Ephemera

And remember, Santa Orc knows when you've been bad... and not bad enough. :laugh:

(Thanks to Jim for the Santa Orc.)

Posted by khitch at 11:37 PM | Permalink

One more set of pics.

Not a lot going on here except a lot of lights.

(That, and I've given up any hope of doing away with camera shake.)

Another nearly all-white display... and the biggest glowing inflated snowman I've seen in anyone's yard.

This one has a lot of smaller glowing plastic figures, including, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. and Mrs. Santa on a hill overlooking the nativity.

Not a lot of lights here but I had to get a picture of the decorated gazebo. Aiiiiii!!!!

Lots of lights. Lots of colors. And that pink curve in the foreground is not a mistake. That's the densest string of lights I've seen strung between two trees.

This one doesn't show up quite as well as I'd like. The blue lights are all up in the underside of the lowest branches of the trees. A neat effect, which I didn't get a good picture of.

Another house that took two pictures to get it all in. A little bit of everything here.

(Including camera shake)

A fairly interesting grouping of 3-D lighted reindeer and tree.

If not for some of these others, this would seem like a lot of lights.

Another little bit of everything display.

(Who am I kidding? That's bunch of everything.)

And finally, my ultimate tribute to camera shake.

Posted by khitch at 09:19 PM | Permalink

• Slash, slash, slash, backslash, and slash:   ~*~ Secret Diaries ~*~
• WTF?:   Where is my gnome.com
• Funny books:   A Cotton Candy Autopsy
• Mix your own chop-socky:   I Know Where Bruce Lee Lives

• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Christmas
• What a Crappy Present - CD Gift Advice, Parents and Kids

Posted by khitch at 11:15 PM | Permalink

Skeeter sent along a picture of the lights in her front yard to share.

Posted by Hitch at 08:46 PM | Permalink

Okay, I said the crazy lights house had a rather subdued display this year. I thought I'd swing by and get a picture of it.

(Yes, that's actually more modest than in recent years.)

But their neighbors are doing their best to make up for it.

and

(It takes two pictures to get all of this in.)

The whole neighborhood gets in on the act. This is just around the corner.

There are even more houses in that area with elaborate displays. I thought just a sampling would give you the idea.

Posted by khitch at 09:42 PM | Permalink

As I promised, here are a few of the Christmas light displays within easy walking distance of my house. I'll probably add more later because I'm not entirely happy with these.

I thought I'd start off with a fairly refined and dignified display.

This house has gone in for the latest trend in home light displays... giant inflated glowing "things." It's hard to get a sense of scale in this picture, but each of these hellish apparitions is over seven feet tall.

Now this house featured an interesting touch that doesn't quite show up as well as I'd like. Look carefully next to the mass of pink lights covering the tree and shrub in the foreground on the left. You can just make out the string of lights running up the flagpole.

And a few feet farther along, I get a shot of the other side of the yard. (I couldn't get it all in one shot.)

A very bright display, but somewhat tasteful in that it's all white. This might even be spectacular if it snowed. (But remember, I live in Georgia, and that ain't happening.) Another interesting feature are the helical spirals of lights. They're wrapped around the trunks of large oak trees. Proving you don't need cute little evergreens to make Christmas trees. Or do you?

More giant inflated glowing "things." That's not false perspective. Santa's hat does stick up higher than the eaves of the house. And we see another innovative use of a non-traditional tree for decoration. Just shoot a couple strands of lights as high as you can into the bare tree.

And, finally, I admire the way this one extends the lights so far from the house itself. The lights on the left actually form a right angle along the top of a fence around the side yard, at least 20 feet from the house. (The one very bright light in the center is not a Christmas light. That's a street light on the next street over.)

I had a lot of problems with camera shake. I hope do better with that on my next set. Actually, none of these houses are in the truly garish category. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately for me) I have to go a bit farther away from home to find those.

Posted by khitch at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been a bit slack lately about posting here... just not a lot going on. I'll write when I have something to write about.

