October 2008 Archives

According to the Things that is. You would think Halloween was their birthday the way they go on about it. Its been weeks, weeks I tell you, of constant "when can we decorate the yard?" "Do we have spiderwebs? Can we put them up yet?". "How about today, can we put the spider webs up today?". Ugh.

So, today, we got out the Halloween stuff. I like to do it in the middle of October because it really bucks the trend of my overachieving neighbors who are prey to their child's every whim. Also, because the decorations I have for the front of the house make the rooms in the front of the house kind of dark inside, I hate that. But, they are very cool.

Meanwhile, I let the little monsters Things put spiderweb floss on the bushes. After Sysguy and I made them rake all the leaves out of them. It kicks up a lot of dirt. A weird thing about Southern California is that because it practically never really rains, one is obliged to wash the smog off the bushes occasionally, in order for photosynthesis to have half a chance. I digress. After about 15 minutes of barely stretching the spiderweb stuff out at all, the Things were totally done with the whole ordeal. You know Halloween is all about the candy for them, but still. Weeks of whinging for 15 minutes and they even did a lousy job? Augh.

It became a match of wits. Who can do the absolute least amount of spreading out the spiderweb floss and yet fool mom into thinking it was good enough? Fun! It all came out fine in the end. This year I got some headstones on sale for the bloodthirsty Things, so they arranged a small cemetary in the yard. Here are the results:

You can see a bit of something in the front window on the left. I swear, these are the best, simplest decorations EVER. Seriously, four hours of sewing 6 years ago, practically instant creepy ambiance forever. They roll up for storage. I am so happy with them. Can you tell? Here is how the windows look at night, sorry its blurry, I'm too lazy to look for the tripod.

These are the windows on the East-facing South side of the house, plus a bit of reflection from the neighbor's porch light:

These are the windows on the North and East facing side, its a three windows with one around a corner arrangement. I put the hopeful smiley one facing my North neighbor, she says the faces kinda freak her out.
 
I'm really not a Halloween grinch, my parents have pictures of me sleeping with my very first broom (a portent of things to come...). In fact, I can even remember how incredibly cool it was. It is a very weird thing, one day when you can knock on doors and people will give you candy for no reason at all. One day early or one day late, they'll look at you like you're nuts.

Only about two more weeks of enduring the constant beseeching "can we carve a pumpkin yet? Pleeeeeaaase?". Dudes, we kinda have to wait till the last minute on that, what with the rotting instantly in the warm weather and all. Putrescent pumpkin on the doorstep might be in keeping with the season, but we're not going there.

Yeah, its always something.

A couple months ago I managed to arrange for my camera to have a fun fun field trip in the street for a few hours. Since then, two things have happened. One is that it turns out my next door neighbor is the kind soul who put my camera on the curb on the cross street north of us. She was a little disturbed that someone would just leave a camera lying around like that. Me, too.

Another thing is I got a new camera. Basically the same thing, only its cheaper now, what with unnecessary feature bloat and obsolescence. Its pink. I'm like that.

Here are pictures of the amazing older camera, which still worked for a week or so after its horrible accident. I managed to take first day of school photos with it, through the viewfinder though, since the lcd screen was crazed. No zoom, but lets not get grabby.

Canon. Its good stuff.

That's right! Only 100 more days of what is arguably the worst Presidential administration—for our country, for the world—in our country's history.

And good riddance to the miserable, heartless cretins.

As if there aren't enough problems in the world, we have the mean-hearted busybody contingent making wildly inaccurate assertions regarding the imagined horrors that gay marriage will bring to churches and education here in California. What are these people so afraid of? Its funny how its usually the "pro family" folks on the vanguard of this judgemental behavior. I guess they're only pro families that look like theirs. Like the track record for that is so great.

I'm really tired of the "more terror and anger, less love and respect!" people. We need another Australia, where the angry people can go and be happy with their perfect selves. You know, until they figure out they're not actually identical in all opinions, and turn on each other for ever finer increments of difference. No matter where you go, somebody else has stars on thars.

Marry who you want, regardless of the human suit they came in. More love is more love.

Sadly, its not just the dogs that have gone to the dogs.

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/10/the_kibble_bubble.php

Barack Obama, on the stump, holding a knitted-sock-in-progress for one of us crazy knitters (the taking photos of people holding the sock you're working on is a knitting thang). Before, I thought he was merely a great mind and a real hope for the future. Now, I actually have a crush! OMG!! He's holding a sock!!! I am actually moved. I am sure he has no idea what this means to jillions of knitters.

Here's the link for how it happened. Here's the Yarn Harlot, who started the sock photo thang.

Couldn't someone come up with a way to make pancakes into a more environment destroying breakfast? We need an idea that will save people the whopping 3 minutes it takes to make pancake batter, but it also has to generate metal, plastic and propellant waste. (Sure, there's already shake-up bisquick, but a person who is inclined could reuse that container, which is clearly cheating.)

Hmmmm.

Oh, wait! Someone has already done it!! The hell with the environment we leave to our children, let's breakfast as quickly as possible! It's Organic! So it has to be good!

(and yes, I bought one. its horrifying, and yet fascinating. can't wait to whip it out to appall sysguy next week. i'll post if they're revolting, but pancakes are hard to screw up. hee hee)