Domestic Geek

This all started when I saw this Joy of Tech comic last week:


I really wanted to do this, but since I have no money I couldn't buy myself a pumpkin, I wasn't. Marcus offered to get me one on Sunday (we passed by a church on Yale that was selling them for their youth group), so I accepted his gift. Almost as soon as we got home, I started carving. He took pictures along the way and you can find them in the Pumpkin Carving 2006 Gallery. I used some helpful hints I found reading Nitrozac's Mac O'Lantern Tutorial and at The Carving Dude. I just finished it about 5pm this evening.

May I present to you, the:



Wow, this thing was HARD! All those tiny little details around the eyes. But hey, I did it. I like it. That's all that matters. I can't wait for Marcus to see it when he gets home. The only bad thing? There were only seeds from one pumpkin. I went ahead and roasted them because I LOVE ME SOME ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS! It's my favorite snack in the whole world.

I remember when I was a little kid, I used to love things hanging in my room that had my name on it. In fact, even through college, I had a great switch plate cover that I had made with my name in wooden letters. Illustrate My Name is a great site that I came across where you can get personalized children's name art. They offer a variety of themes from which to choose (baby, princess, nautical, toys, christening) and provide the finished art print with the option of being framed and matted. If one of the available themes is not what you had in mind, for they offer a Bespoke Design Service (you specify the theme that your child would like and they create a design around it).

If you're looking for a unique personalised baby gift or a gift to commemorate a special occasion, check out Illustrate My Name.

Well, I'm almost done with my pumpkin. I had a horrible sinus headache yesterday from that front that moved through, so I really didn't get as much done as I had hoped. Besides a couple of "oops" moments where I cut off some important parts, it does actually resemble what it is supposed to be. Hopefully, I can get a decent picture of it to post for everyone's viewing pleasure later this afternoon or early evening.

I love fonts! Much to Marcus' dismay (fonts are the bane of his existence—he thinks the world would do just fine with Helvetica, Arial, Courier, Times New Roman and maybe Garamond), fonts are what designers need to make the world a more interesting place. Unfortunately, fonts are expensive to buy. That's why I love it when I find legitimate sites where I can download free fonts and free dingbats. You have to be careful, though. Most of them anymore redirect you to places with malware and viruses.

I had a really cool website linked here that was once a paid post that I kept because I wanted to remember to go there to buy fonts, but since they care about Google page ranking, they asked me to remove the link. I guess when you care more about Google and less about actually selling things to customers, I will forget you exist. I'll find my fonts at sites that didn't try to game the system.

I'm in the middle of carving a pumpkin that Marcus bought for me yesterday. I hope it comes out like I envision. I'm trying one of those real people type carvings. If it comes out, you'll see pictures later today or tomorrow. If not, I'll be crying and pouting. (Just kidding, but I will be a tad bit upset.) I love grabbing pumpkin guts. That slimy coldness is kind of neat. Am I weird?