Halloween costume search

I'll cut to the chase: most newspapers seem to be no help in getting an idea of what to dress up as for Halloween.

Five days from the silly holiday, I'm in desparate need of a costume. I am required to wear a costume to my job, and I am low on ideas and admittedly cheap, which hurts the cause.

So I took to the newspaper websites, starting as far away from Miami as possible as I don't want to be the 98th Palin impersonator you see Friday (not to mention I'm not sure the gym's policy on cross-dressing, or mine for that matter.)

No luck searching my hometown paper, The (central Illinois) Pantagraph, nor the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, LA Times, or Chicago Tribune. The New York Times had a couple year-old or more blog posts that I didn't want to touch, and even the Miami Herald didn't tell me what everybody else in the Grove will be wearing. I was getting a little frustrated.

Then, the thought occurred to me that I should try a crazy city on the other coast: Seattle. Of course, my final idea was probably my best as the Seattle Times had an article with some of this year's popular costume ideas. Ironically it's an Associated Press article out of New York, so any of the other papers could've picked it up.

This one wasn't particularly helpful, either, offering only a few hot ideas and no real original ones.

But I guess the search wasn't fruitless. I did get the idea in looking at the LA Times that I could go as a crazy Oakland Raiders fan since I'm a huge Raiders fan anyway. And I bet I'll be the only one around here in silver and black since it's the wrong coast.

I'm extremely disappointed in the newspapers once again. I know holiday articles are played-out and I wouldn't want to write one either, but for those of us feeling that "oh crap, Halloween's this Friday" pressure, don't make us go elsewhere to get ideas. I mean, I avoid newspapers for just about everything else so why buck the trend I guess?