Toy Anxiety’s Annual Toy Drive and Sidewalk Sale Event Is December 12th!

Toy Anxiety Annual Toy Drive and Sidewalk Sale Event at our Phoenix store will be Saturday, December 12th, 2009. Above is a picture of some of the attendees from last year. We have a giant sidewalk sale with regular prices greatly reduced. Plus for every toy donation you make you will get a discount in the store on one item. We have a raffle every 15 minutes of great collectibles from the store. More details to follow. Watch our blog for the latest updates.

Kurt Russell ‘Star Wars’ Audition

This is somewhat painful to watch. The interesting part is how Lucas tweaked or changed the actual dialogue used.

Product Update for 11/04/2009

*Update for 11/04/09*

Restock!

Dragon Wolfgang Knaf

Dragon Brandt Kammerer

SideShow Star Wars Stormtrooper

China Approves Disney Shanghai Park

Central government approval ends limbo, welcomes Obama

November 03, 2009
By Steven Schwankert and Jonathan Landreth
The Hollywood Reporter

BEIJING–China’s central government finally gave The Walt Disney Co. the green light to build a new theme park in Shanghai’s Pudong district, after the project spent years in limbo, the company said late Tuesday.”China is one of the most dynamic, exciting and important countries in the world, and this approval marks a very significant milestone for The Walt Disney Company in mainland China,” Robert Iger, president and CEO, said in a statement.The Shanghai park will join Hong Kong Disneyland to become Disney’s second in China and third in Asia, counting Tokyo Disneyland. The move is seen in part as a nod to U.S. President Barack Obama, who, with a large U.S. trade delegation, makes his first visit to China in mid-November.

Lack of Beijing’s central government approval had been a major stumbling block for much of the last decade as Disney sought to build a park in Shanghai — China’s largest and wealthiest city, where nearly 17 million residents have the country’s highest per capita nominal GDP, $3,264 in 2008, as compared with $46,714 in the U.S.

Despite years of effort and a gradual opening amid rapid growth in China’s economy, companies like Disney — which employs 600 people in China — Time Warner and News Corp have little to show for their efforts in this country, where the government strongly controls the activities of foreign media companies trying to operate in its nascent marketplace.

The Shanghai Disney park was first dreamt up in 1990 by former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, then the city’s mayor, after he visited Disneyland in California. Nearly 20 years later, a Shanghai park could bring thousands of jobs to the city in a time of recession.

Despite strong efforts by Disney, the park and its massive investment — reported to be about $3.6 billion — did not come with any concession on the television front, where Disney is limited in China to roughly 12 hours each week of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” programming on local stations.

Following Beijing’s approval of Disney’s Project Application Report, the city of Shanghai and Disney’s Parks and Resorts division, led by Jay Rasulo, must still work out more details on the park, said a Disney spokeswoman in Hong Kong.

“Essentially the PAR approval represents one milestone in the process,” she said. “The next stage enables us to proceed with detailed discussions with the Shanghai government to produce a final deal.” No further details were made available officially.

However, according to sources familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity, the park could take up to six years to complete, occupy as much as 1,700 acres of Pudong and be about 40% owned by Disney, The New York Times reported.

The remainder of the shares of the Shanghai park — which could eventually rival the size of Disney World in Florida — would be owned by a group of Chinese companies hand-picked by the government, The Times said.

The Shanghai park, set to be situated between the Pudong Airport and downtown Shanghai, will feature a “Magic-Kingdom” style, in keeping with its cousins in Asia, the U.S. and France, a spokesperson in Hong Kong said. It will also have Chinese characteristics as a “part of the localization process that is a part of the deal,” she said.

Earlier rumors that Disney had secured approval for the Shanghai park boosted shares of property developers that have holdings in Pudong. The city had decided on a site in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area for the planned project but was still in discussions to determine who the local business partners might be, a government source told Reuters earlier this week.

The new Shanghai park, which would be Disney’s sixth, is close to a number of other major cities linked by affordable trains or within easy driving distance, including Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Analysts said that Shanghai’s distance from Hong Kong will separate them and not draw down the Hong Kong park’s attendance too dramatically.

