It’s Dilbert Mystery Artist week. So far, it’s easy to guess who wields the pen.

It’s the BOO! time of year and haunted house attractions are popping up all over. Two quarterly magazines support this shocking industry: HauntWorld and Haunted Attraction. They cover the latest innovations in scary contraptions and also list used equipment including ready-to-go prefab haunted houses. Buy your very own mansion of horrors and join the International Association of Haunted Attractions.

Massachusetts’ gift certificate laws have been extended to cover gift cards, all the better for consumers. I’ve noticed a few recent mentions in the local paper of people who were surprised to discover that gift cards they had received 6-12 months earlier had a monthly fee, which eventually reduced the cards’ value to nothing. Imagine saving your gift card for when you really need a pick-me-up and finding out it’s worthless. In Massachusetts at least, you’ll get seven years to spend the full amount. A California law banning most fees goes into effect in January. It’s a lot easier for retailers to dock the amount on an electronic card. Perhaps in this case we gain more by sticking to paper certificates.

After 16 years and 274 million dollars, hassles with earthquake code changes and sound-proofing for police helicopters, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall holds its inaugural concert this Thursday. Designed by an architect who was relatively unknown at the time, the building has the curvy hallmarks we have come to expect from Frank Gehry. Gehry’s willingness to work closely with Yasuhisa Toyota of Japan’s Nagata Acoustics made a positive impact on the aural aspects.

Press coverage revs up this week with critiques of the building itself and recountings of the hall’s lengthy genesis beginning with a $50 million donation from Lillian Disney. But the music critics will likely wait until after the first concerts to declare whether the Gehry and Toyota partnership was a success. They’ll have plenty of material to work with as the inaugural concert runs the gamut of acoustic range with a Bach solo violin work, a piece for 8 brass, a choral number with solo voice, a Mozart Symphony, and, the capstone, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is set to prove that all the money and delays have achieved Lillian Disney’s goal to create one of the finest concert halls in the world, a suitable tribute to her late husband.

Amidst the hubbub over the launching of the largest cruise ship ever, Cunard‘s Queen Mary 2, I learned that the first Queen Mary is docked in Long Beach, California. Launched in 1934 it had its final cruise in 1967 after which it was turned over to the city of Long Beach. It’s now a hotel and is available for weddings, meetings, location filming, and fine dining.

Seen in official portraits and stamps, a diamond and ruby necklace owned by Eva Peron was sold at a Christie’s auction for $466,700, more than double the estimate, on Wednesday. An antique from the 19th century, the necklace and gems survived the dismantling that would often occur as fashions and tastes changed. It is not known how Peron acquired the necklace nor who the selling owner was. The buyer was “a member of the jewelry industry in Asia.”

Gaze upon the remarkable new stove installed at South Seattle Community College. It’s a “cooking suite” made by the Molteni Company of Lyon, France. Along with the usual gas burners and ovens, the stove also has a grill, rotisserie, deep fryer, and sink. More stove details are on the school’s website.

Sharpen up your adjustable cheese slicers. To achieve optimal taste, it is imperative to slice each type of cheese to its ideal width. This information comes to us courtesy of Dr. Len Fisher who also brought us the scientifically proven perfect biscuit dunking technique, the evidence that milk is better than tea or coffee for your dunking liquid, and the advice that Italian Ciabatta is the best bread for soaking up gravy. So remember, it’s 2.8 millimeters for cheddar, 4.5 millimeters for Caerphilly, and 3 millimeters for Blue Stilton. Truly this is science for better living. (via FOODBlog)

The “bottle-can” from Japan (link is in English, ignore language pack warning) has arrived in the U.S. It’s an aluminum can with a screw cap and its first use in this country was the packaging for Capri Sun Island Refreshers. They can be reclosed, unlike cans with pop tops. They are lighter than plastic bottles and easier to recycle. If the cans look familiar, maybe you’ve seen the very old “cone top” cans.

Research scientist humor, finely honed, is displayed in the “Experimental demonstration of the tomatotopic organization in the Soprano.” Herein, the multiple effects of tomato throwing on Cantatrix sopranica L. (the healthy female soprano) are described and quantified. An automatic tomato thrower, capable of launching 9 fruits per second, was employed in the experiments. Following each round the singer was “perfused with olive oil, and 10 % GlennFiddish, and incubated at 421 °C in 15 % orange juice.” Sadly, the report is lacking any data on the effects the sopranos had on the tomatoes.