Janet's grandmother passed away yesterday evening. Her health has been up and down for some time now, but it's never easy. We'll be heading to Ohio for the services and I won't be posting again until next week. Thanks for all your support.
Lady Luck Cocktail Recipe | In The Spirit
I intended to do all Christmas cocktails this month, but I stumbled onto this new cocktail website and I had to choose something. I love the interface and the pictures. And, at least it's green and has a star on top.
Lady Luck:
2 shots Gin
1 shot Blue curacy
Orange Juice
Fill glass with ice add Gin and Blue Curacao then top with Orange Juice, stir. Garnish with a slice of star fruit if you've got it.
This site also has a great picture of how to layer a drink in the Cheat's corner section. I've never seen it done. I've read descriptions of how to use the spoon, but my attempts have never worked. I think I'm ready to try again now that I've seen this:
Since the Lady Luck isn't as Christmasy as I'd liked, here's the Mistletoe Martini (apropos for my myspace friends).
4 parts vodka
1/2 oz. Melon liquor such as Midori
Splash of grenadine
Mix the vodka and melon liqueur in a martini shaker. Strain into a martini glass. Add grenadine. The grenadine will sink to the bottom of the glass making the drink red and green. From the Friday Drink Recipe Archives.
And, if you're looking for some stylish cocktail accoutrements or a unique vintage stereo cabinet repurposed as a liquor cabinet stop by Leanne and Kathryn's Art Sale tomorrow from 10am to 4pm corner of Beverly and North (Baton Rouge) where I'll have some items from my collection.
Xmas gifts that help Hurricane Relief Efforts.
Please comment and help me generate a list of Christmas gifts that can be given where a significant portion of the proceeds go to Hurricane relief efforts. I'm sure we all know we can make donations, but it is nice to give an item to friends and family. The link above goes to a list of items from the Red Cross where different retailers are donating profits to the Red Cross hurricane relief efforts. For my gift-giving needs, the emergency preparedness kit from Target would have been perfect, but they're sold-out online. Googling turns up a bunch of cds, which don't work for many of the people on my list. Other than that, the only promising item was a nice fleur de lis pendant necklace that will almost certainly arrive after xmas.
Dealhack Holiday Shipping Deadlines at Popular Online Stores
Handy list for those of us shopping online this season.
Via BoingBoing
Routemasters - Last Stop!
Today is the last day the doubledecker busses of London will run. This site commemorates the icon.
Sniffle
gHacks � Free Music List December 2005
Site listing for free music downloads that are truly free, with notes.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | eG weekly | Self-study
"When a young man masturbates, exactly how distracted does he get? An experiment performed on students at the University of California, Berkeley aimed to find out."
"Each student was given a laptop computer with a keypad "designed to be operated easily using only the non-dominant hand."
"Ariely and Loewenstein say their results are "striking" and more than confirm what most people believe about young men as a group - that when aroused, they (1) become sexually attracted to things otherwise offputting; (2) grow more willing to engage in morally questionable behaviour that might lead to sex; and (3) are more likely to have unprotected sex."
Tonight is the opening reception for the Paul Dean and Scott Finch show. I've seen Scott's work and it's amazing. Paul's will be amazing I'm sure, but he was putting the finishing touches on the hanging when I got the preview. Hope to see you there. Here are some representative examples from the Baton Rouge Gallery website, though not pieces from the current show.
Scott Finch
Paul Dean
BURO VORMKRIJGERS--> home of the Pong Clock!
24 hour game of pong where the left player sucks, but always scores on the hour, while the right player is pretty good and always scores on the minute. New game starts at midnight. Unfortunately not available in time for xmas and no price is set, however "It will be a reasonable price for a designer clock, and NOT outrageously expensive." We'll see about that. The good news is there is a free screensaver download for windows. To get to the clock and screensaver, follow the link above, then select portfolio on the right, then show all and scroll to find the thumbnail of the pong clock, or check out some of the other great designs.
Via Information Aesthetics
AccuRadio.com -- Internet radio YOU control!