“Visitors from Guangdong and southern China will still find Hong Kong more convenient while Shanghai will attract visitors from northern and eastern China,” said Paul Tang, chief economist of Bank of East Asia.

A spokesman for Hong Kong Disneyland said that attendance at that park, the smallest of the company’s theme parks, had been more than 17 million people from the time it opened in Sept. 2005 through the end of May this year.  That’s an average of about 415,000 visitors per month over 41 months.

“From our point of view the Hong Kong and Shanghai parks are not competitors, they’re complementary,” a Disney spokeswoman said. “We really believe that the greater China market is big enough to support multiple parks.”

– Alfred Cang and Sue Zeidler of Reuters contributed to this report.

 

Product Update for 11/03/2009

*Update for 11/03/09*

Restock!

Several more miscellaneous head sculpts

Dragon Ohio State Buckeyes Football Player Accessories

DC Direct 1:6 Joker Accessories

Product Update for 11/02/2009

*Update for 11/02/09*

Restock!

Sideshow
Star Wars Sandtrooper
Star Wars Darth Maul
Star Wars Darth Vader
Star Wars Sith Eyes Anakin

Dragon Modern Detective Chow
Dragon WWII Terry Davies

DID Edward Stiner

Soldier Story 1st USMC MSOB

Twisting Toyz Domenico

Toy Anxiety’s 1st Annual Custom 1:6 Scale Zombie Action Figure Contest Winners

Results from Dan:

OK, well the poll didn’t seem to work out so well, so we can all ignore those results. Should not have gone that direction, and never will again. We’re calling it. We got a couple more people locally to put in their votes, and using the tally we had before the poll, the tie is broken. Therefore, the following are the winners in the 3 categories of Zombies:

Celebrity – By a landslide, Zombie Jones by Hemble. (Sideshow Freaks Forum) We had hoped to see many more entries in this category, but regardless, it would likely have been difficult to top this one.

Nazi – Mollins won by 1 vote. (Sideshow Freaks Forum) This categories’ rules stated that the closer to the zombies featured in Call of Duty World at Wars Zombies levels, the more likely it could win. While none of the entries closely matched the game, Mollins’ captures the essence of the game in the pose and paint.

Original – The Groom by Delfire (One Sixth Warriors Forum). A tough category with so many great entries, many of you put in a lot of effort into your creations, and it was enjoyable to see them.

Congratulations guys! You’ll get a PM with details about claiming your prize.

Thanks to all who participated and supported this contest. We look forward to doing this again (with some revisions) next Halloween.

Dan

The Arizona Ghostbusters Featured in the Phoenix New Times

Our friends, The Arizona Ghostbusters, where recently featured in The Phoenix New Times. In honor of their work for good causes, we are re-running the article in its  entirety. Congrats guys and we will see you at our toy drive on December 12th!

By Niki D’Andrea
published: October 29, 2009
The Phoenix New Times

The corner of Cave Creek Road and Cheryl Street in Sunnyslope isn’t usually a roadside attraction. Occupied by dilapidated wingding-style apartments and auto body shops with barbed-wire fences, the area is especially dark at night, where a single streetlight beams down uselessly on one spot of asphalt.

It’s easy to drive right by this corner without even noticing it — except when there are a dozen people wearing Ghostbusters uniforms and giant proton packs, pushing a hulking, white-and-red 1972 ambulance across the street.

They’re literally stopping traffic on a recent Sunday night, as curious passersby park their vehicles along the street and get out, marveling at the car and asking for photos with the group, which patterns itself after the paranormal investigators in the 1983 comedy Ghostbusters. “Ghostbusters!” exclaims a young guy walking past. “I love that movie!”

A Mexican couple gets out of their car and approaches the group. They don’t speak English, and it’s doubtful they’ve seen the movie. Every other word they say seems to be “Qué?” (“What?”). But even if they don’t know the film with which this group is obsessed, they’re getting quite a kick out of the scene. They’re all smiles as they bust out their cell phones and gesture for photos in the middle of the street.

