There's only ten shopping days left before Halloween. So, it's time for Halloween costume listicles! Lots of people want to tell you what to wear. We'd like to spare you the humiliation of following their advice.

In your dangerous Tuesday media column: A media employee cries for help from the office bathroom, more details on yesterday's Glamour layoffs, a dangerous liberal media pumpkin, and a newspaper gets cheaper, on purpose.

Simon Hammerstein and Randy Weiner's Purgatorio, a two-week haunted house nightlife experience is the most beautiful venue in New York right now. It's scary all right: witness the horror of New York's nightlife elite rubbing elbows with the public.

Earlier this week, it was reported that just three floats had been registered for the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, which will undoubtedly make the annual event more a picture of lameness rather than one of guts and gore as it was in years past. Now it turns out that the number of people planning to celebrate the holiday this year is down to just 62 percent. Of those revelers, a measly 33 percent are dressing up, and only 42 percent are planning to carve a pumpkin. What's next, no more pumpkin pie?

No need to worry about dressing up for Halloween and running the risk that your dog's costume will clash with your own. You can coordinate! Now when you shed your Upper East Side-living, lawyerly image and put on that same slutty French maid costume you always wear one night a year, you can make sure your dog looks just as slutty. Awesome! Between you, your dog, and your investment banker boyfriend wearing the very popular Bernie Madoff mask, you'll be the hit of the party, no doubt. [Buzzfeed]

The long, criminally hipster tale of Hipster Grifter Kari Ferrell has finally reached the portion of "Phase Three: Justice" where she receives her dramatic jail sentence.

Thriller: 15,000 Bernie Madoff masks have gone out for sale this Halloween.

Are Halloween costume makers getting more and more inappropriate by the year, or are young girls actually getting sluttier? Either way, we're not pleased about it. [Whole gallery of disturbing little girl costumes at Blogue]

While the box office savants are impressed with the better-than-expected grosses of this weekend's horror flicks — Final Destination 3-D and Halloween Rebooted 2 — the question on many lips is why did this slasher showdown have to happen?

Using more than 80 hours of footage captured during rehearsals for his ill-fated London concert series, Sony Pictures is set to release a Michael Jackson documentary in late October. Great.

[Heidi Klum, who won this year's most bizarre Halloween costume award, experiences a bout of inspiration with her children at Color Me Mine in Los Angeles yesterday; image via X17]

· To promote the new Indy 4 tie-in pizza at Papa John's: Veggie Lovers! · As research for his upcoming drama Organic, in which Ford plays a gruff macrobiotic dieter who rescues his kidnapped children with the money quote, "Not in my eco-friendly vegan cafe!" · That's isn't a peapod — it's a green, pustule-covered pointer finger.[Photo Credit: Flynet]

Fashion-dreams-snuffer Heidi Klum hosted her annual Halloween bash in New York over the weekend, and once again went over the top with her costume. Almost as disturbing as last year's Snake-Infested Giant Apple (inset) was this year's decision to come as the Goddess Kali— a sacred Hindu deity that has Hindu-American leaders outraged and demanding an apology:

♦ André Leon Talley urged fashion students at the Art Institute of Philadelphia to vote, "no matter who your candidate is," and said of Anna Wintour: "She is not that person in 'The Devil Wears Prada.' She is like Catherine the Great of Russia. She has kept that magazine on top, raised money for the Met and for the Democratic party." [WWD]
♦ Election eve shocker! Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg are voting for Obama. [WWD]
♦ Michael Kors could care less which network Project Runway winds up on: "I just want people to watch the show." [The Cut]
♦ In the new Agent Provocateur campaign, Helena Christensen doesn't look very happy in cheap red lace, and we don't blame her. [The Mirror]

♦ Present at Bette Midler's Hulaween benefit gala for the New York Restoration project: Suze Orman (dressed as big pile of money, left), André Leon Talley, Gloria Estefan, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Karan, Kathy Griffin, Michael Kors, Pink, Jimmy Buffett, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, Ray Kelly, and Cindy Adams. [PMc, Wireimage, NYO]

