One of my fondest Halloween memories was when in sixth grade, I was given quite a simple chore – to keep an eye out on the kid sister while doing the neighborhood candy-looting rounds with my friends. At some point, we’d decided to take a detour from our carefully mapped route (planned in great detail according to which houses we knew for a fact were inhabited by parents who shelled out the dough for the higher-end candies and treats), and brave a visit to a local haunted house. Pretty tame for us sixth graders, but quite a traumatizing event for tender Kid Sister, who was spooked out of her shell by a well-meaning neighbor dressed up in full-on Egyptian mummy garb. So sure, it was all toilet paper and masking tape, but this brings to mind an important point – it’s the thought that counts!

With an armful of toilet paper, plastic spiders, fake eyeballs, some white sheets and a ton of DIY spirit, you can easily give visitors the willies with your very own haunted house, as demonstrated in this video from Fine Living Network.

Yes, gay icons are the best option for Halloween. And although I will always have Geri Halliwell in my heart and there’s nothing I’d love more than be surrounded by dancers singing “Mi Chico Latino”, one has to know when to move forward. Now is the time for Lady Gaga, so if you want to be the latest glam sensation in the costume world, choose one of her many theatrical outfits for this Halloween.

So, bubble dress? blond wig? Or her 2009 MTV Video Music Awards costume?

I think Threadbanger knows.

Unfortunately, every year you can see many girls who seem to see Halloween strictly as an opportunity to be a naughty-something (nurse, nun, cop or cow-girl),  but don’t give their makeup any special thought. In that sense I think we can all learn something from Heidi Klum:  The super-model/Project Runway host throws a glamorous Halloween party every year with her husband Seal. Though you’d have to look hard to find a better looking lady, she usually goes for bold, over the top looks that are not necessarily flattering.

But even if Kali is a bit much for you, don’t be afraid to try something new and creative this Halloween. In this Style Network video you can see the best way to apply glitter – a key part of any Halloween look, or as Heidi would put it, help you get that “Wow Factor”.

While a real Les Paul Custom may be out of your budget, you can go wild with to-die-for mods for your Rock Band gear, starting with your guitar. All you’ll need is some paint, nail polish, stickers, skins (like the ones shown in this video, which you can create here), glue, and some spunky rock’n'roll spirit. Just watch as Chris Gore serves up his own amped-up version of Martha Stewart Skillz, and shows you how to make the most of your Rock Band and Guitar Hero instruments.

Rock on, you little creative demons, you!
Can’t get enough gaming? Check out other gamer gems from G4TV, right here on 5min!

Legend has it that the mother of all bald women, Sinead O’Connor, first shaved her head after being politely asked by her record label to be a little more feminine. Her model of a beautiful woman who’s both rebellious and fragile has been with us ever since. In cinema we had Demi Moore in G.I. Jane who also invested in a matching set of muscles.

Robin Tunney as Debra in the cultish Empire Records took fragile to a whole new and disturbing level. In Alien 3 Sigourney Weaver was playing a part originally written for a man and gets pregnant with an alien baby, so clearly an ambiguous look was needed.  Similarly, everyone’s favorite Natalie Portman’s V for Vendetta transformation from a frightened little girl to a tough freedom fighter/terrorist required a buzz cut.

No wonder bald women got a bad rep. Long hair is one of the strongest attributes of femininity, when women decide to cut it, they seem to reject the whole concept. Many saw Britney’s famous encounter with a shaving machine as hitting rock bottom, personally I thought it was her brief moment of clarity, the point where she wanted to turn her back on the industry that built and crushed her with delight.  I envisioned her joining a Tibetan nunnery and becoming the new Mother Teresa. A month later she got extensions.

This excellent video from Gillette will show you how to best shave your head:

However, there are times when I’m either feeling lenient and tolerant enough towards the musical tastes of friends and colleagues, or end up feeling optimistically curious to a degree that pushes me outside of my iTunes stash, and into the loving arms of other people’s musical bounties, courtesy of iTunes’ sharing capabilities.

This time, with the recent release of iTunes 8.1, Apple have revved things up by introducing iTunes DJ, the older and hotter sister of its predecessor, Party Shuffle. The iTunes DJ feature allows your tech-forward pals toting an iPhone or the iPod Touch (so long as you grant them entry to your Wi-Fi network) to request and vote for songs to be added to the iTunes DJ playlist (which greatly resembles the party shuffle playlist you’re already familiar with). The more votes a song racks up, the higher it will climb in the coolness hierarchy within your iTunes playlist, and the sooner it will play.

While a tad inconvenient for ultra-paranoid types or really anyone with an encrypted wi-fi network, the only real requirement is that your pals all sport the Remote iPhone app, which can be downloaded free of charge from the iTunes Store.

To set up iTunes DJ and get the party started, you first need to open iTunes on your Mac and click on the Settings button underneath the iTunes DJ playlist. In the settings window that opens, check the box to allow guests to request songs, and even type in a welcome message warning them not to push it with The Jonas Brothers tracks. You can also check the little box to enable voting, and then sit back to watch (and hear/possible groove to) democracy in motion.

