The actress chose the Diva vase while shopping for a gift at Los Angeles' Neiman Marcus last week, according to In Touch magazine. A store insider claims Kidman provided her own sealed card and asked for it to be sent with her gift to Cruise's home. Kidman's ex will wed his fiancee, Katie Holmes, in Italy next month.

The study also notes, however, that more online shoppers (39%) this year plan to begin their online holiday shopping in early to mid-November, up from 36% last year, and 15% will begin Thanksgiving weekend, compared to 14% last year. Shopzilla conducted this year's survey for the 7-day, Monday-through-Sunday period Oct. 16-22 and compared it to Oct. 17-23 of last year.

Using procedures pioneered by the hair loss industry for balding men, surgeons are using "plug and sew" techniques to give women long, sweeping lashes once achieved only by glued on extensions and thick lashings of mascara. And just like human hair -- for that is the origin -- these lashes just keep on growing.

"Longer, thicker lashes are an ubiquitous sign of beauty. Eyelash transplantation does for the eyes what breast augmentation does for the figure," said Dr Alan Bauman, a leading proponent of eyelash transplants. "This is a brand new procedure for the general public (and) it is going to explode," Bauman told Reuters during what was billed as the world's first live eyelash surgery workshop for about 40 surgeons from around the world.

Under the procedure, a small incision is made at the back of the scalp to remove 30 or 40 hair follicles which are carefully sewn one by one onto the patient's eyelids. Only light sedation and local anesthetics are used and the cost is around $3,000 an eye. The technique was first confined to patients who had suffered burns or congenital malformations of the eye. But word spread and about 80 percent are now done for cosmetic reasons.

*****

The surgery is not for everyone. The transplanted eyelashes grow just like head hair and need to be trimmed regularly and sometimes curled. Very curly head hair makes for eyelashes with too much kink.

1	Witch	17.5%
2	Pirate	3.7%
3	Vampire	3.7%
4	Cat	2.6%
5	Clown	1.8%
6	Fairy	1.6%
7	Gypsy	1.6%
8	Superhero	1.6%
9	Ghost/Ghoul	1.4%
10	Dracula	1.3%
11	Devil	1.2%
12	Woman of the Night	1.1%
13	Nurse	1.1%
14	Pumpkin	1.1%
15	Athlete	1.0%
16	Princess	1.0%
17	Zombie	1.0%
18	Angel	0.8%
19	French Maid	0.8%
20	Cowboy/Cowgirl	0.7%

Salacious costumes — the most visible reminder that Halloween is no longer the sole domain of children — have been around longer than plastic Grim Reaper scythes. But there has been an emergence of "ultrasexy" costumes in the last couple of years, according to Christa Getz, the purchasing director for BuyCostumes.com, which sells outfits with names like Little Bo "Peep Show" and Miss Foul Play.

"Probably over 90 to 95 percent of our female costumes have a flirty edge to them," Ms. Getz said, adding that sexy costumes are so popular the company had to break its "sexy" category into three subdivisions this year.

Heather Siegel, the vice president of HalloweenMart.com, said her company’s sexy category is among its most popular. (The two best-selling women's costumes are a low-cut skin-tight referee uniform and a pinup-girl-inspired prisoner outfit called Jail Bait.)

"Almost everybody gets dressed up really, really sexy for it," said Carrie Jean Bodner, a senior at Cornell University in Ithaca who wrote about the abundance of skimpy Halloween garb for The Cornell Daily Sun last year. "Even the girls who wouldn't dream of going to class without their pearls and pullovers."

No need to count hanging chads, president George W. Bush was the clear cut winner among men in the vote for most popular choice of costumes with 47% choosing the Commander-in-Chief over two other newsworthy subjects, Mel Gibson (36%) and Tom Cruise (18%).

Females would rather dress as domestic diva Martha Stewart (54%) than heiress Paris Hilton (27%) or television personality Star Jones (19%).

"Pirates is one category that really has been genderless and ageless," reports Deborah Radman, public relations manager for national chain Party City. "It has a lot to do with the popularity of the movie. Kids think it's cool, and adults can dress up fairly easily."

In a pinch, a procrastinator could throw on a white shirt, grab a bandanna, eye patch and plastic sword - all easy to find this time of year - and be ready to go, she suggests.

