CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: READY FOR A SCARE? INTERNET OFFERS HALLOWEEN FUN FOR ALL AGES (COLUMN 110)

Boo!

Peggy: Talk about scary. Reports say that among the most popular costumes this Halloween will be Bill and Monica. The Monica ensemble comes with pearls, a beret, a White House intern badge, a fluffy black wig and perhaps a blue dress.

Joni: Also the scream season seems to last year-round at the cinema. There are a bunch of horror flicks getting ready to be released.

Peggy: MidLink Magazine brings you a virtual haunted house created by kids for kids.

longwood.cs.ucf.edu/~MidLink/haunted.html

Joni: This is the fifth year for the haunted house. You can check out haunts from the past. This year's haunted house comes from Ligon Middle School in Raleigh, N.C. As haunted houses go, this is pretty tame.

Peggy: The scary living room has a severed head. The scary hallway had a foot.

Joni: I see. There are severed body parts scattered through the house. OK. This is one for kids.

Peggy: Three different children have created their versions. The second child has a bewitched bedroom and a phantom foyer.

Joni: From this site, we jumped to a virtual jack-o'-lantern, or you can go directly at

www.netmud.com/~glenn/jack/

Peggy: You will need a VRML viewer to see the jacks. They have served up 229,500 jack-o'-lanterns.

Joni: You get to pick shapes for the eyes, nose, mouth and stems. These Halloween sites seem to make use of the newer technology. You may have to download some programs.

Peggy: The trouble with downloading programs for free (and not paying for them) is that the programs expire after a certain amount of time. You have to get it again. Better than buying it, I guess.

Joni: Let's visit another site for a Haunted Halloween. This site tells us how many days, hours, minutes and seconds until Halloween.

www.banzi-net.com/haunted_hofp/Peggy: They say that trick-or-treaters have been knocking on their door since 1997 and they've welcomed more than 80,000 visitors.

Joni: They are also part of a Halloween Horror ring, which is a group of related sites that are linked together. If you like this one, you might like the others.

Peggy: The Haunted Halloween site tells you how to build your own yard haunt with fog machines and lights.

Joni: These are people who really get into Halloween. They also have stuff about scary movies and spooky sounds.

Peggy: You can get Halloween screensavers and creepy sounds and fonts you can download. If you need more, you can sign up for their creepy mailing list and discuss haunts year-round.

Joni: Back to building your own haunt, here's advice on making spider webs and tombstones. Here's instructions on carving a jack-o'-lantern. Did you know the first were carved from turnips?

Peggy: Finally, a good use for turnips. Here's something, pumpkin longevity. Depending on local weather, the lifespan can be a week to a day.

Joni: I've always wondered about that. They recommend coating cut surfaces of the pumpkin with petroleum jelly, including the inside, to combat rotting.

Peggy: They also offer some haunted humor, like 20 things never to do in a horror movie. Never check a monster to see if it is dead. It never is. Never read a book of spells aloud. Never check the attic or basement if the power has just gone out.

Joni: Forget it. Those horror film teens never learn their lessons. The original "Halloween" film was 20 years ago. Let's go adopt a ghost at

www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/7442/

Here you can adopt a friendly ghost and listen to the "Addams Family" theme.

Peggy: You can adopt a ghost to protect your Web site by simply clicking and saving. If you have ghost stories, they want you to e-mail them. You can find lots of other Halloween graphics and spooky animations.

Joni: You can also read about ghosts that have found a new home. A lot of kids start young liking scary tales with the Goosebumps book series.

place.scholastic.com/goosebumps/indexa.htm

Peggy: I bought my daughter a Goosebumps book, but she didn't like it -- too scary. I think she's in the minority though. Online, you can enter the Goosebumps funhouse.

Joni: They have a bunch of games and talk about the new books coming out. You can also scare yourself silly with a do-it-yourself horror story.

Peggy: Fill in the blanks to personalize the story. Here's a tip: When filling in a form with a lot of boxes, use the tab key to move from box to box.

Joni: You have to fill in nouns and adjectives. Hey, they're teaching parts of speech.

Peggy: You'll find lots of puzzles and Shockwave games. You can also learn a little more about the author, R.L. Stine. Here's his picture.

Joni: The books are geared to children ages 7 to 11. His books are known to cast spells on even the most reluctant readers. Stine started writing when he was 9 years old, and he writes two books a month.

Peggy: For more mature readers, take a look at ghost stories.

www.ghostories.com/

Joni: They encourage people to send in their own ghost stories. Since they first went up in 1996, they've had more than 100 stories submitted. You can read them all.

Peggy: They call themselves the best chill on the Net. The categories include afraid, tormented, terrified. Here's one called "The Ghost's Name is George." Doesn't sound very scary.

Joni: No. Here's something a little different. Free e-cards from Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

www.benjerry.com/halloween/

Peggy: You can also download desktop wallpaper images for your computer. Go to their Ghost Office to send a card.

Joni: Select from assorted cards from Halloween cards. The cards aren't all ice-cream related.

Peggy: They also have a flavor graveyard, the resting place for flavors that were pretty good but didn't quite make it. Flavors like cinnamon or chocolate hazelnut swirl or black Russian or sweet potato pie. Yuck.

Joni: What's your favorite Halloween site? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

~Peggy Scott and Joni Adams are members of the Southeast Missourian online staff.