It’s amazing how rough it’s been for me to find good stuff to write on when it’s this close to Halloween. It seems that too much opportunity makes for tough decision making. Either way, I have some things to report on, so I’ll keep it coming.

I thought I’d draw everyone’s attention to this new Halloween site put up by Fandango. If you don’t know what Fandango is, then you either hate movies, hate the Internet, or just haven’t been informed. Fandango is a film site that sets readers up with reviews, movie times, and more.

Well this year they’re adding to the October festivities by launcing their Halloween Haunt site. From the looks of it, there’s more activity than you can shake a witches broom at. Yeah, I said it, witches broom.

Fangango is rocking a good deal of ideas for costumes, top 10 lists, polls, dirt on creepy movies, and a whole load of creepy imagery. If not just a sweet springboard for great Halloween ideas, it’s a nice place for a dose of Halloween news. Yeah, it’s that good. We suggest you read up there, but bookmark em next to us so you don’t lose track of all the radness that’s spouting from MyDisguises.

 Across the gender lines, Cosplay tends to favor women. I’ve noticed this ever since I got into the cosplay scene for MyDisguises. As a total rookie, I didn’t come to expect this. I did realize, however, that many popular cosplay characters tend to be males. So how does it figure?

Well, there are a number of theories. Maybe it’s the fact that a lot of anime characters look gender-bendingly female? Is it because women like to dress up more? There’s also the fact that cosplay costumes are basically DIY, and more women sew and make clothes… I’m not totally sure.

 I took it up with the pros at Cosplay.com forums just for some real input. The thread has gone wild, and there are a number of great ideas as to why more women dress up in cosplay than men… or so it seems. Check out the tread and add your input.

One of my secret personas, beyond writing about costumes that is, is my creative/stylish/artistic self. Suffice it to say that I take great pride in aesthetics.

For this reason, I frequent Uncrate. Uncrate is a great site for anything shiek for men. It’s worth a browse on a very regular basis.

Uncrate decided to unknowingly pay homage to all things worth of MyDisguises by posting some great new costume T-shirts. I guess if the minimalist in you needs to have an idea for Halloween, this is perfect. Although they’re not as flashy and extravagant as we’re used to promoting, they do score points in the coolness category.

Thanks Uncrate, now I can have a good backup costume for my many parties this year.

A lot of people visit MyDisguises, and we like that! We want to be sure that each visitor knows how to use the site to its fullest. If you’re a bit new to the blogging scene and just need an idea on how to keep up on the stuff you’re solely interested in, then read up here and we’ll guide you in blog navigation. I wish we could send out badges or ribbons for those of you who master these web tricks, but we can’t. Award yourself with a virtual shoulder pat from us once you’ve figured it out.

RSS and Subscribing

New to RSS? RSS stands for Real Simple Sindicate. The long and short of it is this; you can ’subscribe’ to the articles of our site and have them update in a reader. Your reader can track all the updates to multiple sites you like to read. It’s a great way to see the headlines and articles of sites you like to browse, but don’t read word for word every day. The truth is that most people skim on the web, and we know that. If you want to check up on MyDisguises frequently, but can’t commit to visiting the site or commenting all the time, an RSS reader is perfect.

Most RSS readers are either embedded in your browser or hosted by a website. Here’s a list of web hosted RSS feeders. Once you find the site and set up an account, all you have to do is enter the RSS address of the site and you’re good. We use Feedburner and you’ll notice our little orange icon telling you all about it. Click on that and the URL it takes you to is the URL you will use to subscribe to MyDisguises.

• Netvibes
• Google Reader
• NewsGator
• PageFlakes

What’s the point? The point is that with RSS, you pick where your news comes from without any of the junk you don’t want to read. Do you want a mashup of news about video games, cosplay sites, and gerbil news? Well then you can have it your way. Oh, don’t forget MyDisguises.

Subscribe by Email

We put the option out there for those of you who are just email junkies. Not everyone scours the Internet for all the news they want. If you like MyDisguises and would like to get the email updates of the site, then subscribe there and you’ll recieve all the links to our stories via your email. Be sure not to mark us as spam. Each time you do, a pony dies somewhere.

Take Part in the Discussion via Comments

The best blogs on the Internet are interactive. If people aren’t commenting on MyDisguises, we take responsibility. Either our content isn’t open ended enough, or our readers are just a tad confused on how to get the commentary going. Therefore, we will tell you how it goes down.