Once the ogle-fest is over, the group pushes the giant ambulance back into the Haynes Rod and Custom shop, where Rich Haynes has been restoring it. Rich is the cousin of Matt Haynes, the leader of this group, which is called the Arizona Ghostbusters. Matt’s the proud owner of the ambulance — the group’s version of the Ecto-1 vehicle from the film. It needs an engine and new wiring, but it looks road-ready.

Haynes and several of his fellow Ghostbusters were in the shop past midnight a few days ago, applying the Ghostbusters logo to the doors and affixing a replica Ecto Trap called the “Super Slammer,” which looks like a couple of power boxes joined by pipes and high-tech gadgets, to the top.

“What do you think of our girl?” Haynes asks, referring to the car. “Isn’t the paint job beautiful?”

He runs his fingers down the length of a red pinstripe and smiles. “Look at these custom accents,” he fawns, before pointing at the blue lights atop the ambulance. “We had her lights flashing earlier.”

Some men drool over monster trucks and Italian sports cars; these men are in love with an old Pontiac Bonneville ambulance.

Two disheveled women in miniskirts start to approach the garage, curiously, from across the street. Haynes jokes that they’re looking for dates, but after craning their necks and giggling, the women walk away. Their puzzled expressions seem to ask the question this group always gets: Are these guys for real?

Arizona Ghostbusters are for real. Sort of. They’re a real “costuming fan group,” and their self-created car, props, and costumes are all real and made to be as identical to those in the Ghostbusters movies as possible. But they don’t role-play or pretend to be particular characters from the film; the names on their Ghostbusters uniforms are their own. And they don’t really investigate paranormal activity or bust ghosts, either.

They’re just people who love the Ghostbusters franchise and use their costumes and car to raise money for charities. People notice them, and everybody seems to want photos with the team and their props. If people are willing to toss a donation into the group’s charity fundraiser box, the Arizona Ghostbusters are happy to mug it up with them.

One of dozens of Ghostbusters fan groups worldwide, Arizona Ghostbusters are a small fraction of an international, nostalgia-driven costuming phenomenon that includes more than a quarter of a million people who regularly dress up like everything from Star Wars heroes and villains to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

But Arizona Ghostbusters have taken their fandom further than most costuming groups. The 16 or so active members have spent nearly six figures among them re-creating the uniforms, props, and car from the Ghostbusters franchise. That’s way more than they’ve raised for charities, but it gives them a reason to put the costumes on every weekend.

Ghostbusters is just one piece of pop culture past that won’t die. There’s also the immortal and ever-morphing Star Trek. The original ’60s TV series has become one of the biggest franchises in the world over the past five decades. Fans known as “Trekkies” have formed international costuming and role-playing groups like Star-Trek-One and the United Space Federation, each with global memberships around 3,000.

George Lucas’ 1977 film Star Wars is another big throwback franchise, with costuming fan groups that include militia imitations of the Fighting 501st Legion and Rebel Legion (the “bad guys” and “good guys” in the movies, respectively). More recent franchises like the Harry Potter books and films, with their appeal of magic and juvenile nostalgia, have inspired costuming groups, too, most notably the Massachusetts-based Harry Potter Alliance, a national non-profit organization that claims 4,500 members dedicated to social activism.

The Ghostbusters franchise has grown many arms since the film’s release in 1983. Writers/co-stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis’ colorful yarn about a group of New York City parapsychologists turned proton pack-toting ghost hunters spawned a sequel in 1989 (Ghostbusters II), numerous action figures, two animated TV series, a video game, and a confirmed second sequel (Ghostbusters III), currently in the works. And it’s captured the imaginations of Ghostbusters geeks everywhere.

There are Ghostbusters costuming groups in 20 states and six countries. One of the first GB groups was the New York chapter, founded in 1997, the same year a blanket group called “Ghostbusters International” sprang up to provide a cyber-rendezvous point for GB fans everywhere. GB International now has more than 3,500 members.

