For Alek Komarnitsky of Lafayette, Colorado, holiday decorations aren’t just a hobby, they’re a way of life. A very, very insane way of life.
Komarnitsky became a local hero four years ago when, as part of his neighborhood Fouth of July parade, he drove his nine-foot-tall inflatable Incredible Hulk doll around in his Oldsmobile Delta 88 Convertible. His fame spread nationwide during the 2004 holidays when, thanks to some sneaky web trickery, he suckered media outlets around the world into falsely believing that people could turn on and off the 17,000 Christmas lights on his house through his website. A year later, he did it for real, giving web surfers complete control over his 26,000 Christmas lights (for those counting, that’s one thousand more than Clark Griswold).
Don’t think Komarnitsky is going to let Halloween 2007 pass by without a little over-the-top yard showmanship. His current holiday page is the Vegas strip of websites, a mind-numbing jumble of web cams, interactive buttons and circuit layouts for his 7,014 Halloween lights (which run on wind-powered electricity). Every night from 6 to 10 pm, you can wreak anonymous havoc on Komarnitsky’s neighbors, turning on and off his Halloween decorations to your heart’s content. When you’re done, you can donate money through the site to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research (Komarnitsky’s children have Celiac Disease). If you don’t, look out: Hulk smash puny money-grubbing human! – Joel Warner