· It's The Office Joker-off! Creed wins. Shivverrrrr... · We mentioned the Today Show's fairytale costumes this morning, but you really need to watch the whole Matthew Broderick-narrated introduction (a marketing tie-in for The Tale Of Despereaux) to appreciate how exquisitely awkward and unsettling the whole thing was. Stick around for Kathy Lee's diva-fit over being forced into a fur suit to play the Wolf. (We think that's a fur suit.) Then click here to see a dog hungrily investigate Al Roker's blue crotch button. · The Sword celebrates the guy-in-a-bear-suit-blowing-a-guy-in-a-tux scene from The Shining (or as they call it around Defamer HQ, Tuesday), and nine other "homo-oriented horror flicks." · Somehow this costume ended up on a list of Worst Halloween Costumes Ever. Perhaps this list was compiled in Bizarro World, where the "worst" is actually totally kick-ass. You want bad? We'll give you bad. (Though an A for execution.) · OK, this isn't Halloweenish, per se, but here's the cover and song listing of Britney Spears's new album, Circus. Pay special attention to track #9, "Mmm Papi." We smell a hit.

No one does Halloween like L.A. Here's what's to do: · Director Edgar Wright will host a double-feature at the New Beverly, including a screening of his own Shaun of the Dead, and Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky, plus the uncut version of Don't, Wright's Grindhouse trailer. · D.A.N.C.E. on H.A.L.L.O.W.E.E.N.: The West Coast premiere of Justice musical doc A Cross The Universe is at The Montalbán. The band will be there! · And then they'll be at Hard Haunted Mansion, accompanied by Soulwax, Boys Noize, DJ AM (yes!), and Simian Mobile Disco. It's sold out, but they didn't say positively. · Have a severe panic attack at the annual WeHo Halloween Carnival. Chelsea Handler will be crowned the Queen.· Cypress Hill host Haunted Hill at The Wiltern. · Avalon's End Of The World Halloween Weekend has Mickey Avalon, James Zabiela and Damian Lazarus · The Dusk-to-Dawn Horrorthon features splattery chills all night at the Egyptian. Santa Sangre, Pieces, Scream...And Die!, and more! · For comedy lovers, Killgore at the UCB Theater is the "bloodiest, goriest, messiest show UCBTLA has ever seen! The first two rows of seats will be given plastic sheeting to avoid being spattered with blood!" Awesome. · Echo Park Time Travel Mart, aka the 826LA storefront, presents A Very Special Halloween Dead Author Reading. · Halloween Silent Movie with Clark Wilson: Phantom of the Opera features live accompaniment to the 1925 classic by Clark Wilson on Disney Hall's giant McDonald's french fry serving organ. · "Horror-rock kingpin" Roky Erickson hosts Night of the Vampire at the El Rey. · Echoplex hosts the Bondage Ball fetish gala.

Got plans for Halloween? Some of the best parties have already happened, Flickr's photo streams tell me. This military pair had a gay old time in the Castro at Booty Call. Don't try heading to San Francisco's queerest part of town tonight, though; the City is still obstinately trying to ban Halloween from the neighborhood. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments. The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: WagCurious, for "Pirates of Silicon Valley." (Photo by Kevin Goebel)

Some readers have told us our Halloween masks were a little too frightening. If you're still scrambling to pull together a costume, here are four options that are more treat than trick. Best of all, you'll be able to get what you need from your own closet.

We realize our ongoing Halloween costume ideas series has so far overwhelmingly catered to the mannish among you, so we thought we'd now throw one out to all you sexy ladies in the house. Some old-fashioned roller skates, a period hat, vampishly red lipstick and an assortment of ethnically diverse dolls are the essentials for this ensemble. See the finished product after the jump!