If you click on the title of any post, it will take you to a “permalink” version of the article. This means that it gets its own little page. Scroll to the bottom and you can see a box to leave a comment. There you can either post as an anonymous person, or put your name and link to a website of your own. It’s a great way to get noticed and have us see who you are. We love to visit the sites of people who post here, and active posters are always welcome.

Use the “Share This” Button

Since blogging is all about communication, we’ve added the “Share This” application to the bottom of each post. Clicking on it will open up a list of site that you can bookmark, comment, and share our posts with other readers. Popular sites like Digg, Reddit, and Del.icio.us are surely there. Digging or sharing posts gets our articles out there and brings people to the discussion. Follow the steps they guide you in, and you’ll be finding your comments and ideas all around the web too.

Better Navigation for Better Reading

Like I said, it’s pretty common knowledge that few people on the Internet actually read posts word for word. The Internet is a large scavenger hunt, and persistence will find you just about everything you’re looking for. We’ve included a number of tools to make your navigation of our site much easier and pleasant.

The search box is pretty self explanatory, so we won’t tell you how to use it. We will however encourage you to seek out the stuff you really want to read by search. If that’s too narrow, you can check out the categories sidebar section. Clicking on any of the category links will take you to all the posts tagged with the very same category. I use this myself.

The blog just adds article upon article. It’s loaded with good content. From time to time, we’ll continue a segment that we once started in hopes of giving the best overall view of our subject matters. This means you can find just about anything worthy of reading. Use the categories and search effectively to find the best of the best as you see needed.

These ideas should keep you busy reading MyDisguises.

If we could plead one request with our audience it would be to get involved. Our content is only so good until the readers join the conversation. Add your commentary, and the content really starts to feed itself! Hope to see you in the comments and RSS sections!

Oktoberfest is one of the great cultural celebrations from around the world, and is observed in more than it’s originating country. Apparently, around 6 million people attend the festival in Munich, Germany every year. That’s a lot of beer.

If you’re really into it then you’ll get dressed up for the affair. A standard set of Lederhosen (not Liederhosen) can run hundreds of dollars. Is it worth it? Women also dress up in traditional fold dresses. Check out the pictures below.

1600 of the 12,000 people employed at Oktoberfest are Barmaids. I wonder what other work there is to do besides serve beer??

A huge mug is very much part of the costume. Rarely are people seen without.

Even the Bierwagens (Beer Wagon) get dressed up in traditional dress.

Are those denim shorts under the Lederhosen?

There’s never an excuse for not wearing the more traditional dresses at Oktoberfest.

A classic set of Lederhosen.

Let it be known that TV in Japan is plain weird. Although sometimes I have to wonder how their culture differences play in. I mean, there must be things about our TV that are strage too, no? Perhaps Football is a absurd sport to them? And a show like Seinfeld where people just “hang out” is supposed to be funny?

But they couldn’t possibly think those things about us, could they!?

Well no more need to justify. Whatever the case, TV in Japan delivers pure, unadulterated TV clips from Japan that are easily worth a view or two. What does this have to do with Costumes? Well, culture is a costume in and of itself and we get a lot from the Japanese. This is pretty rich. After all, to borrow a phrase from the site… “This is what TV is like. In Japan.”
Anyway, enough of my blabbing. Let the site and the videos do the talking for themselves. Here’s a taste of some great Japanese TV with the accompaniment of our beloved California Governator, Arnold Schwartzenegger.

For awhile now, competitors to the virtual world have been cropping up and stealing a bit of the market from Second Life. However, there has been more of a specialization in the space, bringing up titles like Habbo Hotel, Playstation’s upcoming “Home“, or the popular Club Penguin. Being so, Second Life has seen little in terms of direct competition.

Well, enter Vastpark. After anxiously submitting a beta invite request, I looked around to find out more of what Vastpark claims to be. More importantly, I wanted to know just what the rest of the world was thinking about it.

I hesitate to grasp the concept of Vastpark for a few reasons. My primary complaint is that it doesn’t really sound like it has anything special or with purpose. Is that my problem? Well, maybe. As fun as a virtual sandbox world is to me, it has a short lifespan before I lose interest. Second Life provides a lot of interest in terms of what the people have done with it and how it relates to MyDisguises, don’t get me wrong. But for my buck, I need a goal and a reason.