Every couple of months I go on a web radio jag, trying to find a station that suits my tastes to put on in the background while I work. I've never found a station that I've been happy with for more than a short period of time. Maybe I found one yesterday. AccuRadio is free and has a ton of channels, but I've been stuck on "High Fidelity: Indie rock and other cool and eclectic tracks". They do a nice job of mixing newer acts like Wolf Parade and Franz Ferdinand with the indie rock cannon (Guided by Voices, Flaming Lips, Pavement...) and older influences (Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Beatles...). They're also great about showing the song info with album info, cover art, and link to Amazon to order anything you like. There are also customization options where you can weed out artists you don't like. The one thing I would change is mix in a little more electronica. So, after listening to this all day yesterday, I just now clicked on the sub-channels tab in the player window and what do I see? "Highdrophonic: All your favorite songs from our High Fidelity and Hiptronica channels brought together in one massive channel!" I'll flip over as soon as this Stephen Malkmus song finishes.
Topsy Turvy™ Upside-down Tomato Planter : Home Garden & Garage.com
We'll try this next season. Don't think we'll let them get as big as this customer did though:
WHITE CHRISTMAS DREAM
What better way to get into the holiday spirit than with spirits?
• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. heavy cream
• 1 oz. vodka
Mix all ingredients with ice in a shaker . Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with nutmeg.
Cheers!
Maria E. Pineres : A Rogues' Gallery
Celebrity mugshots in needlepoint! Can't insert pictures due to my ongoing cpu troubles, trust that it's worth following the link.
Via Metafilter
Comic 1 : Adventures in Synthetic Biology : Nature
For a friend and occasional commenter glabrous3. Is this funny? I really haven't checked it out. Flash isn't working on this temporary cpu I'm using.
Via Eyebeam reblog
Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | Mental illness link to art and sex
The rebuttal is much more interesting:
Artists are not sexy
Still dealing with my crashed hard drive, so posting will continue to be low for a while.
Friday night is the lighting of the tree in downtown Baton Rouge. It's accompanied by a displaced artist benefit art show in the black box theatre at the Shaw Center. Janet has donated a painting. There will also be a new show at the Breuner Gallery and booths and food and drink and general merriment.
Saturday we'll be making our first trip to New Orleans post-Katrina. I imagine that the drive in will be fraught with emotion. We're so looking forward to seeing our good friends and the better parts of the recovery. But we all know that's not all we'll see. For our evening's entertainment we will be seeing "Grenadine McGunkle's
Double-Wide Christmas Miracle!" The latest from No Running With Scissors, at One Eyed Jacks. The show opens Friday and runs Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm through the 30th (no shows on the 24th or 31st).
Of my work hard-drive. I'm in a lab right now, reinstalling windows on my pc. Don't know when I'll be back to regular posting.
City Of New Orleans Launches Free Wireless Internet - Yahoo! News
A tall task, but it should help in the rebuilding efforts, with policing, and an attraction to the convention business. The network was already being constructed prior to Katrina and is already available in the French Quarter and Central Business District. Algiers is next, and the whole city is hoped to be up within a year.
BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Spoof signs
More fun with signs. This time, made-up signs that look official at first glance.
Several more at the site. They come from a new book, "Signs of Life", by Dave Askwith and Alex Normanton
TheThingsIWant.com : Universal Wishlist, Wedding Registry And Baby Registry Service.
See some things at the Cool Hunting Gift Guide that you'd really like for yourself? Want others to know about it? Want to tell others about things you'd like from any webtailer? Try thethingsIwant.com. After your free registration you can set up shopping lists and a wishlist. They give you very clear and easy instructions to add a buton to your browser's toolbar so as you surf if you see something you want you can just click the bar and they scan the page and put all the details in for you (item description, price, link, picture, etc). It does a very good job of pulling the details, but you can edit or add info as you like. You can also tag the item, because it's the web and we must tag everything!
Cool Hunting 2005 Holiday Gift Guide
Looking for cool gifts to give, or to ask for. Cool Hunting has put it all together, updating daily. With a really smooth interface.
Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness
Gallery of amusing technical documentation, usually with commentary:
Caution: Sitting down may cause your erection to become noisy.
Warning: Readers will be smacked with a novelty hand.
From a Dell computer box. I believe the caption should read 'If you drop this box on a dog, don't trip over its tail'.
Thanks Leanimal
18 Tricks to Teach Your Body
I try not to reblog BoingBoing, but had to share this list of bodyhacks. Specifically this one:
One too many drinks left you dizzy? Put your hand on something stable. The part of your ear responsible for balance -- the cupula -- floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. "As alcohol dilutes blood in the cupula, the cupula becomes less dense and rises," says Dr. Schaffer. This confuses your brain. The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional foot-on-the-floor wisdom.
