Pumpkin Partying, Internet Style

Ah, Halloween. The spooks come out and scarlettina makes her annual post of seasonal links. Here's this year's rundown of thematically appropriate Web sites for this October day.

For clever, science-fiction-themed pumpkin carving, check out this piece from io9.com: Sci-fi villains immortalized in pumpkin flesh. Somehow, referring to pumpkins with the phrase "pumpkin flesh" makes it creepier for me.

The New York Times offers insight on the sales and cleansing of haunted homes: Supernatural cleaning methods

Care of BoingBoing.net, I bring you The Haunt Project, an attempt to artificially create the conditions that are reported by ghost hunters to be prevalent in real haunted houses. They've used things like heightened electromagnetic frequencies, strange smells and so on, with some interesting results.

When Ghosts Attack is an article from CNN featuring, among others, our boys from TAPS.

The Zombie Survival and Defense Wiki will help you through any impending undead apocalypse. I myself welcome our shambling overlords.

For my English friends, the city of Derby actually has a page on its official Web site describing itself as "The Ghost Capitol of England."

For my Doctor Who-fan friends, here's an article on Creepy Cardiff (where the show is shot).

In memory of my Kenya trip, here's a piece about the jinn of Nairobi. And while we're on the African continent: "I am not well versed in ghost matters," says police chief.

For those of you looking for other ways to celebrate, you might want to check out Vampire Vineyards. Yes, it's a really winery, and they've truly gotten into the spirit of things.

And here's this year's gallery of ghost photographs. Judge for yourself.

If you want to see entries from previous years, follow this link to all the entries tagged "Halloween".

Have a fun and safe Halloween everyone.

And to my friends of the pagan persuasion, bright blessings!