Vastpark enters the stage likely with a few things on their minds. If they want to succeed, they’re going to have to improve upon what SL doesn’t do so well. Primary to these issues is performance. If they can somehow manage to make the Vastpark experience a seamless and entertaining one without choking users into massive upgrades on their machines, then maybe they’ll capture the good of SL while improving upon the bad.

They do seem to boast a robust development toolset, and frankly this will be the first virtual world to be in direct competition with SL on this front. In the pre-sculpties days, prims ruled the roost and Second Life was still the best thing out there. It’s hard to see exactly what else Vastpark could have planned that would revolutionize the tools of creation set by SL. Maybe they’ve truly hit a spark.

The business model sounds much like one you see when registering a website. Here’s the info via Kotaku:

In case you’ve tired of your virtual self in Second Life, VastPark is coming (for some people, at least - the first new users will be given access soon): it promises “a virtual content platform featuring free tools, revolutionary distributed content syndication and enables you to deploy your own virtual world or online game within seconds royalty free.” Metaversed explains:

It’s free to use and purchasing a “Pro Creator account” allowing 1Gb of storage and bandwidth will be US$19 for 2 years. One can still publish using a free “Basic Creator account” allowing you to try it out, and they were giving away three year Pro accounts if you were among the first 250 people to publish content.Once you’ve created your world, you can open portals to worlds other users have created. Content creation tools include basic 3D building functions and texture mappers, as well as scripting tools. There’s also a built-in syndication system where content developpers can allow some things to be used in other people’s worlds and easily update that content system-wide from one place.

Sounds interesting in theory, we’ll see if it pans out. Perhaps the media can find a new darling and the New York Times can start writing out-of-touch articles about VastPark instead?

Keep your eyes here and on Kotaku for more information. We’ll be following. Oh, and I seem to have just gotten my beta invite!:) I’ll let you know how it goes!

collinevan

If you thought you were getting ready for Halloween, just imagine how much it’s been on our mind. As a community of people, we have to put our heads together for a great list of fun ideas that will make this Halloween go off with a bang.

But we don’t want to leave you in the dark, as it’s our job to offer the best content we could possibly provide. So, we’re starting this segment where we will frequently post ideas for how to celebrate Halloween with maximum creativity, fun, and attention grabbing techniques. This will be the first of many.

For our first segment, help get ready for the surrounding. Here’s the way to go:

The Haunted House Tactical Map

We all remember Home Alone, right? Good old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) knew he was in trouble when he had burglar’s to deal with, so how did he approach it? Well, after a quick spiritual introspective, he made a floor plan and mapped out his strategy.

I know it sounds dumb, but keystone to your Haunted House execution will be a floor plan. Every great General knows that to win you need a map and a plan. Get a hold of some large butcher paper, map out the area of your house, make a list, and start sketching your approach.

Once you’ve mapped out the premises, use varying colors and pictures to indicate the flow of your house. You want your Haunted House visitors to go through in the right pace. The occasional stop it crucial. Escapees will have a hard time getting passed the best parts. You can make copies of your floor plan and distribute them to all the major players in your home spun freak fest to be sure that everyone is on the same page.

With a bit of focus and a lot of creative ideas, you can come up with something sure to make a splash.

Just do us a favor, don’t rely on the grapes in the bucket technique. It’s not that good anymore.

In the near future we’re going to feature some of the most widely recognized houses around just so you can see how they celebrate the Holiday.

So what do you think? Show us some of your submitted haunted house floor plans and ideas. It will help get the creative juices flowing amongst our readers.

 We’ve thought about ways to help you make the decision of what costumes to wear for this Halloween. Has it been bugging you? Do you have a few ideas already in your head but need to narrow it down?

Well, leave it to Google Fight. Google is everywhere, and many people look to them for guidance. Haven’t you seen the Church of Google? We used Google Fight to pit one idea versus another. In their infinite, unparalelled, scientific wisdom, Google is helping us choose between ideas we have popping around in our heads.

Fight 1. Spiderman vs. Batman

In a raw fight between the terms Spiderman vs. Batman, Batman wins by a long shot. We reran the fight using the terms “Spiderman Costume” and “Batman Costume. The victory wasn’t so overwhelming, but Batman came out on top. But we couldn’t stop there. Here are some variations on the Spiderman vs. Batman theme just to be thorough.