Note the gaudy colors. The diagonal zipperish scars. The carroty tufts and deceptive "playful" quality. Do not leave this purse alone with your son! Unless you're tired of raising him and would find his death convenient.

The ancient amphibian-freak from 1954's Creature From the Black Lagoon boasts "centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart." Though equally repellent to the touch, this Isabelle Fiore bag ($650) has little to recommend it beyond a "zip-top" and two unsavory pom-poms. Furthermore, the Creature only lashes out in self-defense while the Charm Hobo spent months in a dark basement plotting—actually, the less said about the Charm Hobo the better. We don't want to encourage any more copycat school shootings.

Have you ever dreamed of sleeping like a star? Many celebrities and professional athletes own The Sleep Number Bed by Select Comfort! For the first time ever, Select Comfort is auctioning off more than 25 new celebrity-autographed Sleep Number beds, with 100% of the proceeds going to Ronald McDonald House Charities. Make the winning bid on the bed autographed by your favorite celebrity and take satisfaction in knowing you've helped families in need of a temporary residence and support during a stressful time. Plus, you'll have won an exclusive collector's item and a revolutionary bed.

Lynn Sterling, the entrepreneurial woman responsible for the posting, told police officials that she had acquired the mummy for an old friend who had worked on a demolition project 30 years ago. Lynn stated that she had spoken with an attorney regarding the matter before posting the remains.

In a comment made to the Port Huron Times, Lynn stated, "It's an anatomical, medical use skeleton. I would never have put it on (eBay) if I thought it was anything other than an anatomical, medical thing."

According to one medical examiner involved in identifying the source and identity of the mummy, the auctioned item was an intact skeleton with segments of mummified tissue.

"It's very, very old. It's probably some type of anatomical dissection that was part of an anatomy class that over time got into the hands of somebody in the general public," the examiner explained.

Susan Fussell, director of communications with the National Confectioners Association, said that when people think of Halloween, they naturally think of Trick or Treating and the purchase of all varieties of candy.

"The Halloween season has been No. 1 in candy sales for a number of years now," Fussell said. "It's pretty safe to say that sales have increased between 1 and 3 percent each year. Themed candies are a large part of the sales. Would you believe that more than nine billion pieces of candy corn are made each year. And the candies that are most popular at Halloween are usually popular year 'round with candy bars, gum and licorice.

"Novelty candies are also popular - candies that include toys that spin, cackle and make any kind of noise. Baby Bottle Pops, for example, are popular again this Halloween. The bottle pop is orange with black sugar powder, which dyes your tongue black. The more gruesome, the better. Kids are crazy about gross out candies because their parents don't like them."

The sudden interest in Manhattan real estate highlights a major shift under way in discount retailing, by far the largest segment of the industry. Tired of waiting for suppliers to grant them access to the most fashionable clothing, the chains have decided to design apparel on their own, ensuring that their lower-income customers can buy skinny jeans and satchel bags at the same time as shoppers at higher-end stores.

But, as the discount chains quickly discovered, designers do not flock to Bentonville, Ark., or Troy, Mich., because most of their business is in New York City. So the discount retailers are coming to them. Consider the case of Ms. Wang, the couture women's clothing designer whose wedding gowns have been worn by Sharon Stone and Uma Thurman. To woo her, Kohl's executives shuttled back and forth between Wisconsin and New York over the last year, spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars.

So when Ms. Wang agreed to create a line of clothing, shoes and home goods for the chain in August, a permanent office in the city became a necessity. "To maintain a relationship like this, we felt it was important to have people on the ground in New York," said Peggy Eskenasi, the executive vice president for product development at Kohl's. To make it anywhere in the world of fashion, it turns out, low-cost stores have to make it here first. For decades, clothing vendors have routinely held back the most fashionable clothes from far-away discount chains, first supplying them to department stores and specialty clothing chains. As a result, stores like Kohl's, Kmart and Wal-Mart became resigned to selling last season’s trends, year after year. But with design offices in Manhattan, where trends materialize on the street, discount retailers no longer have to wait for permission from clothing suppliers to carry stylish merchandise. "That is the advantage of doing it yourself in a place like New York," Lisa Schultz, the chief merchant at Sears, said in an interview at the company’s New York design office. "We control our own destiny." For all their progress, though, the chains are hardly advertising their arrival in New York, perhaps because they are uneasy about their presence in a city whose designers have long scoffed at discount retailing. None of the companies have large signs outside their offices, and some have no sign at all. The only evidence that the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has a two-floor office at Fifth Avenue and 31st Street is a passing reference to the company in the building's lobby index.

