Random Thoughts

• I've never been a fan of All Hallows Even. The tradition of the holiday, unlike most other holidays, does not appeal to me (although the tradition of All Saints Day, tomorrow, conversely does), and I'm not fond of evil, nor candy. Nor begging, comes to that. I do like costumes, and I suppose if we have to have a holiday just so we can we can dress up in fun ways I can put up with it. I could put up with it much more easily if we didn't have witches and werewolves and spiderwebs and the undead.
• Despite this, I acknowledge Thriller remains the best music video ever created.
• My wife and I continue to argue over the invention of trunk-or-treat. She loves it; I don't. She's right that it's faster, and that it's better overall for the little kids; I'm right that it defeats the purpose of decorating one's house and it's substantially less enjoyable for children over 10. I am also right that it triples the candy collection for the average child. That's where I'm hoping to eventually win the argument that trunk-or-treat is a sign of the apocalypse.
• Incidentally, most people think that trunk-or-treat was invented for the purpose of keeping kids safe on Hallowe'en. This may be correct, but it is also true that there is no rise - NO rise - in child abductions, in child deaths or injuries, or in child-related accidents on Hallowe'en, and never has been.
  
• Remember the "razor-blade-in-the-apple" scare that went around a while back? Never happened. Never. Nowhere. Not on Hallowe'en, not any other time, noplace at all. Remember how people used to poison kids by giving them arsenic-laced cookies as they came around trick-or-treating? I remember that, too. It just never happened. It was a complete fabrication, a myth, an urban legend with no basis in fact. None. Just FYI.
• To my brother, congratulations on the Red Sox winning the World Series again. To Steve, congratulations on the Rockies' incredible run through the postseason. They got beat by a better team, that's all. They'll be back. But nobody will ever win 21 out of 22 in the last two weeks of the season and the first two rounds of the playoffs ever again. After getting swept in the World Series, the Rockies were 21-5 from September 15 to October 28. Impossible.
• If the Utah Jazz play like they played last night all season long, they'll be a serious threat to win the NBA title. That was very, very impressive last night.
• The Fed announces in half an hour whether it will cut rates again. I'll report later.