On account of the fact that this year Halloween fell on a weekday, I decided yesterday to throw together a little costume to wear to work. A couple of years ago I bought a really cool pair of costume horns for just such an occasion. No cheap plastic red-devil-horns-on-a-headband for Kato, no sir, these are very cool "realistic" looking horns that look as if they might have been forged by the master craftsmen at WETA. They are held on by a thin transparent plastic cord that you can cinch to accommodate your dome and when worn by someone like me with hair of non-trivial thickness look as if they coming out of your head (or at least stuck on with glue). To come off as more sinister I dressed in black trousers, button-down shirt, and shoes. Adding a bit of color, I wore a red tie, going for that "evil dresses well" look (which I accented with some gel in my hair). For a subtle finishing touch, I shaved my goatee so that it more resembled a triangle, coming to a point underneath my chin (it is usually as wide as my mouth and rounded). If I had had any forethought I would have let it grow out and waxed it to a point, rolling the corners of my moustache as well. Maybe next year.

Although I wasn't going for anything specific, I did consider telling people that I was dressed as Middle Management.

I attracted a fair amount of attention, considering I was one of only a handful of people to really get into the spirit at work. Many "horny" jokes were made, few of them funny. Most everyone gave me a quizzical look, a look that said: "You seem different today". Of course they realized what it was right away.

The tie.