We read the blogs, so you don’t have to.  From the FSJ News Center: It’s Halloween, and there’s an app for that. We’ve got iPumpkins and Mac-O-Lanterns.  Spooky tunes for the iPod.  Video pumpkins to track tonight’s ghouls n’ goblins. High-tech tools designed to keep the kids safe. A spider-bot pumpkin to dispense candy.  Your own El Jobso pumpkin.

Warren Zevon’s classic “Werewolves of London” goes into heavy rotation once a year, and you’ll find it on this Halloween playlist for your iPod. This link opens iTunes. (iTunes)

Here’s a template to carve your pumpkin in the likeness of Dear Leader.  (Joy Of Tech)

iJustine’s dressed up as..what?  Little Bo Peep?  (Tasty Blog Snack)

Blogger Amanda doesn’t know what she wants to dress as.  (Sometimes Daily)

Top ten most haunted cities in the United States. (Link c/o Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter feed.) (Toptenz) 

Gadgets to detect ghosts.  (Gizmodo)

Yahoo! has a special Halloween page up. (Yahoo! Events)

Click or treat- Google’s Halloween doodle morphs into a variety of shapes. (Google.com)

Get ready for Trick or Treat with these iPhone apps. (Huffington Post)

High-tech tools to keep the kids safe tonight. (WDEF.com) (CBS2 Chicago)

Techy gizmos for Halloween. (CNN)

How to make a surveillance pumpkin. (Popular Mechanics)

If you’re staying in tonight, YouTube’s got quite a menu for you. (YouTube)

From the archives, we found an iPumpkin (Gizmodo) and Mac-O-Lanterns. (Bad Banana)

If this crawled up to me on a darkened porch, I’d head for the hills. (Gizmodo)

Halloween costumes for tech-obsessed dogs. Honest. (Dvice.com)

Searches for “adult Care Bear costumes” are, um, hot. (CNET News)

Ghostbuster “Proton Pack” uses real lasers.  Who ya’ gonna call? (Gizmodo)

You can guess what these frigtards are going out as. Mom must be proud.  (YouTube)

Scary new tech fears to haunt your Halloween.  (Computerworld)

Twitter “Tricks & Tweets” for Halloween.  (TechCrunch)

Maniac pumpkin carvers create custom Jack-O’-Lanterns.  (Wired)

Top Halloween tunes to freak out your eardrums.  (Wired)

Google’s giant Android goes with the pirate look.  Arrrr.  (Venture Beat)

Finally, a live webcam view from Germany of the biggest pumpkin you’ve ever seen.  Ever.  (Webcams.travel)

Halloween is tomorrow, and El Jobso is not very happy about that.  He’s particularly cranky this week, ’cause he doesn’t like cats, either. The Borg finally find out what they were going to get for their Windows 7 sponsor deal on Fox, and decide that wasn’t a good idea. Blodget struck by the notion one can actually get the Net on a mobile device. FSJ’s plenty peeved at Bill Keller. One Whopper of a Windows 7 promotion in Japan. The folks at RIM can start prepping those resumes now. King Dork celebrates a birthday. Borg trolls are (allegedly) spreading lies on the Apple boards.  What does “NB” stand for? (Hint: it’s not New Balance, his sneaker of choice.)  Dear Leader explains.

We read the blogs, so you don’t have to. From the FSJ News Center: Mission Viejo becomes one with the Borg. Judge rules in favor of Facebook in spam case. Sprint loses almost half a billion. Halloween’s on deck, and Google, as usual, knows what we’re searching for.  The iPhone comes to China.

New iMacs bothered by choppy flash video playback? (CNET News)

Apple advertising guru Lee Clow says he isn’t going anywhere.  (All Things Digital)

Google’s known for their quirky hiring process. How’s that workin’ out so far? (SF Gate Tech Chronicles)

Spam case results in favorable decision for Facebook. (Inside Facebook)

The Borg assimilates Mission Viejo, California.  (OC Register)

Sprint says fewer customers are jumping ship. (NY Times)

Microsoft tortures kids with the Bing jingle. (A…”Bingle?”) Rumors of a Geneva Convention violation swirl. (TechCrunch)

Scott Adams ponders the problems of privacy.  (Dilbert Blog)

Have a ghooooulish Googleween tomorrow night. (Google Blog)

Take a spin through the new Google Kirkland facility. Geek heaven. (TechFlash)

Beijing, we have liftoff.  The iPhone is yours.  (iPhonAsia)

Yahoo! has plans for a new HQ in Santa Clara- is that a bad omen? (Valleywag)

How would you like law enforcement to search your Gmail account? (Without telling you.) (WSJ Law Blog)

Has the ship sailed for MapQuest? (NY Times)

We read the blogs, so you don’t have to. From the FSJ News Center:  New iTunes release disables Palm Pre sync…again.  Scoble tells everyone why he doesn’t use Google Reader. Who’s the world’s most attractive employer? Web pioneer recalls the birth of the Net. Mac browser Camino 2 goes to RC. A Minnesota town has blazing fast Internet speed- how does 50Mbps service over fiber optic cable sound? Mike Arrington is either flaky, a diva, or both, according to Valleywag.