The Webtender: Thanksgiving Cocktail
2 Different Drinks with the same name. Here's the one with Wild Turkey:
-1.5oz Wild Turkey Bourbon
-.5oz Applejack
-1tsp Rose's Lime Juice
-4oz Cranberry Juice
Stir in Collins Glass with Ice
Here's one I recall from a party long ago:
* 1 oz. Dry Gin
* 1 oz. Dry Vermouth
* 1 oz. Apricot Brandy
* 3 drops of Lemon Juice
Shake with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Another version I found suggests a splash of Creme de Casis.
Cheers!
Martini Republic � As Thanksgiving Hurls
I intended to get a Thanksgiving Cocktail up today, but I might not make it. However, I did find this interesting brief history of American Whiskeys. Cheers!
Via the cocktail chronicles
/spadassin/: Webmasters who didn't think when they registered their URL
Funny urls due to running words together, or not running words together, e.g. Pen Island, or Therapist Finder.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Schoolboy voted in as America's youngest mayor
Just the thing to reduce my political cynicism. An 18-year old won election as mayor of a Michigan city as a write-in candidate. He wasn't old enough at the time to get on the official ballot, so he sold $700 worth of toffee apples over the summer so he could fund his campaign after he turned 18. He won, in a recount, by 2 votes.
:: Singapore Students Invent Waterless Washing Machine
Title pretty much says it all. It uses negative ions, compressed air, and deodorants. It's not intended to replace traditional washing machines, more of a hybrid washer/dry cleaner for the home.
Wayfaring Map - White Light Night, Baton Rouge, Nov. 2005
Wayfaring.com is a neat social mapping website. Create a free account and start creating and sharing your own maps. Clicking on the link takes you to a map for the White Light Night Art Hop event in Baton Rouge this Friday evening. I have made it editable by anyone, so if anyone has the time and wants to add details to the stops (e.g. Who's showing what type of work at each stop, or pointing out that the Circa 1857 waypoint includes several businesses) you should feel free. There's also all kinds of sharing and commenting options that I haven't fully explored.
If the link doesn't take you to the map, just go to the wayfaring site. Click search,. The default map is the San Francisco area. Each point indicates a different map you can explore. To search, you have to zoom out so the map includes the area you want to search, so click the minus or drag the zoom bar down until Louisiana is included in the map. Then type Baton in the search bar and my map will appear. Click on it to zoom in and see the details.
Weight Watchers recipe cards, circa 1974
Hillarious Weight Watchers recipes with snappy text similar to Threadbared. Here's the test accompanying the above picture:
Um, I guess this is a salad best enjoyed at the house of that one scary lady down the street who never leaves the house and talks to her knicknacks.
I showed this card to a friend who said, "What the hell's in that bowl-- bong water?!"
Is that why the ceramic animals are so drawn to it? Is it their magical pond?
Why have they gathered? What do they want?
BBC NEWS | Health | Caution over HIV 'cure' claims
A man diagnosed with HIV in 2002 was diagnosed HIV free over a year later. The article is short on detail, but consistently says the tests were good. It's unclear bout further tests. One line says the man declined further tests, but later he says he would do anything he could to help find a cure, so who knows what's really going on here. Still, it's from the BBC news, so I trust there's something going on that might be positive.
MercuryNews.com | 11/11/2005 | Fox puts abrupt stop to 'Arrested Development'
Damn them, damn them to hell! We watched the jet pack man vs giant mole in tiny town scene 4 times in a row last week.
Jerry Thomas :: How to Mix Drinks (A Bartender's Guide)
The Art of the Drink has transcribed Jerry Thomas' original bartenders guide from 1862 and made it available online. Lots of interesting cocktail history and helpful hints like:
When preparing cold Punch, the bowl should be placed in a tin or metal vessel about the same depth as the height of the bowl, the space between the bowl and the vessel being packed with ice, and a little rock-salt sprinkled over the surface, which has the effect of producing a freezing mixture, much colder than the plain ice. Towels may be pinned around the exterior of the vessel, and the exposed surface of the ice trimmed with fruit or leaves, giving the whole an attractive appearance.
Blue Blazer.
(Use two silver-plated mugs.)
Take 1 small tea-spoonful of powdered white sugar
dissolved in 1 wine-glass of boiling water.