But the genesis of Arizona Ghostbusters predates the New York club and Ghostbusters International. It started in 1989, when Matt Haynes and some friends were trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. Ghostbusters II had just come out, and one of his friends suggested they dress as Ghostbusters. Haynes initially laughed at the idea, but “I got to thinking about it, and I happen to have access to flight suits. I took some old automotive parts and some two-by-fours and made some proton packs,” he says.

They showed up at some Halloween parties and were an instant hit. People wanted to talk about the movie, marvel at the makeshift props, and take photos with the group.

“And it was that Halloween weekend that told me that Ghostbusters are just universally loved, whether you look like you stepped off the film or not,” Haynes says. “Everybody loves the idea of a Ghostbuster and hanging out with them. And I thought, ‘I’d love to get a group of guys together and do some charity work with this costume.’”

So Haynes — a tall, lean, bald fellow who resembles Superman villain Lex Luthor — started attending comic conventions in his Ghostbusters costume and handing out candy at malls around Halloween. But it would be many years before he would meet a group of people who shared his Ghostbusters vision. In the meantime, he tried to get involved with another costuming fan group.

The Fighting 501st Legion, better known as simply “the 501st,” is arguably the biggest fan costuming group in the world. Patterned after the malevolent stormtrooper army in the Star Wars films, the 501st was established in 1997 and now has 4,200 active members in 40 countries. They show up at numerous charity events and conventions and have a strict membership policy. Costumes must pass the group’s “admission standards” (i.e., entirely movie-accurate). There’s an Arizona chapter, too, and if they hadn’t rejected Matt Haynes’ membership application in the late ’90s, he might have never started the Arizona Ghostbusters group.

Haynes was 14 when Ghostbusters came out, and he’s seen it countless times since. But he says he’s not so much a Ghostbusters fanatic as a movie fanatic in general. His home in Goodyear is filled with memorabilia from a variety of films — a nine-foot painting of Vigo, the villain from Ghostbusters II, hangs on the wall in the foyer, but there are also crates and treasure props made to resemble those in the Indiana Jones films, some Superman statues, two walls of replica weapons featured in films such as Blade Runner and Robocop, and a massive wooden airplane, with Snoopy in the pilot’s seat, hanging from the vaulted ceiling in the entry room.

But the biggest part of Haynes’ geek dream collection consists of Star Wars stuff. The married father of two, who has worked as a manager at the Hobby Bench for nearly 20 years, has a whole room in his house dedicated to Star Wars memorabilia, from a foosball table to multiple lightsabers.

He really wanted to become a member of the 501st Legion in Phoenix, but he says the group never seemed interested in working with him.

“I really wanted to be a part of the 501st, but they snubbed me. A lot of people complain about their elitist attitude,” he says. “I think they thought I wasn’t good enough, or cool enough or whatever, to join them. But their rejection of me really provided the springboard for Arizona Ghostbusters. I almost want to thank them. If they had accepted me, I would be a stormtrooper right now instead of a Ghostbuster.”

In 2007, Haynes met four people who would form the core of Arizona Ghostbusters with him — Jeff Lewis, Matt Sremaniak, Neal Tracey, and Esther Groves. (Disclosure: Groves is a close friend of the author of this story.) “We all kind of hooked up at the same time, at the Phoenix Comic-Con,” Haynes says. “And three months later, we started doing charity events.”

After forming, the group quickly acquired a Web site (www.arizonaghostbusters.com), business cards, fliers, and costumes and props so movie-accurate (including a replica of the Ecto-1 car) that other Ghostbuster fan groups expressed jealousy on Internet message boards and pleaded for the AZ GB’s trade secrets and prop specs.

Everyone in the group will tell you their costumes and props are not toys. This is because they cost a lot of money to make. AZ Ghostbuster Mark Worley, a machinist at Patriot Ordnance Factory Inc., made the molds for the group’s proton packs and fabricates the parts in his spare time. Each proton pack consists of more than a hundred components and has a base price of $350. Such effects as flashing lights, sound, or hoses that shoot small streams of clear slime cost extra. “A proton pack is like a hot rod — it’s never done,” Lewis says.

