The Face of Procrastination

"You may delay, but time will not."
--Benjamin Franklin

Here it is 68 days before Halloween and I'm staring at a bunch of uncompleted projects.

I've only "finished" one of my two cemetery entrance columns (and air quotes are around finished because I haven't attached the lantern yet to the one that's otherwise done); I need to tweak my grave grabber prop to make it operate as smoothly as I'd like...and attach its head; my gravedigger Madog stands as uncompleted as where I last left him, which means just a pair of boots; and right across from where I'm sitting are five tombstones that need to be painted.

"I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
--Jerome K. Jerome

As if that wasn't enough, I've also been commissioned to build props for an Alice in Wonderland-themed Sweet 16 party. That means I need to build a bunch of centerpieces for the tables -- two mushrooms, the White Rabbit, Absalom the caterpillar, the Cheshire cat, and some oversized teacups -- a set of giant Hearts cards as guards, and the Red Queen's throne. Not to mention the invitations and a few Mad Hatter hats to boot. And there are some extras I'd like to throw in too, if I have the time. Haha!

Oh, and let's not forget my Secret Reaper gift I need to build too for my Halloween Forum victim. While I could always go with store bought stuff, I prefer hand-made. While I do have some ideas I've got less than three weeks to get 'em done!

Ah, and yes, two family members asked if I could build them a groundbreaker each this year.

"Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried."
--Unknown

Is that enough? That will teach me to put off building props. I had a hard time generating any enthusiasm this summer to build anything. Fortunately I've been bitten by the bug again. I started work on the mushroom centerpieces yesterday and there's something about working with paper mache that gets me excited.

As much as I'd love my patron from the haunted house last year to stop by again and commission some new props for me, I seriously don't know where I'd find the time to do it all.

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."
--William James

Alice in Wonderland Halloween Costumes

In my other life when I'm not making groundbreakers, reapers, and tombstones, I write investment articles for The Motley Fool and one of the sectors I cover is the toy industry. What's neat about this is that when I'm discussing Hasbro (HAS), for example, I'm able to talk about revenues and earnings or free cash flow and returns on equity, but in the same breath I'm also mentioning Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head.

A few years ago I hit the big toy show in New York City and was able to tour the facilities of JAKKS Pacific (JAKK), the maker of one of the biggest toy hits of the past two years: EyeClops night vision goggles. Those things were way cool!

Well I just got an email from them this afternoon announcing they're coming out with Halloween costumes this year based on the Tim Burton "Alice in Wonderland" movie. While I'm not so surprised about this -- I figured the characters would easily lend themselves to costumes -- it was nice to see the industry, or JAKKS rather, thinking about Halloween so early in the year. So I figured I'd share with you what those costumes look like as well.

Rich