*****

Harold D. Reiter, the chief executive of Herbert Mines Associates, an executive recruitment firm focused on the retail industry, said chains like Wal-Mart and Kohl's "are doing real design now. It's real fashion. To get real adult designers, you have to do it in New York City."

A lot of 30 TMX Elmos sold for $3000 with a Buy It Now in Sept. 27. Shipping was $100. Yes, that's $100 per Elmo, not including shipping.

A lot of 20 Elmos sold for $2500 with 1 bid on Sept. 22.

An individual TMX Elmo sold for $299.99 on Sept. 20, one of the highest single prices for this doll I found on eBay.

Some of the lowest prices for new TMX Elmos were around only $43, with most of those being around Sept. 19 and 20, close to the date Elmo just went on sale.

Prices for TMX Elmos on amazon.com (all from private sellers) start at $137.99, with 103 available, and go all the way up to $2449.99 for an "English version."

Mattel produced only 700,000 of the toys, generating speculation that it may have deliberately over-hyped the item and limited the quantity in an effort to create a hot toy. Mattel and Fisher-Price denied such accusations.

Jim Silver, editor and publisher of Toy Wishes magazine, said he accepted Mattel denials. No toy has been this hot this early, he said.

Sales have exceeded expectations by five times and although Mattel projected it could sell 700,000 Elmos, it is on track to sell 3 million, he said.

"In the first 24 hours they sold 250,000. Nobody plans on that. If you sell 400,000 units for a season, it is considered a hit, and 500,000 is a huge hit," Mr. Silver said.

A warning to procrastinators: Better shop early, especially online, if you want the must-have holiday toys.

Already, toy sellers such as KB Toys Inc., Toys 'R' Us Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are doing all they can to get their hands on more hot toys, particularly T.M.X. Elmo from Mattel Inc.'s Fisher-Price, whose better-than-expected sales are making it increasingly likely to be the must-have toy for the season.

Jim Silver, editor of Toy Wishes magazine, said Elmo T.M.X. has the potential of being one of the blockbuster toys of the year, especially in the pre-school category.

However, the new Elmo could very well become "extremely" hard to find.

"Because the technology is so complicated, it's taking longer to make the new Elmo. Fisher-Price is only making between 50 to 60 percent of the full-year production of the new Elmo," Silver said, adding that Fisher-Price typically produces a million and a half units of Elmo for the holidays.

"There's going to be a shortage for T.M.X.," he said.

• Autographed copies of Brad Meltzer's gripping #1 New York Times novel, The Book of Fate (Warner Books).
  
  
• Autographed copies of Maggie Without a Clue by Kasey Michaels (Kensington), the hilarious New York Times bestselling mystery that stars intrepid author Maggie Kelly.
  
  
• Fragile Things (William Morrow), the hot new collection of short fiction and wonders from New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.
  
  
• Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women's Lives by Rosemary Daniel (Owl Books).

Some of Britain's top actors, writers, illustrators, sports people and personalities have lent their weight to this year's Pushing the Envelope campaign in aid of literacy charities across the globe.

The Pitney Bowes Pushing the Envelope campaign invites celebrities to design an evnvelope - all of which are one-off original works of art. These envelopes are auctioned on eBay, with the amount raised in each country going towards the chosen local literacy charity. In the UK, this charity is the National Literacy Trust (www.literacytrust.org.uk).

"When it comes to dressing for Halloween, traditional costumes never go out of style," said Tracy Mullin, NRF President and CEO. "In order to please consumers of all ages, retailers have begun stocking their shelves with a wide variety of costumes, from classic favorites to pop-culture icons."

According to the survey, 59.9 percent of consumers plan to buy a Halloween costume this year, up from 53.3 percent in 2005, with the average person spending $21.57 on that purchase. This year an estimated $4.96 billion will be spent on the holiday, making it the sixth largest spending holiday of the year.

The imminent demise of one of the most heavily plugged advertising campaigns on US television has sparked vigorous internet exchanges between Zeta-Jones's fans and industry insiders who questioned the effectiveness of any celebrity in boosting company profits. Her departure will follow a series of advertising fiascos involving prominent Hollywood actresses featured in multi-million-dollar campaigns that were widely deemed to have flopped. Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker were in recent clothing promotions that attracted more criticism than customers.

