Wow. Just got back from our annually-appearing Halloween "Spirit" store, and they've really outdone themselves this year. Spirit usually comes in the form of a small store in our local mall, but this year, they've taken over a giant, freestanding space that used to belong to a certain Mr. Ethan Allen.

A lot of you have Spirit stores nearby, and they definitely range in quality. I'm proud to say that ours must be one of 2008's finest. It's huge, ridiculously overdecorated, and since it' doesn't have to share a granite strip with The Gap and KB Toys, the owners can pump the Halloween music up so loud that I'm still not sure I wasn't left with permanent hearing damage. It was amazing. I used to think that Halloween stores like this only existed in spooky-themed sitcom episodes.

I bought a bunch of stuff, of course. Everything was ludicrously overpriced, but this is merely the necessary downside of living within driving distance of a store that sells life-sized animatronic Hannibal Lecter mannequins. I admit that I've tossed a few "LOLs" into banal IM conversations over the years, but this is the first time I'm breaking out an "FTW." Spirit FTW.

I spent around a hundred bucks there, and this item makes up 25% of that. Spirit had a larger variety of Halloween mist machines than I would've ever dreamed existed, and since I've long wondered how much life would improve if I gained the ability to fill my home with mist at any given moment, I had to have one. After some debate, I settled on this $25 "Mist Maker," mainly because none of Spirit's other mist machines came with a ceramic cauldron featuring a creepy old grey man at the helm.

As things turned out, neither did this one. I'm quite sure that the box had text reading "Decorative Cauldron Included" while I was in the store, but when I got home, it somehow said "Decorative Cauldron Not Included." It was my own personal For Forty Humans moment, and it sucked. I got a lousy plug and some kind of army grade explosive mine, but no cauldron.

I worried that I'd picked the worst possible mist machine, but the "Mist Maker" works incredibly well. It runs on regular tap water, so there's no need to stock up on a bunch of those pricey "mist juice" bottles. After setting the gizmo in a tub of water and flipping the switch, it immediately began its smoke-boosted laser light show, spending no time on any unsightly warm-up periods. I had this thing spewing lights and mist at my face no more than 45 seconds after taking it out of the box.

The gadget is lined with a series of multicolored Christmas lights, which alternate patterns to influence the mist's ghoulish hue. How they managed to pack so much magic into a plug-operated device that doesn't electrocute me when placed in water, I'm at a loss to describe. My friend just got back from Disney World, and he paid thousands to be there. I paid 25 bucks, and I'm outshining Epcot's Illuminations on my fucking dining room table. Spirit FTW.

I was going to pass on YouTubing this one, as I don't want to have one of those blogs with 500,000 YouTube videos on it. I'm old school, see. But I need to include it, because I need to maintain proof that my girlfriend came home pissed about the messy shape I left our apartment in, and decided to take it it out on me by hand-washing dishes as loudly and clankily as possible during filming for my super-important "Mist Machine" video. I now know the ceramic language for "fuck you cocksucker." In the video, you can clearly hear her audio assault lurking in the background.

As revenge, I just poured myself a cup of coffee extra quietly, so as to avoid having to pour a cup for her as well. X-E attracts some younger readers, and I feel a certain responsibility to show them what adult life is really about. Halloween misting machines, and dishwasher/coffee Cold Wars.