“We try to make the costumes and props as affordable as possible for new members,” Haynes says (the group, by the way, does not charge membership dues). “If you look on eBay for a good Ghostbusters costume, it’s in the $2,000 to $3,000 range, easily. It was one of our goals to make it at least half that for club members, because they’re using it for charity.”

People sometimes try to grab the Arizona Ghostbusters’ proton packs, even pulling on them while the members are out in public. The AZ GB’s hate it when people do this, and it’s one of the reasons they try to avoid appearing at events where people are drinking. They also avoid drinking at events themselves. In fact, the group has a new “code of conduct” that forbids members from drinking at group meetings even when they aren’t in costume.

The code of conduct came about after the group’s membership grew to about 16 active members, aged anywhere from 20 to 40. Some minor drama went down, as generally happens with that many players. Some members complained about the way other members dressed at events after they’d finished Ghostbusters duty; others griped about members’ girlfriends hanging around the group but not helping; still others protested that their proton packs weren’t being finished quickly enough.

Nobody’s ever been kicked out of the group, but there have been tense moments. Most of the tension arises from stress — the group members often spend their entire weekends doing Ghostbusters stuff. When they participate in charity walks, they do so in long-sleeved uniforms with 30-pound proton packs on their backs.

Sometimes, they’ll man a donation booth at a comic convention or on a First Friday in downtown Phoenix for up to eight hours at a time. They rarely get breaks on such shifts, as there’s a constant flow of people wanting photos.

Not that they could grab a beer to take the edge off on a break, anyway, per the new “no drinking at events” policy. That’s been another point of contention.

But prior to the code’s existence this past summer, members did sometimes go to bars in costume. In fact, that’s where they recruited their two female Ghostbusters. Esther Groves, who estimates she’s seen Ghostbusters at least a hundred times, met Jeff Lewis at Club Mardi Gras Bar & Grill in 2007.

The Arizona Ghostbusters met Christina Glover at Club Palazzo on Central Avenue one Friday night last year, when they made an appearance in costume at Tranz, the club’s weekly goth event. “I went out to the car to get something, and there were these guys in jumpsuits and proton packs getting out of Matt [Haynes'] truck,” says the blonde, blue-eyed Glover. “I was like, ‘No freaking way!’”

“The best part about that night was, the bar next to  ”>Tranz [Amsterdam] thought we were serious,” Matt Sremaniak says.

“They thought we were male strippers or something,” Lewis adds.

None of the members will admit to being “obsessed” with Ghostbusters, even though Sremaniak, a stout auto-parts salesman with a full beard, says he doesn’t think his mother has a picture of him as a child when he wasn’t wearing some kind of Ghostbusters shirt. “Does not taking the movie out of my DVD player count?” he asks.

Being a Ghostbuster looks like a lot of fun, but there’s a serious side to the group, too.

“We’re more organized, more disciplined, more professional in how we conduct ourselves in public than other costuming groups,” says Neal Tracey, who bears a startling resemblance to Ghostbusters actor Bill Murray, minus the pockmarks. “We don’t have helmets or masks or anything obscuring our faces, so we have to be a lot more interactive with the public and let our personalities really shine in these costumes.”

The members of Arizona Ghostbusters are meeting (out of costume) on a recent Friday night at the Macayo’s at 19th Avenue and Thunderbird. A giant pink-and-green wooden parrot perches above their table as they munch on chips and salsa while discussing upcoming charity events.

Although active year-round, the Arizona Ghostbusters stay particularly busy from the beginning of September through the end of November. Every weekend, they attend events to either raise money for or promote awareness of particular charities.

On the third weekend in October, the group participated in multiple events, including three in one day: two charity walks in Prescott (one for the American Diabetes Association, the other for a multiple sclerosis group) and the Light the Night Walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society that night at Tempe Town Beach Park. Other charity groups the AZ GB’s have worked with include the American Cancer Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Salvation Army, and the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where they sometimes appear in costume to cheer up patients.

