Unfortunately, this has been delayed a day after having a fun evening with the Deathtrap.  Nothing major.  Just driving back to the Garret to make dinner with aloveaffair  when the brakes went out on my car.  So we went back to Selinsgrove, had dinner at Emma's, had clever conversation, and then I had to figure out how to get the Deathtrap somewhere--I couldn't get it towed or take it to a shop because my parents (in their eternal genius) had not mailed out the registration and insurance cards for my car, so calling AAA would have amounted to "Hey, be an accomplice to my illegally driving this car because my parents couldn't take the time to call me and ask for my address to mail this stuff to me."  But all of that came in the mail today, finally--so my car is legal to drive, now that I need to find a mechanic here in L-burg to fix the damn thing.

Really, I just want to smash it with a hammer.  Bloody Deathtrap.  And then the rest of Halloween night was waiting for the other grad students to call and tell me where everybody was going to be meeting up.  But they never called.  Enh, oh well.

But on to more important things.  Only two entries on this one, but it's a busy time of year, so s'cool.  We have otakumeep's hilarious answer, putting Count von Count on top for ending the Tickle Me Elmo crisis, and then there's chiara_suzuka's response, which reminds us to take cocoa powder seriously.  I'm not sure that I can pick a favorite; I love them both, though I still bust out laughing whenever I think of too many Muppets having already died....too funny.  Seriously.

Here we go, yo:
It was a dark and stormy night, or so Snoopy would later write, and ghouls and goblins and ghasts and all sorts of other words that alliterate with those were having a smash at the Annual Monster Mash, but the midnight hours had whiled away and the bash was starting to rock a lot less, so all the vampires retired to a different room of the German castle that Frankenstein's Monster rented each year for the event.  The vampires wanted to become the life of the party, for sure, and to "liven" themselves up they hit the bar and ordered all sorts of drinks with the word "blood" in their names.  Except...ordering a bloody Mary in that crew usually means the bloody neck of some poor girl named Mary.  But that's of no import.  What matters...is how they all got there.

Count von Count, given his penchant for numbers, stands at the doorway with a clipboard:  "One vampire guest, ah, ah, ah.  Two vampire guest, ah, ah, ah...."  He does not take the time to chat with even the greatest of vampires, and such he does not notice the green mist rolling along the floor--even despite his own vampirism and the fact that he can likewise turn into mist (heck, every vamp on the block can do that!), Count von Count cannot digress from his enumeration of things that are obviously vampires, and so he ignores this roiling fog--and therefore the materialization of Count Dracula at the bar.  Dracula removes a photo from the welt pocket of his jacket--a sepia portrait of Jonathan Harker--and the lord of the undead sniffles.  Aw.  Anyway, Count Chocula, who mingles through the crowd of bloodsuckers, tries to pawn off brownies with raspberry swirls as actually containing blood.  They shun this Count of Confectionaries and turn their backs to him.  He stands alone with the tray of chocolates, and then he ambles to the bar, where he sits beside Dracula, who is whimpering something fierce about these three vampiresses who live in his castle and how they were trying to steal this man from him.  "I thought you went after women," Count Chocula, having never read the book, hazards.  Oh, if Dracula's look could kill...fortunately, everybody's undead here.  Dracula grabbed Chocula by his pointy hair and stuffed his face into the plate of brownies.  Then he becomes mist again--this time, a black emo mist darker than Dracula's eternally broken heart--and he storms out of the room and flies back to Transylvania where he awaits another young, Keanu Reeves-esque solicitor to be sent to him from the English firm.  Count von Count chuckles to himself, "Two mysterious vampiric mists, ah, ah, ah."  The picture of Jonathan Harker stays on the bar....

[Chocula over Dracula, but read on....]

Finished with his count of the guests, Count von Count begins a detailed inventory of the contents of the room.  "One giant yellow coaster, ah, ah, ah...two giant yellow coaster, ah, ah, ah..."  The Count takes from the pocket of his waistcoat a slate board and begins fitting each item into place on an equation while, from across the room, Chocula sneers and wipes the brownie crumbs from his face and pulls from the folds of his cloak a box of Count Chocula breakfast cereal.  "You will take my chocolatey confections seriously, fellow undead!  And then, when I have destroyed you all, I will make the people of this world part of my balanced breakfast!"  He rips off the box top, and those marshmallow ghosts swirl into the air.  The ghosts sift through the crowds, lifting the vampires into the air, turning them to dust.  Count von Count hides beneath the table and says, "One more algorithm, ah, ah, ah..." and then at last!  He has it!  The equation for which he has worked, the equation that he has pondered to the point that he had to work on children's television, the mathematical equation with which he can control life without having to create undead vampires like himself!  One major success, ah, ah, ah!  While the ghosts surround the cackling Count Chocula like a deadly ghostly shroud, Count von Count plugs the two yellow coasters into his equation and counts off their names...placed into this impossible series of figures and variables divided by the square root of an isoceles triangle, the two coasters become...Pacman and a power pellet!  When the feisty yellow orb munches the power pellet, Pacman suddenly acquires an affinity for ghosts.  Chocula's face turns pallid; he is aghast, and Count von Count belly laughs:  "One ghost devoured, ah, ah, ah...two ghost devoured, ah, ah, ah..." until Pacman has devoured the entire supernatural entourage.  Chocula steps back in fear, and Count von Count throws his weight at the Vampire of Confectionaries--"One highly improbable victory, ah, ah, ah!"--and the weight of the Muppet vampire is enough to knock Chocula backward.  The Cereal Count gasps and turns to powder!  Count von Count explores the remains and finds that a wooden stirring spoon, also hidden in Chocula's cloak, had pierced that vampire's sweet-seeking heart.

