mad things

Check it out, I wrote my first android app – the Dawn Summers Respect-o-meter. As you can see, it’s thumbs down for Dawn.

One week later the pumpkins are starting to show decay.

I was wrong about the jack o’ lantern display in my neighborhood. They actually put the pumpkins out on Halloween and leave them up throughout November.

Check out the Kane Street Pumpkins for yourself.

Did you know that originally, Jack o’ lanterns were were made from turnips and potatoes in Ireland? History.com has a fun section on the history of Jack o’ lanterns and Halloween.

In my neighborhood, every October someone would carve out a ton of baby pumpkins and impale them on their cast iron fence. As the month went on, the grinning or grimacing pumpkins would decay into shrunken heads. I went by there this evening to take some new photos but alas, no pumpkins. However, my friend Steve took a bunch of great photos last year. Here’s some old photos of the pumpkins during the middle of their decomposition:

Some jack o’ lanterns found on the web:

Gourds in Hell

Got the munchies

Crazy intricate Death Star

Some fun jack o’ lantern galleries:

Jack o’ Lanterns
Geeky Jack o’ Lanterns

Tips to carve your own:

Pumpkin-carving.com
Walt’s Pumpkin Carving Secrets
Pumpkin Masters

October is a special time of the year for the folks at OrangeYouGlad. We decided years ago that instead of sending Christmas cards or gifts to our clients, we would focus on Halloween (it being the bestest day of the year of course). We’re furiously working on our 2009 promotion but thought you might like to revisit some of our past promos:

Read Scary Mary’s Little Bleak Book

Create your own Paper Plate Masks

Cook up something from our Eerie Eats Recipe Cards

Have a drink in our VooDoo Lounge

Everyone’s making something these days, well, everyone but me. I’ll leave these types of activities to the professionals or highly motivated.

Etsy has put up their Halloween Trends gift guide. Please feel free to buy me anything that:

1. Has a skull or skeleton
2. Has a bat
3. Has a gravestone
4. Is scary, not cutesy

More Etsy stuff to buy me (remember the guidelines above).

Now get shopping!

For you DIYers out there…

Wayne of the Woods offers free coffin plans as well as other coffin bookshelf options.

Or for the lazy, you can buy this classic coffin online: