Carving pumpkins is fun, but only after you get the disgusting innards fished out of the shell.
Melissa and I, in our second annual act of pumpkin carving, trotted out the pumpkin carving utensils, wine, and most importantly, pumpkins, Friday evening. We were characteristically late in going about it, 9:30 p.m., so we were cognizant that we weren't going to be going to bed any time soon.
Ah, technology. Back when I was a young' un, I had to fall back on my own pumpkin carving imagination, which usually resulted in a typical pumpkin with triangular eyes, a triangular nose, and a lopsided mouth with as many square teeth as I could cram in there, all based on my own imagination.
Now, there are stencils. Now, you can tape a picture on a pumpkin, poke a design onto the orange flesh, and then cut out fantastically detailed designs with stress-free precision. And, there's the Internet, which gives you access to more pumpkin stencil then you can shake a stick at. Okay, you could shake a stick at them, but why bother?
I chose a Calvin stencil (as in Calvin and Hobbes), while Melissa selected a stencil of a koala bear. The only hitch was that the stencils were just too small. So, I saved the images to the computer, fired up a photo editor, enlarged the stencils and, voila: pumpkin stencils while -U- wait. The Internet: it's not just for porn any more.
Unfortunately, the selected designs were pretty, well, DETAILED. Carving our gourds took many an hour, and we didn't wrap things up until 2:30 a.m. But, damn it, those pumpkins looked awesome. I captured Calvin's true essence, while Melissa's koala just invited me to go down under. Did I just type that? Anywayyyyyy.
On Saturday, Melissa and I went to my buddy's house, where we prepared to go on an uncharacteristic Mississippi River boating excursion in October. My buddy, Troy, owns a boat, which is one of the main reasons he's my buddy. He also recently bought a fuseball table, thus strengthening his position as my buddy.
The boating was phenomenal. It was 72 degrees, which is extremely unusual for this time of year, and the fall colors were still just vibrant enough to just sit and drift and marvel at Mother Nature in Minnesota: a nice prelude to the shit season that is winter. If spring, summer and fall are Mother Nature at her best, then winter is Mother Nature with severe PMS. Man I hate winter.
Once I get my own Web page up and running, to be unveiled when I'm damned good and ready, I'll try to remember to post pictures of the pumpkin carving and the boating. Maybe I'll also post nude pictures of me lying seductively in front of my computer too. The possibilities are ENDLESS.
Sunday (yesterday), the mercury reportedly hit 77 degrees. In OCTOBER! Unbelievable. I went for a five mile run and was beset upon by more Japanese beetles than there are Japanese in Japan. Seriously, these bugs are truly getting out of hand. When I'm 84 years old, I'm just going to sit on the porch and talk about the great beetle infestation of 'Ought 3. Of course, by then, we'll be under control by the alien invaders from Sirius 7, who keep the population under control by random anal probes, but at least the beetle problem will be under control.
Now I'm at work and I must write about boring stuff. Even more boring than this post, if you can believe THAT.
Posted by Ryan at October 20, 2003 10:14 AM
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