[von Count over Chocula because of creating Pacman (yup, I think that's how that game franchise got started on), but read on!]

Count von Count sits at the bar with Pacman; Count von Count enumerates his lost friends, and Pacman talks about how hard it is for an anthropomorphic circle that eats ghosts to get any respect whatsoever.  "One fallen comrade, ah, ah, ah."  "Woah, buddy," Pacman says, "uh...you should get some help for that."  Count von Count sighed.  "But somebody already took that premise.  One lost plotline, ah, ah, ah...."

Whilst they commiserated, Dracula returned for his forgotten picture of Jonathan Harker.  Dracula joined them at the bar and patted von Count's felt shoulders.  "Give me a year buddy, and I'll stock this hall up again.  Especially..." he waves around the picture of Jonathan Harker, "if I can turn this beautiful young man...."

Pacman shook his head.  "You know, really, I can do without all this moaning.  Seriously, guys.  You think there's a ghost party going on at this Monster Mash that I could steal a snack from?"

Dracula looks at Count von Count.  "A talking yellow circle that eats ghosts?  I'd market this as a video game."

Count von Count slaps the table.  "One great commercial success, ah, ah, ah!"  And so Count von Count sold Pacman to Namco, returned to Sesame Street, and forgot his equation after the influx of Pacman royalties.  And Count Dracula returned to his castle, pined after Jonathan Harker, and was later played by Gary Oldman.  But those are different stories.

[Dracula overall, for giving the world Pacman and keeping the Count on Sesame Street.  And for being played by Gary Oldman.  Yeah.  It's improbable.  But somebody had to do something about those damned marshmallow ghosts....]

That's right, all.  Don't forget to help count down the days to Halloween by posting your very own Countdown scenarios!  I mean, unless you want otakumeep to soar into an uncontested win.  But I know there's a nice competitive spirit in our circle.  Am I right, or am I right?

Anyway, I had the strangest dream last night.  Maybe I'll journal about it sometime soon, if my schedule relents before, say, I forget about the dream, which may or may not include the Cutest Puppy in the World Contest, judged by none other than the awe-inspiring Spot.  Man, criminal genius dog.  I miss Spot like a troop of Boy Scouts misses an archery target (fyi, that's a lot.  GET OFF THE RANGE WHEN THE BOY SCOUTS SHOW UP!).

Also, my heroes of the day include Awesome Fiction Lady and Lit Theory Lady for being awesome and making sure next semester will rock rock on.  Yup.  Quality time.  Though...I might have to figure out a way to not do a creative thesis while still incorporating the writing of fiction into it.  Yeah.  Since...it's been decided that I'm the fiction writer here and therefore my thesis must be fiction.  Seriously.  What the crap.

The last time I was motivated out of spite I wrote that damn penguin story.  Let's see what we can do.  Tonight's work is coming up with my next story and plotting out my next book.  Hopefully, both will be better than The Piece of Utter Dreck and my recent Oh Christ, the OED Regurgitated--Again! story.

Of course, the title is a pun.

All right, folks.  The Red Mage is feeling festive, and I have exactly 55 minutes until I present on Dracula, the most homoerotic novel ever.  Unfortunately, I'm talking about capitalism and not the Count snugglin' down with Jonathan Harker.  But!  I digress.

You all remember the rules for Ultimate Battle Royale.  This one is a special holiday edition *and* a three-way battle, and I'd like to post the results on 31 October, so please play!  Are you ready for...
( The COUNT-OFF for the COUNTDOWN! )
So let's see what you all can do with this.  Which Count will go Down in the first annual Ultimate Battle Royale COUNTDOWN?!?  Remember, since this is online, no super secret option--but you can go anywhere you want to with your story/explanation.  Enjoy, folks!