October Desktop Wallpaper Calendar from SmashingMagazine.com!

Yeah, so it's the first day of October, see, and on the first day of the month I always take a trip to Smashing Magazine to choose a new desktop wallpaper calendar for my PC.

I don't know if the wallpaper pool is better than usual, if October brings out some creativity, or if it's just me, but I'm digging a bunch of them this month. Of course, there are the autumn, harvest-y types:


Nicely done, but a little too "schoolteacher" for me.

Then you have what I can only assume are your "Things that you'll find yourself eating in October because your vegetable garden has gone to hell" wallpapers:


I really like the whole grilled cheese and soup thing, but am afraid that the acorns would just make me hungry.

And the expected Halloween-themed spreads:


Black iron fences always remind me of John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, even if there isn't an abandoned church full of green liquid behind it. The recurring dream sequence in that movie scared the crap out of me. Anyway, I decided that these two were too obviously Halloween-y.

I can't not like the October Monsters twins:


But they look like they should be ads for AMC's Fearfest or something. And we know how I feel about advertising.

And so it was, and so it had to be, and so it is, Mister Crane:


Decidedly spooky, definitely Halloween-y, but what it comes down to is this: I can't resist a doe-eyed horse. So that's my October winner.

An honorable mention, and close second, goes to:


Because, how could it not?