Scary Stuff...and We're NOT Necessarily Talking About Elections

Yeah, sure, the history of the future of the world rests on Tuesday's decisions at the polls. But what are bloggers REALLY talking about? Halloween left-overs and more sports curses/traditions, for one. And that extra hour of sleep provided by the weekend switch to Daylight Savings Time.

I guess the retailing experts are right: People DO get into Halloween bigger and better every year. Evidence? Among Sunday's bursty phrases, at least 24 of them refer to parties, candy treats, parties, scary movies, monster songs, haunted houses and other Halloween-related stuff.

On the costume front, the term French maid showed up among bursty phrases as did some sample winners of costume contests. Over at the Stranger.com web site, some biting-humor kiddie costumes have been getting plenty of blog traffic among top links since late last week. And just to prove that small rodents can have fun, too, check out Heather Sullivan's Hamsters in Hats. Honest.

Over at the sports desk, history buffs at Snopes.com are all abuzz over the latest sports curse/legend, to wit: in every year since 1936 that the Washington Redskins lost their last game before the Presidential election, the incumbent president has also lost.

And since we can't entirely ignore the election, two new political finds emerged in weekend BlogPusle results. First is the web site of the Internet Vets for Truth, and second is a Zogby International/Rock the Vote poll of all those young voters who are cell-phone-only citizens.

Today's Campaign Radar 2004 also uncovered a few interesting sites, including the top link in Iraq-related discussion. It's the Iraq Body Count web site, hosted by a group of European researchers, statisticians, students and others interested in keeping track of civilian casualities in Iraq.

BlogPulse News....BlogPulse is on the radio! The web site Blogosphere Radio, an effort by two Canadian guys who are fascinated by blogs, now features BlogPulse data and the occasional sound clip. Check it out!

TREND OF THE DAY: When it comes to paying the price, consumers are obviously watching the numbers at the gas pump roll faster and faster each day.