Freeze!

First up, welcome to a new follower, Shonen King who has a pretty nifty site that I'm sure I'll peruse from time to time.

Secondly, I'd like to offer up an apology to my students today for doubting the veracity of a story that they'd related to me. A few years ago (which turns out to be 15 years ago), a young Japanese lad on an exchange program to America was shot dead while Trick or Treating. I was presenting my annual Halloween lesson to them (click the pic on the right to check it out) but first I asked them what they knew of Halloween already. 2 or 3 regaled me with the story of 服部剛丈 Hattori Yoshihiro, the aforementioned victim of a trigger-happy New Orleans home owner. Their recollection of the story involved Yoshihiro Trick or Treating and when he approached a house, was shot when he refused to stop when the gun toting protectorate yelled, "Freeze!" The boy assumed he said, "Please" and continued on and was met with a bullet in the chest. You can follow the whole story here and you can see why I had my doubts about the tale. First, I'd assumed it took place on October 31st, not the 17th and he was Trick or Treating, not heading to a party. I doubted that anyone would fire upon an approaching lad regardless of how he was attired (even if he was in Travolta's Saturday Night Fever disco outfit), and I am pretty sure that only cops yell, "Freeze!", instead of a homeowner's cries of "Stop, Back off, Go away", etc. Guess I misunderestimated the enthusiasm of a gun-nut who doesn't realize that your average burglar doesn't ring the doorbell!
My heart goes out to 剛丈/Yoshihiro's
family whose efforts on gun control in the early 90's helped lead to the Brady Bunch Bill, so at least something positive came out of this ghastly incident.

Boy, that last paragraph really puts a damper on the joy of Halloween doesn't it? So instead, let's take a look at some photos of recent candy purchased and crap that I've won at UFO Catcher which will be used as prizes for Saturday's Arkane Radar party.














...I quite like Hangry &Angry and Gloomy the Naughty Grizzly!