Bragging about spooky season superheroes

	Nathalie Chabas, a techy 9-year-old who gave a Home Depot skeleton an AI brain 💀 so he can chat with trick-or-treaters
	Nate Taylor, a dad who turned his front yard into a haunted attraction 🕸️ then found himself fighting his own city's lawyers to keep it open
	Anthony Cabrera, who turned his garage into a haunted house  that buys Christmas presents 🎁 for kids in the hospital

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Let's get into today's bragging! — Adam

HI IT'S ME   Pic of the week! You might remember me from my CatGPT 🐈‍⬛ project. I created it in a single day to show that people can make fun stuff with AI, and millions of people loved it!! 😻   New here? Did someone forward you this? Join 100,000+ awesome humans here →

This year, nearly half of Americans (47%!!) are using AI 🤖 to help with Halloween... but mostly to brainstorm costume and decorating ideas 🧛😹

Other ambitious humans like Nathalie Chabas (a 9-year-old girl from Alameda, California) are taking their Halloween plans a step further… using AI!! She used Claude to make a cheap, store-bought skeleton chat with trick-or-treaters, and it's already been covered by CBS, AOL, and Bored Panda.

You gotta check this out 🙀👇

 

 

Pretty cool!!

At first Nathalie's dad, Jim Chabas, thought it couldn't be done. But Nathalie wasn't taking no for an answer. She figured out which wires moved the skeleton's arms and which ones lit up his eyes. Then she gave him a brain (a tiny computer about the size of a cookie!), a microphone, and AI to come up with replies… and jokes!

Now when you walk up to "Uncle Murray" on Nathalie's porch, his eyes 👀 glow red and he answers you in ~1 second while stirring his neon green drink 🧙🍹 How cool!!

When Nathalie brought him home, Uncle Murray only knew three sentences. Now he's cracking jokes and even made up his own backstory (he says he fell down the stairs one too many times 😹💀).

Nathalie… way to go!! 👏👏👏

Every October, a quiet street in Traverse City, Michigan fills up with towering skeletons, animatronic monsters, and somewhere between 300 to 400 visitors a day.

Nate Taylor started "Dead Ends on Spruce" (a walk-through haunted yard at his house) in 2017 with three truckloads of decorations from Craigslist 🕸️👇

 

 

Except this year, the scariest thing on Nate's block was a letter from the city's lawyers (oh no!! 🙀), after a neighbor accused him of running a for-profit business. The city's rules included a limit of eight visiting cars a day... a pretty big problem for a haunted attraction welcoming hundreds of people.

Would this city violation be the end of Dead Ends on Spruce? Not this year! Three lawyers reached out offering to represent him, and the attraction is now drawing record crowds (the city itself estimated 18,000 to 21,000 visitors this October!!).

Even better, the city is helping block off the street tonight so visitors can safely enjoy the show. This will be the last season at Nate's house, but he's already hunting for a new home for the haunt.

Talk about a plot twist! 🎃

Other Halloween homeowners haven't been quite so lucky. Earlier this month, an Ohio family canceled its own haunted house after their township mailed them a 148-page packet (!!) of violation notices 📄

Way to go Nate for staying calm, keeping it open to everyone, and getting the city on your side... you're worth bragging about!! 👏👏👏

FOX 5 Cobb County family hosts final haunted house charity FOX 5 ATLANTA ▶︎ Watch on FOX 5 ▶︎

When Anthony Cabrera was growing up, there wasn't much to go around, sometimes not even Christmas presents. He's not alone either: in one survey from 2025, 79% of Americans said they were worried about having enough money for holiday gifts 🎁😿

But one night a year, none of that mattered to Anthony. "Halloween was the great equalizer," he says 🎃 Rich kid or poor kid, everyone who knocked on a door got candy 😻. Kinda sweet, right?

 

 

Much like the doorsteps he remembers, this Mableton, Georgia haunt doesn't charge admission. Anthony's family instead puts $1 for every visitor toward presents for kids at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and visitors add donations on top. Last year their grand total came to almost $35,000 in gift money for kids in the hospital (that's enough for 2,405 gifts!!)

Anthony spends about 500 hours a year building his haunted house… on top of his day job as a corporate lawyer. Now this year is the last year ever for Anthony’s haunted house (tonight’s the final night!). After 14 years, he and his wife are retiring it so they can celebrate their anniversary, which falls on Halloween week 🎃

Happy anniversary, Anthony… you've more than earned the night off 👏👏👏

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