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Archive for October, 2008

The night was awash in the silken glow of orange as it gently illuminated my delicate pumpkin carving. A faint glimmer of light that cast soft shadows all around.

Then I added gasoline!

Here we are with my latest batch of diabolical creations! With the help of my son I helped two more pumpkins fulfill their ultimate Halloween destiny and sent their orange little souls to the great pumpkin patch in the sky.

This weekend’s creations were Dementia The Clown and The Immortal. They were actually pretty intricate carvings and each took almost two hours to carve and complete. However, they look pretty darn cool. But I have to say that the more time I spend carving the less time they last under the big flame. The heat and flame rips right through the delicate parts the face starts to come apart within a couple of minutes.

Obviously you aren’t supposed to expose your carvings to the conditions and torture I do, but I figure if decide to play along I just wanted to let you know what you’re in for.

The results were unusual to say the least, some of the shots look just plain bizarre. The flames seem to be shooting off in all directions including right through the face. I have to admit this is the first time I’ve used actual gasoline for the fuel source. I much prefer the lamp oil, but at $7.99 a gallon versus $2.40 a gallon, the budget dictates we cut back on costs of these little luxury items, especially when you consider just how many pumpkins meet their maker at my hands.

But anyway, check out the photo gallery, there are some great pictures in this batch. Halloween is only 4 days away and I have to come up with my big finale. I’m not sure if I should go with a big finale like I did last year and set off multiple pumpkins at a time or try to come up with some intricate design in a huge pumpkin. I might have some visitors coming over that night and they may be bringing their own pumpkins so there is still much to plan and plot. Either way, it should be pretty cool.

Of course there is that tinge of sadness since I only get to do this one more time for the year then I have to put it away until 2009.

This is your pumpkin.
This is your pumpkin, ON FIRE!!

If you want to see bigger versions of these pictures you can check out my gallery on Webshots. The images for this set are 1600×1200.

Flaming Pumpkin Photo Gallery

What started as taking some long exposures of a church at night turned into some amusingly eerie photos. I was simply trying to get the details of the church, but the streets lights ended up casting an interesting red color over the building and the clouds began to move in. When you combine this with nearly a full moon it makes for some very interesting photos.

This is a beautiful church built before the 1900’s with a weathered façade, wonderful stained glass and carefully carved statues both around the grounds and nestled within the alcoves. It was a bit of a brisk night, but when I started out it was bright with the full moon. The church was reasonably well lit so it seemed like a fun experiment to try and photograph it. The sodium lamps immediately gave an unusual orange tint to the church. Plus, right when I started scattered clouds started to appear and moon became obscured. These weren’t meant to be Halloween shots, but everything came together and made them that way on their own. The tower of the church took on an almost ghostly appearance and the normally white statues began to feel a little more haunting. I ended up having a lot more fun taking pictures than I’d imagined. It turned out to be a completely different experience.

You can have a look at the full array of pictures in the photo gallery.

We all know I can’t get enough of Halloween and Stardock is placating me with another cool Halloween desktop package. The RIP 2007 desktop has been on my machine since the calendar ticked over to the new month and now there is another full suite I can load. The suite just came out yesterday so I haven’t had a chance to load it on my machine, but it looks awfully festive and the icons looks nice and spooky. For right now you need to be one of the cool kids with either an ObjectDesktop or Wincustomize subscription. But I’m sure they’ll have it available on MyColors pretty soon so you can grab it even if you don’t have the full Stardock products installed.

October is the month of ghouls and goblins, and aside from trick or treating or throwing a Halloween party, you can also “dress up” your desktop for a spooky Halloween look. Today, Stardock is screaming with joy as we present the MyColors Halloween them, which is free to WinCustomize Subscribers and Object Desktop subscribers.

This theme includes a creepy visual style to change the look of Windows with spectacular animations in the start menu and “please wait” dialog, along with a gruesome desktop gadget, and a freakishly designed icon pack with 64 unique icons, and wallpapers. This is just about everything you need to transform your desktop into its own haunted place.

You can check out the new Halloween Desktop right here!