The Halloween Diner! Brought to you by Audible.com - CLICK for heaven's sake! It's how I get paid.

Daughter had to write a piece about “The Raven,” explaining what it meant. Five paragraphs. She wrote two and a half pages; Dad’s proud. I print them off. The second page is missing one word:

delusional.

There’s just a space where the word should be.

The first page doesn’t print at all, except for the last four lines. Hmm. Well. Copy, paste into another word processor.

Same thing.

Hmm. Well, copy, paste into an HTML layout program, and print the code.

The only thing that prints are <p>, <b>, and the like.

Hmm. Well, upload it to the web, call it up in a browser - I can see it, it’s all there - and print out the web page.

Blank sheet.

I had to explain that her piece was haunted, which should really get a good grade, considering the subject.

(Finally printed it by taking a screen shot and printing that. Believe me, I was hesitant to look at the page as it lurched out of the printer.)

Something of a scare last night - although dismay at the inevitable is more like it. When I wrote about Jasper last night I was keeping back what happened after the walk. He seemed bothered and confused, and walked around in circles. This means a number of things, from an inner-ear disorder to dementia to basic Old Dog Syndrome. He had trouble standing. We figured the time had come.

Eventually he slept.

Today? None of that. Slept late, got up on his own, went to the breakfast bowl, where I laid out a slab of disgusting wet food. He ate the whole thing with gusto, then went to the door to wait. Took him down the stairs. He wandered around the backyard in the mist until he'd had enough of that, then resumed his nap. No circling tonight, no confusion, no distress; looks up with those same black eyes when we pass, ears up. Scratch his muzzle and he rubs his nose into your wrist and sighs.

And you sigh, too.

A few odds and ends for the day. The connections to Halloween are generous in the cookie aisle, and they put absolutely no thought into the matter, beyond changing the color and spattering the usual cliches. For example. Why?

I should? Really? No one feels fear because they have been instructed to do so by Chips Ahoy. What this tells you is "everything on this package can be disregarded as equally specious."

The other approach: dress up your mascots in spooooooky costumes!

Frightfully fun! Which no one has said since Noel Coward died. Pop seems to be wearing a Monsters Inc costume. Crackle . . . anyone's guess? Right: MAD SCIENTIST. Wearing the obligatory goggles from movies made 80 years ago.

Crackle seems to be in charge the Raised Hands department.

Once again, something horrible seems to have happened to Snap; he is so disfigured he cannot be shown, and must be covered by a coupon.

Here's the thing. If they brought these out last week, great. Makes Halloween special for the tots. Staring at this for a month might dilute the excitement somewhat. I'm in favor of compacting the anticipation to a fortnight.

Otherwise, you have this in your cupboard for a MONTH:

A pirate goldfish, with a haunted house, of course. A natural fit. And it's a house where all the lights are on. Scaaarrry electrical bills!

But now: the worst.

We have a civilization that produced a flying goldfish that does not live in water and wears the livid green scalp of a reanimated monster, secured by a chain to bolts that look nothing like the ones used to conduct electricity. And this creature has a name. And he is a registered trademark.

In case anyone else would want to steal it.

Work blog around 12:30 and Tumblr as well. See you around!