Kids today are totally retarded when it comes to Halloween. And they can blame over-protective parents. So, in the interest of keeping arcane Halloween knowledge alive, I've compiled this list of tips for crushing Halloween. We're not just here to get candy, we're here to own that shit.

• If you are over the age of 8, ditch your parents. Seriously. But don't go it alone. If you're a lone ranger, no one will be there to witness your exploits and report your epic night to everyone at school. You'll be stuck telling stories about yourself, no one will believe you, and you will go down in flames. So, set it up with your buddies and find any way possible to convince your parents that you'll be ok. Take a flashlight, wear reflective strips on your clothing, etc. Whatever it takes to get rid of the folks: do it.

• Forget plastic sacks or lame-ass plastic pumpkins to carry your booty (no, not your ass. I'm talking about your candy). You need to use a pillowcase. A king-size pillowcase. It won't rip, you can hold a lot of candy.

• Eggs. Don't take them out of the carton and put them in your pockets. Don't ask me why I know that's a bad idea. I'm just saying. Anyway, Halloween is about chaos. Raising a ruckus. Fucking shit up. This means eggs hitting houses. Eggs hitting cars. Eggs hitting rival kid gangs. This shit is serious. Get out there and cause some problems. Bonus points if the cops talk to you. You lose those bonus points if you give them your real name.

• Make a plan. Get a map. Plan out your route. Don't go to a rich neighborhood. They'll give you healthy food, or they won't be there, or they'll give you apples or stickers or some bullshit like that. You also don't want to hit up new neighborhoods or neighborhoods with lots of young kids, because they will be out taking their kids trick-or-treating. This is what you want: trailer parks, apartment/condo buildings, or old-people neighborhoods. The doors are close together. Minimal time between doors. Run. You can fill up that pillowcase. That is your goal. Anything less is failure.

• Long-johns. It's cold outside. Damn cold. Cold is your enemy. You can wear long-johns under your costume and not mess it up, unless you're going as something with a dress or some crap. Forget it. Wear a pants costume, and wear some long-johns underneath.

• Take a flashlight, but only use it tactically. Here's what I mean by that: use it to shine it in the faces of people who get pissed off over you egging their house. You shine the flashlight in their eyes, then you run. You run hard. Run fast, and hide. They will give up. Then you move on to the next target.

• So you get an apple or a salad or a piece of tofu or some other piece of crap "treat". You can't afford to have that take up valuable space in your pillowcase, so you throw that shit out. Don't throw apples at cars or houses, because you can break shit. But if you get some other crap, throw it at a house. Preferably, at the house of the person who gave it to you. That will make them re-think their treat supply for next year. You have to take care of the people coming behind you too, you know.

• Attack any jack-o-lantern you see. Think of creative deaths. Ninja swords, firecrackers, throwing them, whatever. But pumpkins are your enemy. Every pumpkin you don't kill will turn into a pumpkin zombie at midnight and start hunting down little kids and eating their brains. You want to live with that on your conscience? You gonna sleep tonight while pumpkins eat little kids? No. No one wants to face the carnage the morning after Halloween if you don't stop the pumpkin zombie invasion before it even starts. Mow. Them. Down.

• Black is not the best color for tactical night operations. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, and sunlight is blue. So you wear dark blue. Dark blue will make you invisible. Black will get you caught.

• Aaron Draplin, over at Draplin Design Co., added one more rule to the list in his post this morning. I'll let Aaron spell it out: "Hey Firth, you forgot one rule! You know the house where the people aren’t in town, and just leave a light on with a big bowl of candy? Maybe a sign saying something like, “Happy Halloween! Grab a piece and have a safe night!” Well, here’s what you do: Depending on how many guys you are with, you simply grab the bowl and dump it evenly into each dude’s bag. Done. Leave that bowl as empty as possible. Then maybe kick the sign over and scram."

That's all I got, kids. Get out there, raise some hell, and bring the tricks back to "trick or treat". You only have one childhood. Don't fuck it up by watching Charlie Brown re-runs eating pizza when you can be out celebrating the power of stupid. Get out there, get your candy, and fuck shit up!