The Planet Blog

Since Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, The Planet’s annual Boo Bash is happening today. As you can see from our archives, there are a lot of creative people around here, and when a costume contest challenge is issued, you’re bound to get some interesting results. I’ve already seen a fully costumed Ghostbuster, a bumble bee, and about 45 people – including our CEO and CFO – dressed as Todd Mitchell. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Todd must feel VERY flattered.

We will post our costumed competitors on The Planet Flickr for all to see, and you can post a comment here to vote for your favorites. Click the picture of “Todd” below to go directly to the Boo Bash 2009 album.

To let you share in today’s costuming, we’ve got a present for you. As a part of our fundraising efforts to support the American Heart Association, we printed shirts for employees who donate. The shirt design has been so popular internally that I made it into a few wallpapers that you can use:

Versions Available:
Dual-Monitor Setup (2560 x 1024)
Single Monitor – Server Only (1280 x 1024)
Single Monitor – “You Got Served” Only (1280 x 1024)

After you get your desktop suited up in its new costume, remember to vote for your favorite Boo Bash 2009 entrant in the comment section below.

Trick or Treat!

-Kevin

As you know, Halloween is known for candy, costumes and sequels. Hence, nothing would be more fitting to follow yesterday’s Spoooooky post than a sequel post with more candy and costumes.

Never to be outdone by the Houstonians, The Planet’s Dallas contingent had their own little hootenanny in celebration of All Hallow’s Eve. In this anthropological investigation of the Dallas festivities, we see several striking similarities.

Apparently, every Halloween event needs two things: A Mario, A Pirate, and A Ninja. You can see Hiram costumed as Mario in this picture, and we already established that you will not be able to catch a ninja on camera, so we just need to have a documented pirate for the party to be a complete success.

Whew! Now that Alicia helped us get those requirements out of the way, we can take a look around at some of the other characters making an appearance.

This is officially one of the easiest “Where’s Waldo?” pictures anywhere. Interviews with Waldo-finders will be featured in success stories on a first-come, first-served basis.

In my humble opinion, Jessica’s vending machine costume was one of the day’s most creative. Unfortunately, the novelty and humor was lost on Thuy, another pirate attendee … Shortly after this picture was taken, the chips and candy were pillaged and plundered. Let that be a lesson to everyone: Don’t take pictures with pirates.

Beehive hairdo? Check. Ridiculous amount of tattoos? Check. Bling? Check. Patrice’s Amy Winehouse got my vote for the best costume in Dallas. She and Adron strike a pose in the picture above.

Do you see Waldo in this picture? He’s a little sneakier… As an interesting side-story, Steve, the dapper “pilot” formerly paid the bills as an airport lounge singer. To give you an idea as to why he was “formerly” an airport lounge singer, we can simply investigate where he got the pilot’s uniform: A commercial pilot walked up to the stage in the middle of Steve’s set and gave him one of his extra uniforms on the condition that Steve never subject a crowd of people to his singing voice again.

Don’t act like you’re surprised. It happens to be October 31, the day widely celebrated as Halloween, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you a look behind the scenes at the creativity of some of the folks here in Houston. Following a communal sugar rush from an abundance of candy and cake, I snapped a few pictures of some of the costumes seen around the office today.

The array included some that were funny, others that were creepy and a few more that were outright scary. Needless to say, we made for an interesting thematic juxtaposition: a dark knight with Super Mario and someone dressed as grapes … with a pirate thrown in for good measure.

We weren’t able to get the whole group together at one time for a picture since people had to run in and out to take care of their work, but the above picture is a good snapshot (pun intended) of the broad costume spectrum.

I know what you’re thinking, and I completely agree … “Awesome.” The best part: When Mario (Jason) hit the “?” box, it made the “bling” sound of coins or the *insert relevant onomatopoeia* sound of the mushrooms from the Super Mario video games.

I am not ashamed to admit that I was absolutely terrified of Chucky from the Child’s Play movie line when I was younger. I am, however, ashamed to admit that I might still be terrified of him (and Daniel by association).

“I’m gonna stay by the bar … and put out the vibe.” I am wildly envious of Chris and Kelly here. I’d naturally want to wear a powder blue or bright orange tux on Halloween to pay homage to Dumb and Dumber, but I’m afraid that if I actually got one of the costumes, I’d wear it at least 250 days out of the year.

Imagine you’re walking down the street and you see Doug in this suit coming your direction. Would you (a) Move across to the other side of the street; (b) Put your head down and walk by him quickly; (c) Slow down and talk to him; or (d) Turn around and run away as fast as you can? The correct answer: (d).

While International Talk Like A Pirate Day has passed, the unofficial “Dress Like a Pirate Day” is upon us. Josh’s costume actually led to quite a tense situation … it’s a commonly known fact that Ninjas Hate Pirates (and vice versa), so you can imagine the awkwardness when we were told that a ninja was in our midst.

Unfortunately, ninjas cannot be seen by the naked eye. Trust me, there was a ninja in front of that wall when the picture was taken … At least I THINK he was there.

Happy Halloween!