After raising $2,000 on its first multiple sclerosis walk in 2007, the group says it’s participated in more than a dozen walks since, and raised an average of about $500 per event. They recently raised $350 at the zombie walk during October’s First Friday art walk, doing people’s zombie makeup for donations.

For some Ghostbusters, the volunteer work is all that matters. When asked why he dresses up like a Ghostbuster and does this, Jeff Lewis starts crying.

“It’s about putting smiles on people’s faces,” he says, wiping away tears. “Because if you, for a second, can take someone’s mind off the pain they have or their problems, it’s all worth it. It seems so unlikely that a costume would make a difference in this world, but it can. It gives us a reason. That’s what a lot of people don’t have.”

When they’re at an event, the Arizona Ghostbusters usually hand out candy, often treats from the films, like marshmallows (made to look like the Stay-Puft brand from the movie) and Twinkies. Sometimes, they give out buttons and stickers. They pose for photos in exchange for donations, which are given to various charities.

The group members frequently reiterate that they make no profit whatsoever by being Ghostbusters. Every dollar they raise goes to charities. Money for costumes, props, and the goodies they give away comes out of members’ pockets. They had custom Arizona Ghostbusters T-shirts and hats made for the group, but they don’t sell them. And they don’t sell costumes or props. Like other Ghostbusters fan groups, they operate without an official blessing from or affiliation with Columbia Pictures (acquired by Sony Pictures in 1991), which owns the Ghostbusters brand.

But they’ve been well received by two members of the original Ghostbusters movie cast. Ernie Hudson, who played Winston Zeddemore, has met members of AZ Ghostbusters at a few conventions, and they say he’s always been courteous and happy to sign Ghostbusters merchandise and take photos. But a bigger moment for the group was meeting Dan Aykroyd in May. (Aykroyd declined an interview for this story.)

Aykroyd was at Sportsman’s in Scottsdale, signing bottles of his signature wine and Crystal Head Vodka. The Arizona Ghostbusters showed up in full regalia and waited for three hours while everybody else went through the line because they wanted to have some time with Aykroyd, who was not posing for photos with people or making time for small talk.

Their patience paid off, because Aykroyd was clearly impressed with the group’s enthusiasm. They presented him with an Arizona Ghostbusters baseball cap, which Aykroyd said was “really cool,” and then he insisted on standing up to get a picture with them while wearing the hat.

Unfortunately, the group didn’t have their version of the Ecto-1 at Sportsman’s. If they had, Aykroyd might’ve been even more impressed.

In the Ghostbusters films, the Ecto-1 car is actually a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance. The Arizona Ghostbusters didn’t find one of those, but Matt Haynes did find a 1972 Pontiac Bonneville Ambulance Superior that bore an uncanny resemblance. The body of the car’s been completely redone to mimic the movie version; now Haynes Rod and Custom is working on the engine. They hope to have the car up and running by Halloween so they can drive it to events.

Lewis would like to have the car at events for the kids. “It’s great to see kids, because you look at them and go, ‘That was me,’” he says. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster. Now I am. There’s not too many people that can say they are.”

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – The First Released Cast Photo

David Slade just finished wrapping principal photography on The Twilight Sag: Eclipse. He also posted the first known cast photograph from “Eclipse” on Twitpic, an eerie night shot of Australian heartthrob Xavier Samuels as Riley Biers.

Slade tweets:

“In celebration of wrap first Eclipse cast photo Xavier Samuels between set ups as Riley Biers.”

Apparently Slade took the photo himself between setups.

Watch for more leaked photos as as “Eclipse” begins post-production work. However, most of these leaks will probably not occur until after The Twilight Saga: New Moon has completed its theatrical run, which begins November 20th.

Flash Forward: Halloween, Blue Hand, Quantum Superpositions, Kangaroos and David Bowie

First off, Happy Halloween. I posted some humorous Halloween pictures on another blog on our site earlier today, so check it out after you finish the Flash Forward review.

So Halloween came early this year (Thursday night to be exact). With episode 6 of Flash Forward aptly titled “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps”, we start seeing the future unfold for the Benfords.

