Thursday night and still coming down from a triumphant sprinkler repair earlier this evening. For dinner, Sharaun got all adventurous and made turkey and cheese sandwiches with blackberry jam on powdered-sugar topped waffles. Some kind of bastardized take on the Monte Cristo, but it was excellent and made my belly feel good. She and Keaton are back in the bedroom doing Keaton’s bedtime routine; I can hear Keaton crying from here, she must really be fighting it tonight. That’s a funny thing about babies, at least ours: how she seems to not want to go to sleep, despite being obviously tired. She’ll begin to drift off, her eyes will start to close, and she’ll bolt awake and begin crying – almost like she’s mad at herself for nearly losing the battle with the Sandman. Maybe it’s a kid thing, I can remember nearly always asking for an extra few minutes when my bedtime rolled around – never wanting to go to bed at the appointed hour. Now, man… I cherish my sleep.
Ever since I started thinking towards Halloween the other day, it’s been on my mind a lot. Each Halloween, I customarily get one “big ticket” item. Last year it was my air compressor, the year before it was the ridiculously overpowered fog machine, and this year I think I know what I want. Since my two new prop ideas are relatively inexpensive, I’m thinking of getting a real-deal prop timer system. The picoBoo looks awesomely promising. There are three different models, the major differentiators being the ability to record and playback audio and whether or not you want AC or DC outputs. To me, the the low-end model with DC outputs and no sound seems like a good option as the models with sound only have line out and still need to be amped, and they tout the audio quality as “similar to AM radio.” Prop activation and timing has always been a tough nut to crack, and I’ve always wanted a real-time programmer – this may just be the year to take the plunge. Oh, and by the way, all the talk of the ghosts of Halloween past and future made me nostalgic for the old “teaser” videos I’ve made. So, I put up a section in the Halloween galleries dedicated to past teaser videos, enjoy it here.
I have nothing more to write, g’night.
Also written on this day...
- whew; not ghosts - 2010
- new work, old work, poor work - 2009
- jailbreak! - 2008
- yuppie vs. hippie - 2004