1 wine-glass of Scotch whiskey.
Put the whiskey and the boiling water in one mug, ignite the liquid with fire, and while blazing mix both ingredients by pouring them four or five times from one mug to the other. If well done this will have the appearance of a continued stream of liquid fire. Serve in a small bar-glass with a piece of twisted lemon peel.
The novice in mixing this beverage should be careful not to scald himself. To become proficient in throwing the liquid from one mug to the other, it will be necessary to practise for some time with cold water.
White Lion.
(Use small bar-glass.)
Take 1 tea-spoonful of pulverized white sugar.
½ a lime (squeeze out juice and put rind in glass).
1 wine-glass Santa Cruz rum.
1 tea-spoonful of Curacoa.
1 tea-spoonful of raspberry syrup.
Fill the glass half-full of shaved ice, shake up well
and strain into a cocktail glass.
Black Friday 2005 - The OFFICIAL Site for the Hottest Day of the Year
Preview the ads for the day after Thanksgiving, so you can plan ahead. Best buy has a $149 computer with 17inch crt monitor.
reThink / reDesign / Recycle
From this:
to these:
Contest winners for a redesign contest for recycling containers in Chicago. I love the green balls. They're visually interesting, and probably adaptable to existing containers in a variety of settings. The paper recycler also suggests reuse. Wonder how the Chicago Tribune feels about it? The balls are the 2nd place winner, with the 3 sectioned oblong column taking first. The last was the people's choice winner and I think it probably is better in person.
Via Inhabitat
Last weekend a simple choice to move one end table from the bar to the kitchen resulted in a complete redecoration of our bar room (the actual bar is unchanged). We've ditched the pepto pink for an icy blue (left the circles on the ceiling, but painted over the most of the pink circles with the icy blue). We also ended up with new display shelves. The new shelves, combined with moving every glass and trinket out to paint and back, and the recent annual xmas list request from my Dad, has be thinking about my barware collection. We will be doing some thinning, most notably we're looking for a good home for our original bar (a gutted 60s stereo cabinet, painted and arted). More on that after we get some pictures. Today, I'm more focused on additions and a couple of new vintage barware sites. These are both very pricey "antique" sites, but that makes it easier for me to look.
Moon Indigo
Excellent quality barware from NYC.
I'd like to find the red version of the leg shaker someday.
I have a red version of this cocktail pick set (the bottles have 3inch metal picks keeping them in place on the bar). No box, but I do have the little cocktail book.
Atlanta Antique Gallery
Give the shaker a spin to mix. Keeps your hands from getting cold when bar tending.
Nice set
Empire's 50 Greatest Independent Films
Need more flicks for your netflix queue? Make sure you've seen Empire Magazines 50 greatest independent films. There's a forum where you can expound on your disagreements.
Tonight:
Red Stick Ramblers at Live After Five downtown at the New State Museum across from the capital.
and
The Open Show at the Backyard Gallery on Violet Street.
Saturday:
7th Anniversary of the Downtown Arts Market
Sunday:
Sale at the Honeymoon Bungalo
The Fancy-Free Cocktail
Looking forward to two events tonight: the open show, and Red Stick Ramblers (more on these in a separate post). The open show led to the suggestion that I select an open type cocktail and the Ramblers put me in a cajuny mood, so I went to the gumbopages and scoured their recipes. They have tons of great sounding recipes with history and stories. Just have to find the Maraschino liqueur and orange bitters and I'm pretty sure I'll be pleased with the Fancy-Free Cocktail:
-2oz Bourbon
-1/2oz Maraschino liqueur
-dash or two Angostura bitters
-dash or two orange bitters
Shake with cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.
Shake, Rattle and Roll
Swanky cheap tiny cars of 50s Europe through today. Lots of pictures and history.
Via Tacky Times
Office Space - Special Edition With Flair
Silly flash maze game where you run around the office picking up tps reports and red stapers while trying to avoid Lumbergh who will make you work Saturday. All to go with the release of the Office Space Special Edition DVD.
MapMyRun.com -- Run. Plot. Save.
I've always meant to check my odometer and drive my typical running route, but really when am I going to do that. This nifty website allows you to type in a starting address, then plot points along your route. It will calculate the distance you ran and calories burned. Unfortunately, my route is much shorter than I thought (damn).
