I have a preternatural fear of skeletons.  The origins of this fear go like this: when I was 8, on some nondescript day leading up to Halloween, I was walking past my father’s darkened den, which was situated at the end of a long hallway.  Back then, house phones were beige and weighed the same as a mature watermelon.  As I was walking rapidly down this dark hallway – convinced, on some level, that something was shambling after me – I glanced into the office at the huge beige phone that normally sat perched on the desk next to the door.  All at once, in what to this day is the most bizarre visual trick I have ever played on myself, the phone morphed into a giant skull, its jaw disturbingly askew, with horrible eyes too large to be human.  I remember literally yelling and running down what was left of the hall into the kitchen, convinced beyond all reason that there was a huge, wet-eyed skull sitting on my father’s desk, waiting for me.

Fast forward 32 years.

Strange, then, that I decorated my house for this Halloween in an almost pure skeleton motif.  I have a 4’ skeleton hanging from a tree outside my office with landscaping twine, an unintentional, amateur approximation of a noose.  My walkway is lit with little plastic skulls, their frozen grimaces chained together with electric cord.  I have a latex pirate skeleton – or at least half of one, as he has no lower body – perched on a stone bench leading up to my porch, a strobe light situated underneath him.  I basically have skeletons and skulls everywhere, mainly as a result of my son going as a skeleton for trick-or-treating tomorrow night.  And something being wrong with me.

The confession comes like this: when it gets dark and I’m outside amongst this spectacle, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recall The Desk Skull.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a little irrationally afraid.  I’d also be lying if I said that I’m not embarrassed by this and wonder what deep-rooted unexorcised demon made me go whole-hog with the skull business.  I’d also be lying if I said I’m 40 years old and if you think any of this is funny, then you are sadly mistaken, because once you see a giant skull on your home office desk, nothing is quite the same.  Ever.  I don’t wish this curse upon anyone, so get that smirk off your face.

So.

In non-skull related news, I have decided to parse the Internet for its most precious harvest this week, so you don’t have to.  Here’s the bounty:

• So much for the Pre saving Sprint.  It’s latest quarterly results showed a loss of $478M and 135,000 subscribers.
• Excellent feature in Wired by Amy Wallace regarding the confusing social movement to skip childhood vaccinations.
• 37signal’s Jason Fried with a speaking tip that should be common sense, but isn’t: don’t tell the audience you’re not prepared.
• In keeping with the Halloween theme, here’s a great primer on H.P. Lovecraft, one of my childhood favorite authors.  All the required reading is here.
• Here’s an awesome, 3D-zoomable demonstration of cell size and scale, bounded from everyday to infinitesimal by a coffee bean and carbon atom.
• Apple’s 2009 advertising budget is huge, but Microsoft’s makes it pale by comparison. What’s working better?  See also: you can’t brute force everything.
• Google singlehandedly shrinks the dedicated GPS market by announcing a free turn-by-turn navigation app for Android 2.0/Motorola Droid.  A version for the iPhone is also in the works.  Translated: the standalone GPS market just got marginalized.
• The iPhone is still runner-up in terms of smartphone marketshare, but the trend is more than promising.  How long will it be before it overtakes the #1 spot?
• Om Malik’s karma can destroy MacBook Pros. Three of them, to be precise.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Careful with those skeletons.