"When you first saw [famous] names in advertisements and on magazine covers it was novel," said one advertising agency executive. "But it's become so ubiquitous it's one big bore." As the perky, glamorous spokeswoman who popped up in every T-Mobile ad, Zeta-Jones became one of Hollywood’s wealthiest actresses. According to Advertising Age magazine, she has earned $20m (£11m) from T-Mobile, Elizabeth Arden and other endorsements.

*****

Yet the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for celebrity images - fuelled by tabloid magazines and the spread of the internet - encouraged advertisers to dangle huge contracts in front of the Hollywood A-list. Gwyneth Paltrow was signed by Estée Lauder, Nicole Kidman starred in what was billed as the most expensive TV advertisement in history - a two-minute plug for Chanel No 5 perfume costing a reported $43m - and Charlize Theron became a spokeswoman for Christian Dior. The celebrity age appears far from over - L'Oréal has just added Diane Keaton to a line-up that includes Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson - but there is evidence that the tide is turning. Louis Vuitton, the luxury luggage manufacturer, recently returned to professional models after using actresses such as Jennifer Lopez and Uma Thurman. Jolie earned a reported $12m from St John Knits, a US women's clothing brand, but her campaign ran into flak when the company's customers - conservative, wealthy, middle-aged women - rebelled at attempts to reinvent the brand for a younger, trendier market. An expensive campaign for the Gap fashion chain featured Parker, star of Sex and the City, but was found to be "annoying" potential customers, according to market researchers. "Ten years ago, having a celebrity in your ad would class it up," Robert Thompson of Syracuse University told The Wall Street Journal. "Now there’s something cheesy about it . . . there are so many celebrities on so many magazines all the time."

Jonah Bloom, editor of Advertising Age, noted last week that advertisers willing to spend millions of dollars promoting their products rarely did so without careful scrutiny of the performance of their campaigns. "If you see them repeating those ads, they are working," said Bloom. "But do I think that in this day and age a celebrity endorsement is the most effective means of marketing and advertising? Absolutely not. People don't hold these icons in such high regard any more."

Leafs: Specific category leafs that were hot over the past three years.

Keywords: For those leafs, the most frequently occurring title keywords last year based on successful listings only.

Item Specifics (Attributes): Where used in the top-level category, those item specific combinations that were hot over the past three years.

The random telephone survey of 2,514 adults found that 5.5 percent of men and 6 percent of women are addicted to shopping -- so obsessed that they may go deep into debt, wind up divorced or even consider suicide. These aren't your average folks who enjoy an occasional day at the mall. The problem must be so severe that the sufferer is in financial or personal turmoil and has problems functioning.

*****

Shopaholics, the researchers found, tend to be young and live in homes with annual incomes less than $50,000. They're also about four times less likely than the average consumer to pay off their credit card balances in full. "The behavior creates stress in the form of guilt or remorse, or dysfunction in the form of family conflict or unapproved time away from work to shop," said Lorrin Koran, lead author of the study and an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford. The research appears in October's American Journal of Psychiatry.

While men and women may be afflicted to the same degree, they do differ in one area, Koran said. Previous research has shown that men are much more likely to be obsessed with tools, electronic gadgets, books and CDs. (One of Koran's patients just had to have 2,000 wrenches, while another purchased 50 cameras that he didn't use.) Women overspend on clothes, jewelry, makeup, craft paraphernalia and items for the home. "Men are going to Fry's," he said, "and women are going to Macy's."

Phishing scams aim to trick innocent, unsuspecting people into thinking something bad has happened, or may happen, if they don't willingly hand over sensitive information powerful enough to devastate their finances. And if that doesn't frustrate you, consider this: over the past three years, phishing has become a multi-million dollar industry, profiting off fear and false trust.

Taking on phishing is no small task. And it's certainly something we can't do alone. The only way this site will work is if you submit suspected phishing sites, and tell your friends and family to do the same. And when you have some time to spare, stop by and verify some phishes for the community. We think you'll do all of this, because we believe you want to end phishing, too. Supporting PhishTank doesn't just help OpenDNS, it allows any developer building an application to incorporate anti-phishing data into their tools.