Tonight will feature the last full moon on Halloween until 2020. I'm armed with a bag of yet to be popped organic corn kernals and the scare-a-thon that is the Classic Monster Collection. All I have to do now is chain myself to the radiator and hope for the best.

Since we've moved to Los Angeles it hasn't rained. I was just thinking yesterday that it was strange to live in a city with no rain and then today it rained. Somebody call Schwoegler 'cause I'm on fire! By the way, Schwoegler—thanks for the help on my sixth grade science project. I got a "B." I guess photocopies of lightning colored in with markers and a letter from actual Bruce Schwoegler isn't "original" enough for the science fair. Genius is never appreciated in it's time.

I have a little bookmarklet that counts links and it helped me figure out that so far, 126 MetaFilter TextAds have been sold. You wanted to know that, right? Nice!

Cool, I didn't know there were electric versions of Ford Ranger pickups and other regular, medium sized cars. I'll take one!

Michael Sippey's Metafilter Proposal reminds me of some discussions we had back in the day about Xanga eProps. "eProps are a currency of good will. Give them away whenever you read something you enjoy, but reserve a double dose for exceptional content."

Hey, the little "Hire Genius" button is coming through for me. I'm working on a couple cool projects now. Maybe I should make it even bigger!

Google Search: anthrax cigarettes. This search was in my referral logs today. I'm guessing that would be a very effective method of distribution. What's the security like in cigarette manufacturing plants? If someone could taint a big batch, that would be hundreds of thousands of people willingly inhaling anthrax. Freaky.

Italian police are trying to figure out why a 43 year old Egyptian was shipping himself to Canada in a fully furnished box. I've requested that they fill me in as soon as they crack the case. Gotta stay on top of these situations.

Man With Gun Boards Plane A businessman from Mississippi handed the loaded gun to the flight attendant while they were in the air and said, "I've done something wrong." Nice move chief! A security guard was fired.

The bathroom sink is trying to communicate with me the only way it knows how: by mysteriously filling itself up during the night. I'm not sure what it means because I don't speak sink. Fear not, I'll crack the case!

Check out my concept iPod from the amazing future. Now all I need is a time machine and four hundred dollars. Nice!

For immediate release: Biz Stone, Genius will design or write—or write about design for financial compensation. (Provided, of course, that I'm not on a dangerous government mission.)

Metafilter TextAds already sold out for the month. Nice, I got mine just in time!

The rumors were true. Apple's new device is the iPod, a 1,000 song 10 hour battery MP3 player. I'm just back from an Apple retail outlet but they didn't have any on hand to show me. The store was really cool though.

I'm at an Apple store right now on a super gigantic flat screen. I feel like I'm looking out a window. Crazy. I'll take three.

Note to self: Wheat based cat litter turns into dough when "used." Cats become confused, causing unwanted situations.

Bad news for iMan fans. Genius Labs has confirmed from inside sources that the best sci fi show on the sci fi channel is no more. I think Vincent and Paul should make like Hasselhoff and turn into executive producers. Who's with me?

Taliban Fighter Captured While Buying Cigarettes "I left my post to go to the shop and buy some cigarettes, then I was captured." Doh! The moral of the story: Don't smoke—or at least don't leave Pakistan to join a jihad if you do.

Metafilter Launches TextAds "Ads are priced at $2 per thousand impressions, with a minimum of 5,000 impressions. So for as low as $10, you can announce new projects, articles, companies, and services to thousands of tech- and media-savvy users of MetaFilter." Update: I bought an ad. Good stuff!

Important news from Reuters: Court Rules Against SHTHPNS Plate "The relevant difference between 's--t' and 'pooper' is not the so-called 'cuteness' of the word 'pooper' but the fact that 's--t' is a profanity." Okay, I'm glad we've settled that issue.

Apple's New Device is called the iPod. It can be synched with the computer to download music into a portable system, which can then be accessed by either a car or home stereo system. This is according to sources familiar with the company but Apple is not releasing the real news until Tuesday.

Spamthrax—Contracting Anthrax Via Email "The FBI today did not issue an alert for electronically disseminated anthrax, also known as "spamthrax," because anthrax cannot be propagated through email. However, that will likely not stop panic-stricken thousands, who freaked after viewing the headline above, from spreading a rumor that the Internet has been evacuated."

Ah, October. The time of year every pumpkin looks forward to. Do you know where your pumpkin is?

"With CityDesk, people who don't know anything about HTML or web servers can easily add, edit, and remove articles from a web site, using a program that is as easy as a word processor. CityDesk will automatically apply standard formatting, according to templates you provide, to those articles. Then it copies them to your web server automatically. Each article can include pictures, sounds, and other media elements."

Voice recognition programs work by measuring variations in spoken commands. Dr. Igarashi's system would work by measuring the pitch and duration of sounds like "ah" and "umm." So to control your television, you would say "volume up, ahhhhhh," and the volume of the TV would rise while the "ahhh" continues. I'm not so sure about this. If this idea catches on, humans may evolve into freakish beings that scream at their TV's. Oh, wait.

What is the secret Breakthrough Device that Apple Computer is going to introduce next week? Genius Labs cannot divulge—time will tell!

What About Honey? is a brand new addition. Check it out if you're interested in learning why honey is incompatible with vegan convictions. I know you're dying to find out!

Rabbit Blog: "I know what you're thinking. 'Why should a rabbit have a blog?' And I guess if I weren't a rabbit, I might wonder the same thing. If I were, god forbid, a squirrel, or a dog, I would really wonder. I might even think, 'Jesus, who cares about rabbits?' Of course if I were a dog, I'd probably be too busy eating someone else's vomit off the pavement to notice."