The Female Preference - Girls actually love Spiderman more than Batman

The Comfort Factor - Hard to be a hero in a suit that’s too tight

Fight 2. Pirate vs. Ninja

The eternal debate! You’re on the edge of your seat. You don’t quite know how to tip your scales… well the results are in. I was a bit shocked myself. What if you like a little emotion in your piracy or ninja-ing? The results aren’t such a large margin. And of course, you’re going to have to pick your weapon… who carries the best gear?

The Female Preference - Wow, close call on this one.

The Comfort Factor - Both may sport baggy pants, but which one wins out?

Well we don’t want to monopolize all the ideas, but we’re very anxious to see some contributions. Add a comment and link us some of your Google Fights. What can you find?

Special Edit: I went back and checked out the results again, and they seem to change! Oh that is juicy…. expect varying results.

The long lasting anime franchise, Robotech, has seen numerous incarnations over the years. However, sources say that Tobey Maguire may be staking a greater claim in Hollywood as producer and lead star of a live action version. Warner Brothers has already acquired the rights to the IP and is looking to launch this title under the name of Maguire Entertainment.

Tobey Maguire’s Latest Costume, Rick Hunter

Fans can expect to see Maguire to star as lead player Rick Hunter in the series, but aren’t as sure that Maguire will be back in the spideysuit as spiderman. It looks like Maguire is finding a real comfort zone in being a hero, and for good reason. Both Spiderman and Spiderman 2 hold the 7th and 10th top grossing movies of all time spots respectively. Although some critics out there are already buzzing the horn on Maguire and WB, claiming that they’re trying to ride on the coattails of the recent rob0-obsessed Transformers fame, the outlook does seem pretty positive.

Robotech fans are an active community. The franchise started in the States in 1985 as the first anime series to make it overseas and garner a large fan base. Sharing popularity with series such as Voltron and Transformers, Robotech has a good chance at making a splash with the big names behind it.

Worth Reading: Robotech Companion News, Filmwad Article

You wouldn’t believe the serious lack of good sites on the web for costume enthusiasts. Well, maybe you would. I have scoured high and low for sites that have interesting things to read, cover a broad spectrum of costume interests, and are normally updated. Obviously that’s part of the reason why we’re here.

Well, we’re not selfish with our traffic and thought it would be nice to show off a site from time to time that has some kind of relation to what we do. Yesterday, I bumped across retroCRUSH.

First I have to clear up why we see retroCRUSH as a legit relative to MyDisguises. Well, the thing that first got my attention was the articles featured on the main page as I passed by. The first one is about the best superhero costumes of all time. I read through the logic behind it and can’t say I disagree. Second is a feature with Rob Zombie over the creepy Halloween movie that just came out.

Who doesn’t have a retro crush on this old costume?

The site doesn’t talk about costumes all the time… as they have clearly left that responsibility to us.  What they do well is cover years of pop culture with style. Even the site layout and design looks like the old days of the web. Nice job retroCRUSH! Active forums and a long time podcast only add to the coolness factor. All in all, it’s a site definitely worth checking out. I’m sure you could also get some killer retro costume ideas from them.

Check out retroCRUSH and let us know what you think. We’ll aspire to one day be that robust and full of good content!

This weekend I was talking to a friend of mine about relationships. She told me that when it comes to fashion, women primarily dress up to impress each other, not men. The first thing to hit my mind was, “huh”?

According to her philosophy, getting “cute” for a guy isn’t that hard because men aren’t picky. But women want to be noticed for their fashion sense, and it’s other women that will notice. Of course, this probably doesn’t apply to ALL women, but it’s a new notion for me. I proceeded to explain to her that if men didn’t have to impress women, then they’d be wearing clothes until the fabrics ran thin and there was no other option. Can’t compare apples to oranges, right?

So then what about with costumes? I look back on the costumes I’ve dressed up in, and they’ve always been to get a laugh or comment from someone else. I figured, “well, Halloween is all about dressing up to get attention, right?” For the most part, this is true. BUT, not everyone dresses up only on Halloween. Then I had the question in my mind as to whether people make their costumes to impress others or just for themselves.

With a pen and paper in hand, I did a small survey of people in my local area. According to the 100 people, I found that 66% of them claimed they dress up just to impress themselves. They don’t seem to care what others think. They just like to do something that they thought would be cool, and if people like it, that’s fine. Hmm, interesting..

My resources were limited, but I did hit some forums on the Internet to ask people why they like to dress up.  I had similar results. So then what about everyone reading this blog? Who do you do it for?