Scoble says Google Reader is slow, and besides, he has 10,000 people to follow on Twitter. (Scobleizer)

Web pioneer recalls the beginnings of the Internet. No, not Al Gore. (CNN Tech)

RC news on Apple’s Camino 2 browser. (TechCrunch)

Tech blogger Gina Trapani says she can make sense of Google Wave. Glad someone can. (Web 2.0 Expo)

U2 and YouTube scored big on Sunday night. (Streaming c/o Akamai, apparently.)  (TechCrunch)

The Net sizzles in Monticello, Minnesota. Um, where? (Ars Technica)

“iDon’t Care” creators go on the record. (WSJ)

Guess who the world’s most attractive employer is.  Must be the lava lamps.  (Universum)

Apple TV 3.0 is “lame and dull,” according to this web site. (Silicon Alley Insider)

Michael Arrington: “The Flakiest Editor in Silicon Valley.” (Valleywag)

New iTunes update disables Palm Pre sync.  Like you didn’t expect that.  (The iPhone Blog)

Diller says Ask’s future is “speculative.” Has he called Ballmer yet? (All Things Digital)

That’s what they will say, anyway, and who can blame them? They’re fucked, and they know it, now that Google has introduced turn-by-turn navigation on Android. Google has become what Microsoft used to be — the evil dicks who look around, find some area where people are making money, and say, Hey, fuck it, we’re bored, so let’s do the same thing for free and put those guys out of business. Why not? We’re a bunch of smart little kids, and our company doesn’t need to make money on this, so let’s have some fun!

Which is why, around here, we now call Google the New Borg, or NB for short. And why Eric’s new nickname, among his peers in the Valley, is “Freeman,” because he’s such a fucking whiz when it comes to making stuff that’s free, but so far hasn’t demonstrated much ability to make something that people will actually pay for. For his part, Eric says we can have Google Maps Nav on iPhone just as soon as we approve Google Voice, plus any and all other apps they send our way, and as soon as I drive over to Mountain View, personally apologize, and then turn around, bend over, and let the Wonder Twins kick me in the ass.

Which is to day, we’re talking about it.

But back to the GPS guys. We haven’t seen any comments from Garmin or TomTom yet but I’m sure they’re working up some version of the old, “We’re so glad this big mean company has come into our space because that will raise awareness of the category and then people will look at all the products and they’ll choose us because the Google product is new and free and ours is old and ridiculously expensive. We think consumers are smart enough to look at all the choices in a market and go with the company that has a proven track record of gouging customers with high prices for a service that some other company has now demonstrated is so easy to create that it can be delivered for zero dollars. Our takeway: this is great news for the sector, and especially great news for us.”

Katie is watching the wires to see how long it takes them to say this. More as it develops.

We read the blogs, so you don’t have to.  From the FSJ News Center: Apple spends a lot on those Mac/PC ads.   Ever heard of Apple’s “Pen Mac?” It’s Yahoo! analyst day, and Carol wants some respect.  Google gets into the GPS business. Verizon hearts the Droid.  Seasonal laughs from those wacky Joy Of Tech guys.

Size matters: Apple’s 2009 ad budget is huge, but the Microsoft budget is absolutely massive. (Fortune Brainstorm Tech)

Apple’s tablet computer, circa 1990. (TechCrunch)

Trick or tweet! (Joy Of Tech)

CEO Carol Bartz speaks her mind (uh-oh) at Yahoo! analyst day. (Silicon Alley Insider)

Google has a new navigation program for Android. (Reuters)

Speaking of GPS, Microsoft’s pulling the plug on MSN Direct.  (Gizmodo)

Major League Baseball rolls out Android app during World Series.  (CNET News)

Twitter users warned of phishing attack.  (CNET News)

Verizon: “The Droids are here, the Droids are here!”  (WSJ)

Check out this forum and look for the fake shit that Borgtarded trolls are planting there:

Cannot install – I’ve never had issues like this with trying to install anything else. My next attempt will be to make a disc image of the installer and try it from there, but this is ridiculous. I’m not about to wipe the machine; I have over 100GB of applications I’d have to reinstall, which typically takes me a few days to do (w/all of the updates & finding serials, etc.).

Problem upgrading – I have seen suggestions about clean installs, restoring, cloning HD then re-installing, etc… I would love to stay with this OS but need it to work, so would a clean install do the trick? If so, how do I do a “clean install”?

Slow after install – Since I upgraded it has been so sluggish. I never had any problems and it was so quick until I upgraded to snow. Has anyone experienced the same problem and does anyone have any answers?

Upgrade causing crashes – The first install the system was freezing up and I couldn’t get the printer to work. Internet was intermittent and slow as was the whole system and couldn’t get my media player to work. Then the system hung up at the log in screen and went into a loop back to the log in screen effectively making my PC inoperable.

Worst Upgrade Ever! - “The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the manufacturer for assistance.”….. and now its empty with no OS…

Installed and now EVERY app is crashing – EVERY TIME I try to attach a file, Mail crashes. This is so awful. I am having problems with EVERY application I open. Firefox crashes when I try to download a file. Adobe Indesign CS3 crashes when I try to re-link or even place an image. Adobe Acrobat crashes when I try to make a multi page pdf, etc, etc… Makes me wonder if they tested this upgrade on any computers at all. When do we get an update – or do I have to un-install and go back?

Seriously, Borg, do you have no shame? Everyone knows there are NO problems with the upgrade to Snow Leopard. It’s been the most successful software upgrade ever. No glitches. No hiccups. Put in the disk, and everything just works. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

Happy Birthday, old friend. I mean it. Peace.

A lot of people don’t know this, but it’s true. I really, really cannot stand them. I’m not allergic. I just don’t like them. I don’t like the way they look at you. Or the way they spring up on stuff. Or the way they smell. I can’t go into someone’s house if they have cats. In some cases I can’t even be around people at work who have cats at home, because I can smell the cat smell on them.

Dogs I’m not crazy about either. Basically I don’t want any kind of animal in my house or hanging out with me. Gerbils, hamsters, whatever. Not even fish. But cats? Cats are on a whole different level. Every time I see one of these stories about cats taking over a house, or some old crazy lady with 100 cats in her house, I almost want to vomit.

There. I said it.