The Queue: How’s it going, fellow ghouls?

You know, I’ve always been incredibly resistant to Christmas creep. Aside from things I’ve picked up while I’m travelling, I rarely start shopping until after Thanksgiving, and I really resent it when I go to the store in mid-November for a butternut squash or something and Michael Buble is already singing his heart out.

But Halloween creep? Well, for Halloween, we’re all creeps, aren’t we.

This is The Queue, where you ask us questions and we’ll answer just as soon as you stick your hand into this bowl of skinned grapes. OooOOOooo!

I’m torn between two options. I may go full Roy Lichtenstein, using face paint and graphic eyeliner to create a comic look. It’ll take forever, but it’s usually pretty easy, and even if people don’t get the Lichtenstein reference, comics are such a cultural touchstone it’s still semi-recognizable as a fun costume.

My other option is ridiculously low-effort, and a slightly more obscure reference — just my normal clothes and stuff, but with a very thick green ribbon tied around my neck. Less striking, but if you know you know.

My daughter is going as Scarlet Witch, and my son is going to be a train engineer for the 4th year in a row.

I’ve played a bunch, and usually the only difference is between whether I want to buy something on day one, or if I’m going to stick it in my wishlist to molder until Steam Summer Sale 2029 when it’ll be $2.

The one I considered pushing back but decided against it was House Flipper 2. In playing the demo, it’s clear that they’re trying to emphasize the parts of the reno I don’t really care about (cleaning, fixing walls) while making the parts I do care about a little more customizable, but a little clunkier (decorating, rearranging furniture). I’ll probably still get it day one because I use the OG as a demi-CAD program for my actual house, and the new one looks like it’ll be excellent for that, but now my expectations are tempered a bit.

The demos I’m trying now include Enshrouded, DRG: Survivor, Pine Harbor, Garden Life Cozy Simulator, and Reveil. All seem pretty solid and what I was expecting so far. Horticular is on my ‘maybe’ pile, since I’m finding that, while I love house sims and decorating games, I’m not the biggest fan of the ones involving town management and biome reconstruction.

History is littered with examples of things people chortle at now, but which, if you look under the surface, are really serious.

I will never miss an opportunity to say that the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit was more than justified. That poor woman was suing because that coffee was so incredibly hot — and they knew it was so hot — that she burned off parts of her genitals and spent weeks in the hospital. Just thinking about what she went through in those first few days makes me break out in Halloween-appropriate frisson goosebumps. All she wanted was for them to pay for her medical bills, and they dragged her through the mud to the extent that she’s still laughed about. The absolute audacity of that company.