'Belligerent Drunk Man' Gets Into Fight - Yahoo! News
Started out as a Halloween Costume, turned into self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sounds like a certain someone from my college dorm days.
Defend yourself against the coming robot rebellion
Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Ph.D. writes a satirical book with practical advice for defending yourself against robot rebellion. The book, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion" is clearly humorous, but with real information about robot technology like:
A robot trying to find you will use thermal imaging based on the roughly 91-degree temperature of human skin, so smearing yourself in cool mud will confuse them. If being chased by an unmanned robot vehicle, flee to a rustic, unmapped area with lots of obstacles. If your robot "smart" house -- one wired with video surveillance and computer gear -- tries to trap you, chop your way out with an ax and don't take your cell phone, because the house will track you with it.
Helloween 3: Gypsies, Tramps, and Botched Abortions
A few horrible Halloween costumes, and this:
gizmag Article: ZORK NOT CORK – it was only a matter of time
New resealable wine cork replacement. More upscale than scew tops, less spoilage than cork.
Cocktail Times | Halloween Cocktail
- 2 oz Whiskey
- 3 oz Orange Juice
- 1/2 oz Triple Sec
- 1/2 Lemon Juice
- Garnish: Olive
Stir in collins glass with ice. Don't forget to carve your olives.
Several Halloween Drinks from drinkoftheweek.com, including:
- Jack O' Tini (vodka martin with splash of pumpkin liqueur)
- Brain Hemmorage (shot using Bailey's, peach schnappes, and grenadine to give it that bloody brain look)
- Vampire's Kiss (high octane bloody mary variation)
A Party Punch from Emeril via Food Network:
Spellbinders with Devil Eyeballs
- 1/4 cup blue curacao
- 3/4 cup galliano liqueur
- 1 1/2 cups coconut rum
- 2 quarts pineapple juice
- 2 quarts seltzer water
Spooky Ice Cubes:
- Food coloring
- Water
Special Equipment: Novelty ice cube trays
Devil Eyeballs:
- 20 maraschino cherries
- 20 chocolate chips (white or dark chocoale)
- 20 lychee nut fruits (canned and pitted)
For the Punch:
Combine all ingredients in a large glass punch bowl and mix well.
For the Ice Cubes:
Color water with desired food colorings and pour into ice cube trays. Freeze until firm.
For the Devil Eyeballs:
Remove the stems from the cherries. Insert a chocolate chip, point side in, into each cherry to make "pupil" of the eye. Stuff cherry into pitted lychee nut fruit.
Wish there was a picture of the Devil Eyeballs.
Cheers!
ESPN.com - MORESPORTS - Still kickin': Fan wins $1 million by making 50-yard FG
The best part is that he started with kicks of 20, 30, and 40 yards for lesser prizes and missed them all. Can you imagine being in the stands watching and rooting for the guy, then saying screw it, I'm heading to the concession stand before he kicks the money winner?
Wired 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace
The full story of the New Orleans based chemist/connoisseur who has successfully recreated Absinthe and demonstrated that it won't make you crazy. Now, to figure out where to get some.
Friday night at Oculus: Hunter Roth "The Loss of Innocence"
Reception 7-10pm, Show runs through November 16
Hunter's works include: steel sculptures, paintings, wood-cut prints, papier-mache and more, but his theme is the same: political mockery of American history. The show also features collaborations with: Charles Barbier, Clark Derbes, Ryan O'Malley, Jeremy Grannan, and Craig Roth. The reception will include music by Brown Leaf Vertigo, a country Misfits cover band.
Saturday Night at the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery (Shaw Center) : Edie Tsong "Making Contact"
Closing Reception Saturday, October 29, 6-8pm
Saturday Night at the Baton Rouge Gallery: Movies and Music on the Lawn (Last show of the season)
Featured this Halloween weekend will be Pathe films The Red Sceptre. It may not be a horror movie by today's standards, but it was pretty scary for 1903. Full of camera tricks copied from George Melies’, a terrible demon in a cave shows off his magic in full color. Also showing will be The Fall of the House of Usher (1930), Pathe'’s The Pearl Fisherman(1904) and the science fiction serial The Power God (1925). This is your last chance this year to experience this truly unique event which combines silent vintage films with talented local musicians.
This program will be free for residents of New Orleans (with a picture ID.) Admission is $5 and free for Gallery Members. Concessions will be sold and popcorn is free. Please bring picnic blankets and/or parade chairs. The back lawn will be sprayed for mosquitoes, but bug spray is still recommended. Films will be held indoors in case of rain.