The highlight of this feature for musical snobs and chronic playlist patrollers and no doubt a huge draw for control freaks is the fact that while the owner of the iTunes-paired iPhone will blossom into a musical tyrant with a ability to pause, skip and play the hell out of a given playlist, guests (those less fortunate ones whose iPhones are only satellites revolving around the Party Master, but not paired to the host) will be able to rock the vote, but not the actual order or behavior of the playlist.

That said, guests can still put their music where their mouth is, and vote for songs, request new songs, which will be added to the bottom of the playlist. You, the power-hungry Party Master, are a different class altogether – you can balance out all this democracy-shmemocracy by repeatedly casting multiple votes for the song of your choice (just right-click on the tune of your choice and let your voice be heard!), unlike your guests who will only be able to vote once for a given tune.

Of course, all of this is just fantasy unless you’re equipped with friends who are total Apple fanboys, because we all know that no matter how pumping, it ain’t no party if the guest list includes only you and your iPhone. On the other hand, do you really want to hang out with folks who are still using Zune?!

As an adult, though, I found myself dreaming mostly of the Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum.  A candy that is a three course dinner all in itself: Tomato Soup, Roast Beef and Baked Potato, and Blueberry Pie and Ice Cream. Not just bad artificial flavor, but an actual meal were the soup is hot, potatoes crispy and the ice cream creamy and cold, I’d tell myself while looking yet again at an empty fridge, remembering that I forgot to get groceries.

Busy lives and full schedules mean that most of us don’t have the time to prepare three course meals, or even the energy to fantasize about them during the week. While I Hope most people don’t often find themselves with nothing but ginger ale and instant soup, many could use some help figuring out how to shop for healthy and easy to prepare meals.

Dietitian Carolyn O’Neil will show you how to do just that – fit a healthy diet to the busiest schedule!

Two years ago I got on the flight to New Orleans and happened to sit next to a woman with a lovely southern accent. Within 10 minutes of conversation she was telling me all about her family’s ordeal during hurricane Katrina. She was a part of an organized tour and soon all of her friends, who were sitting around us, joined in on the conversation. They told their stories; what was lost, who was hurt. They talked about their fears of another hurricane and their frustration with the authorities.  Then they asked me where I came from. They were proud to hear I flew thousands of miles just to visit their city.  An out-pour of recommendations and suggestions followed; jazz clubs, traditional food and charming places I simply must visit. This weird combination of tragedy, warmth, loyalty, lost, history and humor followed me for the rest of the visit.

This Tuesday the city of New Orleans will be celebrating Mardi Gras or “Fat Tuesday” in all of its glory. Visitors will be swept by a whirlwind of Beads and parades, outrageous customs and makeup, Cajun food and drinks, all submerged in music and colored in purple, green and gold. Masses of people will fill the beautiful old streets, dance, laugh and flash complete strangers.  They will also remember the ones who are gone and what remains to be done for those who lost everything.

This might be one of the greatest carnivals in the world, but the most remarkable thing about it is the city and its spirit.

To honor Mardi Gras and ring in the celebrations, learn how to stir up a Sazerac cocktail fit for Fat tuesday – Sazerac is actually one of the oldest cocktails around, with its roots in pre-Civil War New Orleans. Enjoy!

My first pick is Plex, an awesome user interface freebie for Mac that provides instant access to your media – television shows, movies, music… even the weather looks fascinating on Plex. Based on the XBMC open-source media centre originally designed for the Xbox, Plex may just be the most useful infusion for any Mac owners who use their Macs as an entertainment hub. At our place, a Mac Mini hooked up to a frighteningly huge LCD screen serves as our ever-obedient media center, so Plex was a perfect fit. This beautiful behemoth of a media center is currently available only for OS X, which is really the only bummer I could spot, but hey, you didn’t need me to tell you that PC users are losing out, right?

A great (and again, FREE) alternative to Front Row (which I was using before), Plex has completely upgraded my home entertainment setup. Plex can play a wide range of video, audio and photo formats, but the real prize here are its dynamic library features, which allow you to catalog your media as a collection of versatile libraries, automatically retrieve metadata from the Internet, and display your libraries using one of the visually stunning skins. The skins are hypnotizing, really – I stared at a hi-res image of a tellie set thrown in a field of tall grass for about an hour before proceeding to click “Play” on my little Apple Remote. Plex includes a thoroughly customizable skinning engine that enables users to alter its entire user interface. Colors, controls, navigation, positioning of elements, animation, and even added functionality can all be achieved with a skin, which also makes Plex a great display for the easily bored and interface-picky.

The icing on the cake? With Plex, you can now automatically download movie and TV show artwork, fan-art, plot and episode information for your movies and television shows, as well as artwork, artist and album information for your music files. How awesome is that? My secret infatuation with Gossip Girl is now out of the closet thanks to Plex’s beautiful features, which I just couldn’t bear to hide away from house guests… Darned be Plex! Watch out, Upper East Siders – here I come!

But seriously, if you own a Mac, you absolutely need to be using Plex.
For more handy Mac tips and tricks, check out 5min’s Tech Files.