gold plating.

Why you don’t need it: can you play saxophone anyway?

Additional resources:

• Session Magazine
• Money.aol.ca

Post image by Neubie

Archaeologists are convinced that they have discovered the remains of the theatre where Shakespeare’s first plays were performed, including Romeo and Juliet.

Archaeology is all about the thrilling voyage of discovery and bringing the excitement or archaeological discovery to the public. This exciting discovery was made by the archaeologists of the Museum of London during their excavations at a site in Shoreditch, where they are preparing for the construction of a new theatre by the Tower Theatre Company. This lost structure was found by the builders who were excavating the site and they called the museum archaeologists to the site to make sure they did not destroy anything.

The museum authorities revealed that it had long been known that there used to be an open air theatre in the area, but nobody knew of its exact location and in spite of searching for it, it could not be found earlier.

According to the museum spokesman, “It’s a theatre that’s been known about for a long time but no remains have ever been found. This is the theatre that the company of players that Shakespeare was part of first performed in and when he started writing, the company would have performed his plays.”

Prosaically named “The Theatre,” it was one of the first dedicated playhouses of London and a venture of James Burbage, a traveling player. Young William Shakespeare performed in this theatre as an actor in “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men” troupe of players. He also performed his first plays as a playwright there.

It is said that the other popular Shakespeare plays such as The Merchant Of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III were also premiered at this theatre.

If this in fact is The Bard’s first theatre, it would mean that all the open-air theatres where Shakespeare’s plays were staged have been discovered. The other theatre’s already discovered are, the Rose Theatre in 1989 and the Globe Theatre.

Although, The Theatre was built in 1576, Shakespeare’s company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, only moved into it in the 1590s. Until then, all their performances have taken place at the Rose Theatre. In the year 1599, there was a dispute with the landlord and the company had to move again. Although the theatre was built by them, the land was not owned by them. So, when they had to move due to issues with the landlord, they just dismantled the theatre overnight and used all the material to build the Globe Theatre by the River Thames, which later became the home of Shakespeare’s plays. But the Globe Theatre was also destroyed in a fire in 1613 and was rebuilt by 1614.

Even after all the material was shifted and Globe Theatre was built, the foundations of the first theatre remained and that is what the archaeologists believe they may have found.

The Theatre, which seated 1018 people, was Shakespeare’s first theatre and was in many ways ahead of its time; its bold décor would become popular in the 60s and 70s. It was designed by a well-known local architect by the name Winnenberg, and the cost of construction was said to be $95,000.

One of the senior archaeologists of the Museum of London expressed his excitement by saying, “It’s extremely exciting to be so close to the known location of The Theatre and then find remains that look to be associated with it. As well as allowing us to walk in the footsteps of Shakespeare himself, the remains help us to start uncovering one of London’s enduring secrets.”

Archaeologists feel that there is a very high probability that this is in fact the lost theatre, going by the age, location and shape of the remains and they think what they unearthed is the north-eastern corner of the building. “It’s in the right place, it’s at the right angle to be a polygonal shape.”

The Tower Theatre Company that is constructing the new theatre is obviously thrilled at the prospect of building their theatre on the debut theatre of Shakespeare himself, where the memorable characters in some of his best plays have come to life. They say that they are currently discussing with the English Heritage and hope they would help them keep the archaeological remains in situ.

Buying a new digital camera is not work for the faint of heart. The standard display case at an electronics store or large-scale retailer is filled with more choices that you can process in a sitting. Rather than making an impulsive decision, take some time and choose your new digital camera carefully by researching its quality and determining exactly what you need before setting out to buy.

Research

Before you leave for the store, take a few minutes online to be sure you understand what sets one camera apart from another. What is the meaning of optical zoom and what are mega pixels? Take a glance at reviews and ratings to be sure you know the best brands to buy and which to avoid.

Make a List

Make a list of things you need your camera to do. Are you planning to shoot nature photography or just a few snapshots of the pets and kids? Will you be emailing your pictures and uploading them to a photo sharing website or will you be printing from home? Do you plan on modifying your photos for artistic reasons or preparing large prints? What features do you need from your camera to accomplish these goals?

Set a Budget

Digital cameras range in price from less than $100 to well over $1,000. Without understanding the differences between the camera features it’s easy to get pulled into more camera than you need or try to save money but wind up without features you want. Set a reasonable budget between $150 and $400 dollars and stay there.

Megapixels Matter

One of your primary considerations in buying a digital camera is the number of megapixels the camera has. 2 megapixel cameras are fine for printing photos up to 5 x 7 inches. 8 x 10 pictures require at least 3 megapixels, and professional level photographers should opt for 4 or 5 megapixel cameras. Expect the cost of the camera to rise along with the number of megapixels.

Optical v. Digital Zoom

Optical zoom allows you to zoom in on your subject without losing quality. Digital zoom will let you take pictures from a distance, but your quality will suffer the more you zoom in on a subject. Optical zoom is definitely worth considering for all kinds of pictures – even just the casual ones. You don’t want your baby’s first steps to come out fuzzy.

Compatibility

You’ll want to be sure that the digital camera you select is compatible with your computer. Downloading pictures from the camera to the computer should be simple and take minutes, not hours. Consider a printing dock if you plan on making your own prints or a special photo printer that is compatible with your computer.

Finally, be sure your new camera is compatible with your lifestyle. A slim camera that will fit in a pocket might suit a busy mom or teenager better than a large camera with a heavy lens that is more ideal for nature and professional photographers. Try the cameras in the store to be sure you’ve found one that suits your needs and lifestyle.