IsraCast: THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL
And if it looks like that, even better! An Israeli company has designed an engine that creates it's own source of hydrogen by heating water around metal coils that will bond with the oxygen. The metal oxide waste can be recycled for further use by the metal industry.
Just had to follow-up on the Amore Dolce cocktail from Friday. It is by far the best cocktail of the week that I had not tasted before I decided to post it. I did adjust the recipe somewhat to cut the bitterness of the Campari. I went with a 2part raspbery vodka to 1 part Campari mix, with a splash of soda to top it off. It is a crisp cool drink, that will remain in my repetoir. I might also try it with tonic instead of soda if in the mood for something a little sweeter.
Do They Know It's Halloween? Video!
Now the video is available in Quicktime format. Follow-up from this post.
Again Via Waxy
Miss Cocktail's Bubbling Brew - cocktail.com
Also stumbled onto this advice for making a bubbling punch for Halloween parties. According to Miss Cocktail, it's safe to put dry ice into punch, but not into glasses that people will drink from. If you get food grade dry ice, it's the same carbon dioxide as in soda fountains, so it's not doing any harm. As the dry ice bubbles and breaks down, some of the dry ice may become covered in regular ice and float. You don't want that to end up in a glass and into someone's mouth. Some dry ice will sink to the bottom and you don't want that either. Best not leave the punch bowl unattended. Maybe you could put the dry ice in the bowl first, cover it with a collander or strainer, then pour the punch over top?
Forget it, don't do it.
Amore Dolce Cocktail Recipe | In The Spirit
When I lived in Cincinnati, I used to make regular trips to the party store to keep the bar well stocked. The party store (the actual name was party source I think) was like the wal-mart of liquor stores, with everything you could possibly imagine in terms of exotic cocktail ingredients, wines, beers, party foods, decorations, etc. I used to make it a point of buying something new and different each trip (or at least on most trips as the budget allowed). So, I've had the same bottle of Campari for a few years now. Whatever drink I used it in the first time was awful and I haven't been tempted by it since. This cocktail looks like a potential winner and I have all the ingredients on hand.
You Are Whiskey |
 You're a tough drinker, and you take it like a man That means no girly drinks for you - even if you are a girl You prefer a cold, hard drink at the end of the day Every day, in fact. And make that a few. |
information aesthetics
A new to me blog covering creative information visualization with so many interesting entries. Here are a few recent highlights:
Common Census Map
Visualize the spere of influence of cities across the country. Contribute your personal opinions of your region to better define the map.
swarmfest collaborative sketch
Draw 100 pixels worth of line in a sketch whose topic has been chosen via search engine, then vote on the opacity of the lines of others. You can watch animations of the whole process and see how the collaborations emerge.
pixelfest group art
Similar to the sketch above, but instead add one pixel to a grid per day. No voting, but the will of the group wins out over time.
Found information aesthetics via Future Feeder
Monolithic Dome Institute
Monolithic dome structures in the hurricane ravaged parts of the US fared much better than their more traditional bretheren. They're also cheap, easy to build, energy efficient, and beautiful.
Via Inhabitat
FYI, I know at least one reader other than myself has been disappointed by the recent infiltration of comment spam. I've just added a verification feature so if you want to leave a comment, it will now ask you to verify a word from an image (in hopes that only a person can do that and not a bot). We'll see if it helps. I do appreciate comments.
I've also added a trackback/backlinks thing as well. If anyone has their own blog, please try it out just so I can see it work.
ExtremePumpkins.com - Extreme Pumpkin Carving
Here's the site that first opened my eyes to the rather simple suggestion that we should use a jig saw to carve our pumpkins. I have never more thoroughly enjoyed pumpkin carving. We carved 3 or 4 pumpkins in about 30 minutes and they were the best looking that we'd ever carved.
The site includes loads of other extreme pumpkin ideas, like this Carrie inspired pumpkin with flowing blood, and that you can preserve your pumpkin with WD-40 (or better a generic knock off brand from the dollar store). And, be sure to check out the World's Fastest Pumpkin Carver in the Other New Stuff Section. Here, the extreme carver has built a one swipe pumpkin cutter (think cookie cutter on an axe handle) and successfully carves a pumpkin instantly (with QuickTime video).
