Carving Pumpkins

I spent the afternoon with my sister and niece today and we carved pumpkins. I was glad I had been able to do this last year when I was in Japan (see last year's post, but don't rely on me to link to it because Blogger doesn't make it easy for us Mac users who have Safari for our browsers). Anyway, after having some miso soup and a cup of Chinese tea tonight, I broke out the mini tripod and ventured out to the front porch to photograph the two pumpkins I carved. I took this first, uninteresting, shot using the night time setting on my camera:As I was unhappy with the look of it, I decided to try the manual setting. This is the first time I have successfully used the manual setting on my camera (after trying to photograph stars while camping) since I bought it from Michel (who, if he were here, would still be trying to insist that I just paid him money to borrow the camera and that it is rightfully his). I love night shots like this:Happy Halloween!

What does one do when one is done with one's thesis? One impulse shops.

That title, by the by, was for Chad's student.

So, here's a Hitchcockian "shot-reverse-shot" depiction of what it's like to complete your thesis (complete with commentary)


Camera shows aprehensive grad student looking at his thesis


Cut to close up on eye staring at thesis. I like this one cuz it looks like Marion Crane's eye in "Psycho."


Camera cuts to a page of the thesis; "Goblin Market" is framed in the center.


Cut back to reaction shot of grad student (exhausted relief).

Um, yeah...I kinda bought a digital camera today.