Halloween, San Francisco Style

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Halloween is pretty much San Francisco’s signature holiday. Apparently, we like to play dress up and go drinking. Who knew? Sadly though, the annual festivus up in the Castro district got the kibash from the city after the revelry of the past few years got increasingly out of control. But San Frisco is not the kind of city that’s going to get all weepy and smear our eyeliner over a slap like this. We just move the party. And this year the San Francisco office—with a big assist from Fox and IGN—went a little big in doing so.

First, the prelims: the pumpkin-carving contest. Teams representing a variety of disciplines squared off an epic battle of creativity and execution. All except for one squad, that is. A certain baldy from the engagement side opted to jump the shark as it were, painting his dome traffic-cone orange in the interest of sport. Alas, this late entry wasn’t enough to dethrone the highly topical and Lite Brite-esque Aqua Teen Hunger Force Viral Bomb Pumpkin, which narrowly edged out Barfing Cartman for top honors.

Not satisfied with her team’s win with the ATHF gourd, Cori Rocklein also threw down a benchmark effort in the costume contest as well, spending the day artfully attired as a “dust bunny.” Over the course of said day she managed to accumulate a diverse array of office detritus in her dust, from Goldfish to paper clips. But this would only be good enough for second place. Mike Merit’s potentially career-damaging turn as Nicole Craine—replete with transbay and -gender BART ride—couldn’t be overlooked by the voters. The big risk gets the big prize it would seem.

But the risk-reward gambits weren’t over. The night concluded at Harlot, a newish South of Market night spot, at a party co-sponsored by Fox and IGN. Those who were still ambulatory attempted to keep pace with eventual prom king Jordan “Hips Don’t Lie” Gray, who apparently is not one to be concerned about being the first one out on the dance floor. The prom queen award could go to a bunch of worthy candidates, but Heather Wagner stands out for executing a full two minutes of choreography from the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video. And that was in the office.

I’m sure that there are other sundry details that I’m overlooking, but missed details come with the territory on Halloween. And special thanks to Jacob Ford for being the ringleader who put this circus in motion.

Turman

Update: Cori's comment alerted me to the error of my ways. Thank yous sure are easy to forget in an operation of this size. So let me take a moment to extract the hoof from my grille. Dawn Farrell was most certainly a superstar in orchestrating all of the moving parts of what became a pretty complex operation. Thank you much and apologies for the oversight.