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Unlucky #11

Last week, we showed you 10 of the best Halloween costumes from the internet, and today we want you to show us your best costumes. If you dressed up at the weekend, or you’re dressing up tonight, we want to see it, so send your best photos to customer.services@gadgets.co.uk! Please only send the photos if you’re happy for us to feature them either on our website or facebook, and include your full name somewhere in the email so we can give you proper credit for them!

Have you ever wondered why we dress up on Halloween? It all comes from Ireland where the Celts believed that, on their new years eve (which was October 31st), the line between the land of the living and the land of the dead became blurry, and the spirits of the dead would be able to cross over into the land of the living.

Because the Celts were afraid of the spirits, they used to disguise themselves as inhuman, hoping to fool the dead into leaving them alone. They would take to the streets and wander around with their faces covered in ash and wearing dirty rags. Over centuries, it maintained itself as a tradition, and when the Irish immigrated to America in the 1800s they brought it with them. Since then, it’s evolved into the happier form of dressing up that we know today.

Happy Halloween everyone, and remember to send us your photos!

Yes, it’s another Halloween-themed post. What were you expecting? Today, we’re celebrating with the Top 10 Phenomenally Brilliant Halloween Costumes. So, without further ado, we begin our countdown with:

#10:

#9:

#8:

#7:

#6:

#5:

 #4:

#3:

#2:

 #1:

Of course, if you haven’t got the time or inclination to spend hours of your life constructing an intricate costume for a one-time use, our Flippin’ Frightening T-Shirts are the perfect Halloween costume for you! A casual t-shirt that flips over into a creature of the night, they’re an excellent quirky costume and a cool talking point for those last-minute parties.

It was quiet out there tonight. Maybe too quiet. It wasn’t obvious but my finely-tuned senses were telling me that something wasn’t quite right. Allow me to introduce myself: name’s Knigel. Sure it’s not fancy, but I get by. These days I’m spending my time at Gadget HQ, casing the joint for what we in the business refer to as “suspicious activities”. I can’t tell you who gave me the job, or what they’re paying, but what I can say is that they want to know what’s going on behind these doors real bad.

I’ve been here three years now, and tonight was the first time I caught a break. I found a bucket full of sweets just sitting there with no reason or rhyme for it. These guys don’t move sweets, they’re into bigger game, you know, miscellaneous electronics, gadgets, the sorta stuff that gets you in trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing with it. But this stuff… this is amateur product, candy with Halloween pictures on them. I didn’t know what they were up to, but I was sure as hell gonna find out.

I found two more buckets of the stuff, same brand, same product. Something wasn’t right. I took a swig from my hip flask and surveyed the scene. Halloween candy… it didn’t make sense. Then I caught my second break. A note at the bottom of the bucket with “trick or treat giveaway” written on it. Something about it didn’t sit right, but whichever way I turned I found myself at the same conclusion:

These guys were giving away sweets.

I checked my pocket watch; they’d be back soon, and I wasn’t in the mood for getting caught. I knew with enough time I could figure this out, but it wasn’t going to be tonight. I took another swig, and slipped back into my hiding place…

Oh yes my friends: 14^th October is officially EGG DAY! As a result, we’ve hatched a plan to teach you some incredible egg-related facts.

A two-fer!

Some of you may have seen the phenomenon of a “double-yolker”, where instead of getting one yolk in your egg, you get a bonus eggstra yolk as well. But did you know that the most yolks ever found in one shell was nine! Really, think about that for a second. Nine. In one egg. In human terms, that’s like giving birth to nontouplets, it’s incredible.

Most people know the largest egg in the world belongs to the ostrich, but the tiniest bird egg in the world belongs to the bee hummingbird, and it weighs only half a gram. To put it into context, my ring, which sits unnoticed on my hand every single day, weighs eight times as much as that. It’s unbelievably tiny.

Ouef

In France, new brides break an egg on the threshold of their new homes for good luck and healthy babies. While it’s a nice tradition, I can’t help but think that it’s going to ruin the carpets before they’ve even really moved in. Unless they’re getting new carpets fitted of course, then I suppose they can go to town on the old ones. Especially if they’re a bit old and decrepit anyway, I mean why would you want a mouldy carpet?

During the spring equinox, it is said that an egg will stand on it’s small end, but only for that one day of the year. There are images of this taking place, but scientifically it has absolutely nothing to do with the equinox and is most likely down to the individual characteristics of those eggs.

The entire month of May has been declared National Egg Month, and is the time of year to celebrate the many benefits of… wait a second, there’s an entire month devoted to eggs and we’re talking about egg day? This is ridiculous.

From us, to you.

The following appeal is sponsored by National Bring Your Teddy Bear To Work Day.

This is Barnaby.

Barnaby

When he was younger, he dreamed of a life filled with love, delivering jelly beans and friendships to a small child somewhere out there in the big wide world. But in these times of global stringency, parents are cutting their teddy budget by a whopping 68%, and it’s bears like Barnaby that are suffering.

Barnaby’s jelly beans have expired, and now we can’t sell them on our website anymore. Passionate conservationist that he is, Sam tried eating the out of date treats to reduce the waste; that was last Thursday, and we haven’t seen him since. The bears themselves now sit in our office, de-beaned before their time, waiting in plastic boxes for the inevitable end.

Barnaby is the lucky one; his box split, making him unsellable, and we took him in as our own. But we don’t have room to give all these bears the love they so desperately need… and that’s where you come in.

Here at Gadget HQ, we never put a healthy bear down. We can’t sell them as new, but the bears are slowly but surely making their way onto eBay, where you can bid on them starting from just £0.01. These lovely little guys deserve a chance at a new life, and for a tiny one-off fee, you can give them that.

So please, head over to http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/gadgetsoutlet/m.html and give Leighton, Clifford, Sidney, Mason, Gerald, Cassandra, Elodie, Dudley, Penelope, Roland, Patricia or Edward the love and happiness that they deserve.

With your help, we can make sure teddys all over the world never suffer loneliness or depression ever again. Thanks for listening.

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Oh yeah, and they also come with a mug. So, y’know, that’s nice too.