But before we discuss the Benfords, let’s discuss David Bowie. Why?

Scary Monsters was one David Bowie’s greatest albums. Scary Monsters was a highly self-reflective album showing how haunted Bowie was by the destructive trappings of fame and superstardom. On the title track, ‘scary monsters and super freaks’ are metaphors for the drugged denizens of a phantasmagoric rock world. ‘When I looked in her eyes they were blue but there’s nobody home.’  I don’t know about eyes being blue but I do know about blue hands.

Episode 6 begins with Simon (Dominic Monaghan) seducing a pretty woman by telling her about “quantum superpositions” and “Schrödinger’s cat” while at the same time, Janis is being operated on to save her life. Like Schrödinger’s cat, she is somewhere between being both alive or dead. Nice metaphor.

Back in LA, Demetri and Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) head over to coroner’s office to see the bodies of the guys Janis took out in her ambush. Demetri notices a small blue hand on one of the bodies, which was one of the items on Mark’s case wall in his flashforward. Mark also mentioned “Baltimore” relating to the blue hand, so Demetri and Gough head over to Baltimore Street in Silver Lake, which is a few blocks away.

Meanwhile, while trick or treating, Mark, Aaron, and Charlie see a kangaroo hopping down the street (I loved the Sally outfit from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas that Nicole was wearing).

Dylan leaves the hospital and takes a bus to the Benford’s house. The writers were in full humor of having him wear a pimp costume. His exchange between the bus driver and the guy on the bus defending his “miho” was funny and poignant at the same time.

Dylan walks past Nicole into the Benford’s house and gets himself a cookie from the rooster cookie jar explaining “It’s my house too.” We learn a bit later that Charlie told this to him when taking a cookie in their flashforward life.

Mark sees three guys wearing masks similar to the ones he sees in his flashforward. He chases after the guys (to the sounds of Bowie’s tune) and catches one in the cemetery. Turns out they were just kids afraid of getting caught toilet papering houses.

Demetri and Gough are on Baltimore Street following hand symbols where each hand has only a certain amount of fingers shown to indicate how far to go down the street. They end up at what appears to be an abandoned drug house with blood splattered on the walls and three dead bodies covered in sheets. On the body most visible, the left hand has been dipped in or painted blue.

Mark, Lloyd, and Olivia have a very awkward moment when Lloyd comes to pick up Dylan from their house. As Lloyd looks around, he recognizes the house from his flashforward and comes to realize that Oliva is his love interest in his future flashforward. Mark does not take this well at all, but it seemed to me that Lloyd seemed pretty smug about it. Lloyd states “You’re her” which Mark retorts “Not yet.”

 Olivia and Mark have words after Lloyd and Dylan leave. Mark accuses Olivia from hiding the truth and she confronts him about hiding the fact that he is drinking in his flashforward. Olivia isn’t sure she can stay with Mark since they cannot trust each other anymore.

At the end of the episode, Simon is waiting in Lloyd’s car. Lloyd is not glad to see him saying “our experiment killed 20 million people.”

New things we learned this week:

Simon’s flashforward was interesting. “He had a neck like an ox and smelled like a meat locker.” He explains that he choked the man to death and didn’t know who he was. Sounds like subway noise in the background, doesn’t it?

Lloyd is from Palo Alto, California.

Seems the show’s writers want us to keep thinking about China somehow being involved in the blackout. First we hear it at the hearings last week and it was mentioned by Gough again tonight. However, Demetri is pretty adamant that “China is a dead end” as he states this to Agent Gough.

Demetri and Janis were at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virgina together. Seems Janis drank Demetri under the table.

Olivia does a B-Lynch suture procedure on Janis which apparently will make her less likely to be able to get pregnant in the future.

Nuts to you, squirrelly-o! Toot-toot!

On one of the bodies is some evidence from the Rutherford case which has not began yet. Demetri states “It begins tonight.”

Who is Gough researching and why is it troubling him so much?

Finally, here is my Halloween treat to you; a sequential photo gallery of the blue hands seen in tonight’s episode.