Oct
29
I hope I never, ever have to tinker with my WordPress theme files ever again, because the laborious process of tweaking this new theme into place nearly killed me this weekend, and it was only via the medicinal benefits of repeatedly applying large doses of Dr. Oetker’s Organic Brownie Mix (organic makes it healthy!) directly into my sobbing mouth that I was able to survive. There was a horrifying moment when I installed a plugin intended to make another plugin work (something to do with PHP, I don’t know, it’s all a chocolate-coated blur) and all of a sudden my copy of WordPress just . . . went away completely, leaving only a mysterious line containing the phrase “fatal error” in its wake, and before I managed to delete the offending plugin from my server via GoDaddy’s annoying ad-laden interface (their prices are great, but holy god, I feel like I’m being humped by a rabid Jack Russell every time I visit their site) I literally broke out into a full-body sweat, it was physically the exact same sensation as hitting “Send” on an email talking about what a ponytailed knob your boss is, only to notice that you have in fact sent this email directly to your boss. A colossal mistake has been made, and you have only your own dumbassery to blame.
Anyway, I think everything is fixed now, with the exception of some wonky behavior with those sidebar widgets if you’re running a non-current version of IE. Leave it to Internet Explorer to screw something up. IE is like some giant lumbering shithead you know is going to ruin the party, but you have to invite him because he’s fucking your sister, or something. Bad browser, no biscuit.
Enough about the website, let’s talk pumpkins! JB and I finally got around to hacking into ours last night, and although we had planned to carve some family-friendly pumpkins with the boy, for some reason Riley took offense to the sight of us plunging knives into the friendly orange gourds he’d been playing with for the last couple weeks. I know: what a wuss. Wait until he figures out Maisy is actually a sewer rat.
So we waited until bedtime to continue with our gruesome work—behold the results:
This is mine. I tried to copy the design on the front of the Extreme Pumpkins book, with lukewarm results.
And here is JB’s. You may be wondering if the terrifying orange lights dancing behind the diabolical monster’s face are in fact the flames of hell, and the answer is YES.
Well, flames of toilet paper, anyway. JB’s creation involved a full-body pumpkinman with actual fire shooting from the open head, which he achieved with a roll of toilet paper soaked in kerosene.
I have to say, he usually bests me in the jack-o-lantern department, but this year he really outdid himself. I suppose given the flammable nature of children’s costumes, we won’t be displaying this in the front lawn on Wednesday night—but maybe it can lurk from behind the fence. If the torn-up driveway doesn’t keep them away, the flaming pumpkin by-god will. And you know what that means: more candy for me.
Did you carve pumpkins this year? Share your pictures, if you’ve got ’em.
Comments
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I love Dr. Oetker so much that I launched a month-long campaign to name our second dog Dr. Oetker. In the end, we named him Mervyn, but my love continues.
Oh this makes me want to carve pumpkins. Last year mine looked so horrible that I would have had more luck if I had just punched a hole into it instead of carved one out.
Boo!
And the photo that was attached to that seems to have disappeared. Boo indeed.
I spent most of last Thursday on extremepumpkins.com instead of working! Love the flame head!!!
JB’s pumpkin is a pimp! How long will it burn like that? Your pumpkin looks a lot like the one on the cover of the book. I begged + begged for my husband to get pumpkins + carve them, but he wouldn’t let me. Bad husband. No biscuit… literally because that’s my nickname. he he he!
I just posted our pumpkin pictures on my blog today. I have to say, though, they’re nothing compared to yours — even if my pumpkin does have a deliciously mischievous smirk. I also think that when I show my husband JB’s flaming pumpkin man tonight, he will get a serious case of “wish I had thought of THAT” jealousy.
My first attempt: The girl
My second attempt: My friend’s kid
We don’t have outdoor space to display the handiwork or scare the crap out of neighborhood kids, so I made these mainly to fulfill my need to cut up pumpkins every October. I’m clearly nuts.
ps I’m loving your new site design.
Those are some bad ass pumpkins you have there.
Your pumpkins are AWESOME!!
Eric carved a pumpkin at school and I am going to post a picture of it on my blog for Halloween.
I love how terrified the little pumkin looks. Very crafty of you.
Speaking of wusses, our first one (haven’t gotten to the second yet) was done from one of the kits with stencils, and worse, it was from the “easy” category. So here it is, for what it’s worth. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourjams/1698724773/
I carved mine in the shape of curious george…. I just cannot do a terrifying pumpkin to save my life.
http://chimonkey.blogspot.com/2007/10/october-15.html
I did a Samhain skull! http://www.flickr.com/photos/23224114@N00/1729362585/
I just saved my neighborhood kids the bother and smashed mine against the fence. It’s quicker this way.
