A photo from last year’s Halloween.
Tag: Pumpkin
Skull Pumpkin & Vampire Halloween
Katie carved this incredible anatomically-correct skull Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween today. Update: Check the comments for her writeup on how she carved it.
It seems to have worked as a “yes, we’re handing out candy” signal. Last year we didn’t get any trick-or-treaters. (We also didn’t put up any decorations that year, either.) This year, they started arriving while I was taking photos of the pumpkin…and while Katie was opening the bags of candy!
She dressed up in her vampire costume, which got some great responses. One trick-or-treater asked about the fangs. She overheard another walking away from the door and wondering, “Do you think she was a real vampire?”
By 8:50 we were down to only three Starbursts left to hand out, so we brought the pumpkin inside and called it a night.
Earlier this afternoon, I ran some errands and deliberately went to the Spectrum so that I’d have a chance of spotting the Great Park Balloon in the air while it still had the Jack-O-Lantern face on. I thought this view made for a nice image of the Great Pumpkin, rising up over the trees.
Geeky Pumpkins of Halloweens Past
I’m not much of a pumpkin carver myself, but Katie likes to get creative. Here are some Jack-O-Lanterns she’s done, inspired by science fiction, fantasy, comics and games.
From 2003… Gourdzilla!
Inspired by a Grand Ave. strip earlier that week.
Also, Aeryn Sun from Farscape!
More about these: 2003 Halloween Madness
From 2005… Puzzle Pirates’ Navigation puzzle!
Yes, the “Arrr!” on the wall is a projection.
More: Pumpkin Arrrrrt.
And finally, one that hasn’t been on this blog before: The Eye of Sauron, from 2002. Unfortunately we could only find one picture of it, and it was lit up from the outside, so you can’t see how awesome it looked in the dark.
(Evidently, whoever sat at this desk liked dogs.)
This year’s Jack-O-Lantern will be up soon!
Great Park, Great Pumpkin
The Great Park Balloon in Irvine, California, all dressed up as a Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween. I was hoping to get a shot of it aloft, but it landed as I approached the park.
It looks really eerie lit up at night, floating off in the distance. Or just floating above office buildings.
It’s not as good a picture as the one I found on Flickr last week, but you can see the whole face.
More of my own photos of the balloon on Flickr, including this non-zoomed shot, showing the big empty field and Saddleback in the background:
Pumpkin Patch Day
![[Windows]](https://hyperborea.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/windows_vista_64.jpg)
Well, it’s the second Tuesday of the month. With Microsoft’s regular update cycle, that makes it Patch Tuesday.
It’s also October, the month leading up to Halloween.
I hereby declare today to be Pumpkin Patch Tuesday.
Update: Mozilla’s Josh Aas has carved the perfect pumpkin to go with this declaration.
Pumpkin arrrrrrrt
I love carving jack-o-lanterns. These days, though, I don’t have much motivation to do one unless there’s a prize involved. So when I saw that someone on Puzzle Pirates was holding a contest for piratey-themed pumpkin carving, I jumped on it. This is my rendition of the navigation puzzle from the game, and my first-ever attempt at a projector pumpkin. I think it looks okay.
The lit picture is pretty dark, but it had to be or the “Arrr!” on the wall wouldn’t show up.
Suggestions for next year, or even out-of-season carvings for this year, are being taken……