It seems as though I may have to become an Evil Genius. But I'm afraid if I try to grow a goatee, I'll just look like a minor league baseball player—rather than a proper arch-nemisis. Maybe a cape would do the trick. Plus, I'd have to consult with my staff at Genius Labs because it would be required that they all become evil as well. I'll look into it.

My mom is in London right now. I wonder if she knows that Cellphones spook British ghosts. "Apparently paranormal events, which some scientists put down to unusual electrical activity, could be drowned out by the electronic noise produced by phone calls and text messages." Fear not, Genius Labs is working on a "ghost friendly" cell phone.

We were at the beach yesterday hanging out and having a picnic and I saw a dolphin. At first, I thought it was a shark but then I used my supervision to detect minute hairs—a sure sign of mammalian lifeforms. So I went swimming. It's seems weird to swim in October. Nevertheless, I swam.

Treo: Look up the number and then call it—from the same device. Plus, email, text messaging, and wireless web all in a tiny new Palm OS device. Cool!

Furtive Glances Start Happy Brain Waves Firing "Volunteers were asked to rate the attractiveness of the people they saw in the photographs ...sparks start firing in an area of the brain called the ventral striatum. Studies have shown the same region is also active in gamblers and drug addicts." Could this explain the popularity of hot or not? Genius Labs says: "perhaps."

Official Anthrax Band Site: For immediate release: In light of current events, we are changing the name of the band to something more friendly, "Basket Full Of Puppies."

Weird, these guys were not on planet Earth when the attacks happened. "Space station commander Frank Culbertson and his two crewmates were working through another busy day in space when Houston radioed word of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon."

FBI Website: "There may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States over the next several days." Maybe they got the email too.

Did you get an email about a girl who received a letter from her disappeared Afghan boyfriend saying terrorists are going to strike at U.S. malls on Halloween? Yeah, so did I. It's not true. I avoid malls as a general rule anyway. They may not be toxic, but I can't stand being sprtized with sample perfumes.

BlogScript allows users of Blogger.com to post instantly to a blog from any application without the need to login or even launch a browser. There's my reason to upgrade to Mac OS 10.1.

I was just checking out Amazon's new Look Inside the Book feature and I noticed that a book I designed, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is one of the examples and Amazon called it a "Lovely Cover." Nice!

Jedi Knights achieve official recognition as a religion. This is good, we need more Jedi Knights.

The sink in our new apartment is large and deep. In fact, it can hold almost every dish we have in a junkyard of upside down bowls, mugs, and little bits of pasta. I know this because I just came from the kitchen. Unfortunately, the weight distribution of aforementioned "dishload" is uneven and some breakage is occurring. We've already lost mug handles, ceramic spoons, and one trusty bowl. I used to wash dishes professionally, but I'm daunted by the current situation.

There's a Metafilter discussion going on about a new personal publishing system called Moveable Type. I wonder if anyone has tried WebCrimson yet. I hear you can use it while wearing socks!

Blogdex is sporting a bold new look. I wonder if I should make any changes to Blogdexter, it's little brother. I'll have to consult with my staff at Genius Labs.

It looks like airstrikes have started in Afghanistan. The Taliban says it has sent thousands of troops to the Uzbekistan border, and the Northern Alliance has already taken out 11 villages. President Bush is going to to address the US at 12.50p EST. From Metafilter.

Crime and Underpants: "A drunken Norwegian who pulled a pair of underpants over his face and robbed a post office told a court he did not remember the robbery, but admitted he had a suspicion of having been up to no good when he woke up and found a large wad of money in his living room." He might have evaded capture if he'd invested in these underpants from Genius Labs.

It's exciting but dangerous to be a creative director in New York. My friend Steve spent 6 hours in the hospital on Wednesday. I'll let him explain: "On my way to work I stepped on a plastic afro-pick which acted like a supersonic banana peel and sent me sprawling on the sidewalk (after a brief and rather exciting skateboard-like ride) resulting in a variety of cuts and contusions to my chest, arm, hand and a broken toe." Supersonic banana peels and strategically placed plastic afro pics? Now that I know they're out there, they'll never get me!

From New Port Ritchie, FL comes a sad case for the Bad Font Choice files. Megaflicks.

Remember the camera supposedly found in the rubble with a photo of a tourist on top of the WTC just seconds before the tragedy? Well, it was proven to be fake, but the usual photoshop suspects couldn't let the rumor rest in peace. That guy gets around!

Brewster is oddly fascinated with a vent in the bathroom. Could there be small, invisible humans living in there? Perhaps there are weirdly alluring feline songs being broadcast from the basement? Or is it simply an interdimensional vortex created by aliens masquerading as Italian tile artisians in the 1920s? In any case, I'm onto it.

The Original Parachute Pants Store is here. Don't accept any imitations. Parachute pants store not affiliated with Genius Labs.

Happy 30th Birthday, Email! "Ray Tomlinson, principal engineer at Cambridge, Mass.-based BBN Technologies, finds himself in the spotlight again after all these years, having to answer questions about the computer program he designed as it reaches its 30th birthday in the coming weeks."

Google added a simple tab-bar to their site design. It was probably a good move, many people don't realize google has so much good stuff behind that simple white page.

It's a Trillion-atom triumph! Eugene Polzik and his associates at the University of Aarhus in Denmark have entangled millions upon millions of caesium atoms. What does this mean? Well, it doesn't mean Star Trek-style teleportation involving the wholesale deconstruction and reconstruction of humans, but it does mean that photons of light could be transmitted from one place to another without sending the photons across the intervening space. That is some serious instant messaging.