OMG, JB’s pumpkin rocks, best pumpkin man ever!
Wow. Kerosene and toilet paper, who knew! I will have to try that next year. Ours are pretty tame, basic pumpkins, with the triangle eyes and fangy mouths and stuff. Serviceable, but certainly not extreme.
OK, I was already laughing at your (spot on) description of IE and then you gave me a fire shooting pumpkin man and my sides are aching.
Well done, you.
Kick ass pumpkins. We’ve had one round smashed so far, but were brave enough to go for round two.
We carved a couple of weeks ago, but with all this warm weather (Tennessee) they have already rotted. Pictures are here: http://ericaanderson.shutterfly.com/action/?a=8AZMmLJmzctWXz¬ag=1
i’m jealous of everyone’s pumpkins. i must say, jb is quite the creative one…. i liked them both tho!
I did the cannibal pumpkin too, but I used on of the “trickster” pumpkins, rather than the minis. It looks cool. I really wanted to do the “Property defender” pumpkin, but didn’t want to clean up the mess.
I’m going to have another one of those trickster pumpkins puking on a bigger pumpkin with one of those siamese pumpkin goofy grins on their faces. I loove that book!
I recall you mentioning being fascinated by octopi so you might get a kick out of this pumpkin…or should I say squidkin?
i like them all! yours looks just like the cover! jb’s rocks too.
We have 3 giant pumpkins and toilet paper ready to go. A caution tape line is around the lawn. Nice job!
We carved the symbol for pi into ours. It’s pumpkin pi, GET IT??
Love LOVE LOVE…that pumpkins…they are awesome!!!
I love the flaming pumpkin from hell! Ours will be far more… demure (or boring if you will!) We are doing ours tonight. I hate when they get those little bugs and black inside before I can actually put a candle in them for Halloween night!
SO FLIPPIN’ EXCITED FOR HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR! Cannot wait to see Matthew dressed up and saying Trick or Treat!
Your pumpkins rock! Having no artistic ability whatsoever, mine are still in the friendly orange gourd state. Hopefully, they’ll make it through mischeif night!
Great pumpkins! My husband beats me in the carving too. Here are ours:
http://lookaway.typepad.com/look_away/2007/10/opposites.html
GREAT pumpkins! We havn’t carved ours yet. We might just leave them alone this year. So sad!
We totally took the easy way out and used a stencil. I have little faith in my creative abilities…
http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l4/juliepat1221/?action=view¤t=IMG_0740.jpg
… and since we have no children to embarass, here’s our cat Fluffy sporting his Halloween costume. He loves it!
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l4/juliepat1221/IMG_0766.jpg
I just died from the amazing wonderfulness of having witnessed Fluffy in his fancy costume.
[…] Oct 31st, 2007 by ollka We don’t have Halloween* here. That is, we do, but only in the same sense that we have Coke and techno music – everyone loves them, and could celebrate their existence all year long, but they’re not exactly integral to our culture. […]
Pregnant pumpkin. 28 weeks ripe.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3/kellywmars/halloween003.jpg
Our almost 3 year old niece also refused to let us cut her pumpkin open as she surveyed with disgust the ravaging of the other kids’ pumpkins.
Untiil, of course, she saw the final effect of the CANDLE in the pumpkin. She was like, oh, THAT’S what this is all about, why didn’t someone tell me?!!!
So then she was all about the cutting open of the pumpkin (although she herself refused to touch the disgusting goey parts).
Pregnant pumpkin = AWESOME.
[…] “The pumpkin, the pumpkin, the pumpkin’s on fire” from All & Sundry. Linda always has a way to make me laugh. Though she spends a portion of the post bashing Internet Explorer (another topic near and dear to my heart), the majority of the post is spent on pumpkins and pumpkin carving. You should see what she and her husband put together. Wow! […]
Oh fuckin balls man, I knew we forgot something. A fucking jack-o-lantern. Shit. Now it’s too late. I guess we could do one for thanksgiving or x-mas. I always thought they had lame traditions anyway. Dammit. That sucks. Just fyi, I think your pumpkin is cooler looking. I mean the whole pumpkin monster/fire idea was kick ass on so many levels, but your face was the cooler one. I especially like the sad tiny pumkin getting eaten. Wicked awesome.
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