Ayer’s Hardware is the greatest store on earth. From the wealth of electrical doodads to the penny candy to the commendably deadly toy guns, it’s a winner all the way. I’ve had two friends work there, re-told Jeff‘s story about Mr. Ayers dying on the breakroom couch dozens of times, and been in the store for post-church candy acquisition on more occasions than I can possibly count. Also, it’s where my in-store Santa of choice resided when I was a kid. It’s a great store.
It’s also probably the best place on earth to go for last-minute Halloween costume preparation. With its help (and a brief stop by Target for thermal underwear), I was able to go from zero to Krang in the space of one afternoon. I think it turned out pretty well:
Fewer people knew that Krang was an evil brain from Dimension X (a subdivision of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle universe) than I had expected, but those that did seemed pretty enthusiastic about it. More importantly, at the moment I appear to be occupying the top three spots on Flickr for the tag “krang“, which is extremely great.
But I don’t really deserve any of the credit: Emily came up with the idea. Her Cylon costume was highly successful in its own right, featuring hexagonal dog tags, spaceboots and precisely-selected spacetanktops. And, if I can boast a little, it had a pretty great light-up spine (that I took a pretty non-great video of after the batteries had mostly died). Note to future generations of Cylon impersonators: 27 volts is about right for a string of seven Christmas lights. We used 36v, and apparently it got unpleasantly hot.
Other favorites: the war on Christmas, the white rabbit, Teen Wolf and Julian’s absolutely definitive Riddler. Lots more party pictures here.
