Halloween is, perhaps, one of my favorite "holidays" of all time. Having a late October birthday, many of my childhood birthday parties were Halloween-themed. Now that I'm all grown up, it's great that people in their 20s, 30s and beyond can still celebrate this time of year costumed, albeit a very different kind of party from when I was a kid.
The question "What's my costume this year?" is something I ask myself as each October approaches. I'll re-use a costume if attending different Halloween gatherings than the previous year, but I like to mix it up a bit if I'll be seeing the same friends as before. Rather than buy a costume for 2009, I thought it would be fun to either make something or use things I already had. No slutty nurse for me this year!
The inspiration for this year's attire came from one of my all-time favorite video game, Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress 2 (or TF2 as it's commonly known) is a first-person shooter game available for Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBox 360 and PC. Trust me, though, you'll get the most enjoyment out of it on a PC. For those of you not in the know, TF2 is a team-based (duh!) online multiplayer game where the character you choose has specific roles and abilities that serves as part of a team of several other players, which opposes a team of other similar characters. Teams are differentiated by wearing either red or blue and consist of real-life fellow human-player geeks at computers. No "bots", computer controlled players, are allowed. I could go on, but you should read more here.
My costume for this year was the TF2 Engineer (aka "Engi"). I wanted to do this last year but already had a costume by the time I thought of it. You can find many other examples of TF2 costumes by searching Google. I couldn't find many blog posts on how people created their TF2 costumes, so I thought I'd put this out there for you.
I'll be up front with you. This crap was expensive! Approximately $200 was spent this season on my Halloween ware. If you're shocked by this, pause here, re-read the little blub under the big "Nodnarb.Net" at the top of this site, and return.
The seemingly ridiculous-for-a-Halloween-costume cost was planned for and even had a purpose! My goal was to buy items that were 1) real and 2) re-usable in everyday life. I do a lot of handiwork around the house and have been wanting some of these items (for real!) for a while. A few of these items are a stretch for point No. 2, but, otherwise, my goals were met. Allow me to tell you about it.
The yellow hard hat and brazing goggles were bought from Amazon.com for about $8 and $8.25. These are the items that fall into the "more likely than not to be used at some near point in the future, probably" category. If I should find myself needing to enter a construction site or doing a little gas welding, I'll be covered. The goggles may even come in handy when using my Dremel tool. Goals one and two have been met, but just barely!
The stubble was 100% grown by me for absolutely free.
The red shirt was on sale at Kohl's for about $12 and the patches were made from felt fabric bought at Michaels for about $2. Many special thanks to my wonderful girlfriend for designing the wrench logo in Illustrator, making the patches, attaching them to the shirt (via safety pins) and finding the majority of this stuff to begin with. The Engi's sleeves are rolled up, you know, for safety. You learned about this in middle school shop class, unless you took home ec.
The overalls are Carhartt dark brown bib/unlined, purchased from Getzs.com for about $64 because they were in stock, the right color and I'd receive them by Halloween. This pair of overalls definitely meets goal two. They're rugged and warm, which will be perfect for shoveling snow in the near future. A party guest even complimented me on them and told me they're a great brand.
The gloves were about $3 (Engi only wears the right one) and the pipe wrench was about $20 from Lowe's. Also from Lowe's were the knee pads ($10) and a 15-foot yellow extension cord ($15). The tool belt was about $50. I already had the boots, which are Red Wings.
So that's it! Now you can geek out and make your own next year. Final thoughts:
The best parts about the costume were the ability to easily store multiple beverages in the tool belt and use the pipe wrench as a real-man's bottle opener. 
The worst part was getting confused for another well-known engineer type by the non-gamer community...or someone else entirely unrelated.