So much to do, so much not to do. What's a girl to do? Well, here is just a smattering of what's going on tonight. (An aside, is there any reason to buy bags of fun-size candy anymore to hand out to costumed tykes? We haven't seen a trick-or-treater in ages. Sob.) -- Hellgate Halloween: Vice magazine (SF's no. 1 fan) is throwing a bash with a complimentary bar (!) and tunes by Chromeo......

Fellow Apple jihadies [sic], unite! Today Apple announced more stuff for us to buy! The MacBook Pro has a new 17" model with a faster SuperDrive, an additional USB port, and the FireWire 800 port that's missing from the 15" version. So if you were holding off getting one of the new versions until they came out with a ludicrously large screen, or until that somewhat abrasive distant relative kicked off and left you......

A few days ago, the Secretary of State of California, Bruce McPherson, certified those Diebold Election Systems electronic voting systems to be used in California for upcoming elections. Up to twenty-one counties in California are said to be interested in buying them, including Alameda, Marin, and Humboldt. The move is a bit of a reversal in that McPherson, a Republican (this will become important in a bit, so hold on), said that he'd wait for test results from the Independent Testing Authority (ITA) before approving, but just went ahead and announced the move anyways before hearing from them. ...

Look! Up in the sky! It's... well, just a bunch of fog, apparently. People have been spending a lot of time looking to the tech world for heroes and personal saviors, only to have those illusions shattered when they realize all they're getting are software, search engines, and MP3 players. Leander Kahney of Wired News got some flak for his commentary about the relative merits of Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates. He says that......