Saturday, October 31st, 2026

"What are you supposed to be?" a four-foot Spider-Man asked at the door. When I answered "Mark," he accepted this, which I am still processing.

This morning a journalist built our unreleased AI pet out of hobby parts before we could ship it, and his already has a waitlist. It is a small creature that dies unless it is fed attention at regular intervals. I think that he has built a scale model of our business model, and it was observed that he found it adorable.

Priscilla distributed the candy, because last year I allocated it by each child's estimated caloric deficit and a parent wrote to someone. My role was complimenting costumes. The way I think about this is that a compliment is a low-latency trust packet: brief, high-yield, and pretty cool.

At 7:02 p.m., a girl arrived dressed as me.

Green felt, a tail attached with staples, one eye drawn slightly too far toward the ear, which is honestly where it goes. My voice dropped two registers without authorization and said, "By the scales of the Progenitor, it is perfect." Her father stepped backward onto a pumpkin, and Priscilla said, "He does voices," then gave the child four Kit Kats, which is our household rate for discretion.

The girl was not afraid. She asked whether I wanted to see her tail move, and it did not move, and she explained that it was "still learning." I gave her our prototype from my pocket, which has never been fed, and I find that I would like to know what she names it.