The crazy lights house looked like it had a rather subdued display this Christmas. But I have seen some other rather impressively tacky houses in the last couple weeks. I need to get out and get some pictures. Keep checking back. I'll try to get some up soon.

Unless this is your first stop on my site, you've probably seen the decorations I put up. I'd like a few more good Christmas pin-ups in the rotation on the front page. If you have any, or know where I could find them, drop me a line.

Posted by khitch at 11:09 PM | Permalink

• Mysterious:   ¤ c i r c l e m a k e r s ¤
• More fun than a bathtub full of monkeys:   Penguin Warehouse, Inc. - Buy a Pet Penguin Today

Five Geek Social Fallacies

Morphizm.com -- 25 Dangers of Legalizing Gay Marriage

Posted by khitch at 09:27 PM | Permalink

These search terms have been highlighted: women shopping habits take long time indecisive

I came across this in my webstats. I didn't think it sounded like me, but I had to check it out. Somebody's putting words in my mouth. (or, at least on my fingertips.) :P

Posted by khitch at 01:08 PM | Permalink

• In the spirit of randomness:   The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator
• I don't want to know:   APESGRAPES - Midget Clown
• Nice wallpapers:   Pixelgirl Presents Icons and Desktop Images

Posted by khitch at 11:31 PM | Permalink

Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews - A Very Star Wars Christmas (1982)

Christopher Lee's character in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones originated in a 1982 TV special that was never aired. Having seen the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, I don't want to risk the tattered shreds or my psyche, but this is too tempting.

Somebody, stop me! Please!

Posted by khitch at 01:05 PM | Permalink

Irrational Exhuberance (Yatta!)

Even better than the classic:

Hyakugojyuuichi

Edit 12/7/2003: "Yatta" now links to a live performance of the song used to make Irrational Exhuberance. A must see.

Posted by khitch at 11:43 AM | Permalink

• Inevitable:   PhoneBin
• Um-kay:   Untitled Document
• Be afraid. Be very afraid:   Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews - Star Wars Holiday Special

If I had a time machine I could spend more time chatting on the internet and posting to newsgroups. Yeah!

Trust me, if you haven't seen the Star Wars Holiday Special. It's far worse than any review you'll ever read. It's not so bad it's funny. It's so bad, you'll curse the reviewer for making you think you could laugh at it. I mean it. Seriously, do not seek this out to see if I'm exaggerating. It's worse than I claim.

Posted by khitch at 11:52 PM | Permalink

I got thinking about scrapbooking the other day. I really don't get it. Why are there whole stores devoted to this activity? I think everyone messes around with scrapbooks a bit as a kid. Either because someone convinces them that it's a fun hobby, or a teacher assigns it as a school project. It seems like it will be fun or interesting until you actually do it. The enthusiasm last long enough for you to gather a big box of stuff to be organized into a scrapbook and maybe long enough to fill maybe a dozen pages. Then you realize the tedium of what you're doing and set it aside (if you started doing it for fun) or slap together just enough to meet the minimum requirements of the assignment (if doing it for school).

The thing is, the effort of finding, organizing, and assembling a scrapbook pretty much guarantees that you'll lose any interest in the subject by the time you get it done. Unless it's something like a scrapbook chronicling the life of your child, or something like that, in which case you'll still be interested in the subject, but really hate the scrapbooking process. And when you look back on it, you ask yourself something like, "Didn't he do anything between the ages of 3 and 10?"

If you are actually single-minded, or masochistic, enough to actually finish a scrapbook, it's totally useless. You, by virtue of all the time and effort you put in, have no need or desire to look at it yourself, you know everything that's in it. And, trust me on this, no one else will ever enjoy sitting down and looking through it. They may do it to be polite, but they will resent you for putting them through it. They may not say anything, but you're being very cruel by putting them through it.

Save your money. Do something better with your time. Everyone will thank you. Maybe not out loud, but in our hearts we'll think of you as a better person. Oh, and the one thing we want to do less than looking through your scrapbook is hearing you talk about it. I thought it was time someone pointed this out.

What's that? How is a weblog not just an electronic scrapbook? Don't go there.

Posted by khitch at 10:43 AM | Permalink