I haven't posted in a while but thought I'd do some food mini posts before returning to Halloween stuff. Today I made artichoke and goat cheese pizza for lunch. It was delicious. I didn't use a recipe, really. I just used a premade dough, spread some garlic, rosemary and olive oil, and browned it. Added a little pizza sauce, a Romano 3 cheese mix, cherry tomatoes from the farmers market, olives, artichoke hearts and then sprinkled herbed goat cheese on top. Only way it could have been better is if I hadn't used up all the fresh basil last night.

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Bianca

Bianca, my 8 year old German Shepherd, had to have emergency surgery a few weeks ago. We had no idea anything was wrong with her until she suddenly started acting funny that afternoon. It all happened so quickly, the night before she had gone for a long 2-3 mile walk to the park and she was acting normal that morning as well.
She was not wanting to get up and come when I called her to eat, and when I checked her gums they were pale so I rushed her to the vet. It turned out she was bleeding internally and had an enlarged spleen. She had to be transferred to the emergency vet where she had emergency surgery to remove her spleen that night. When they did the surgery they found several masses that had ruptured on her spleen, that's what caused the bleeding. She also needed a blood transfusion during surgery.

We had brought her to this emergency clinic partly because this was the clinic where Bianca had been a blood donor herself for two years (retired recently), they have a volunteer blood donor program where people sign up their pets to be donors. Luckily for us they happened to have blood donors there the day we had came in with our emergency and they were able to immediately use the blood from one of the donors for Bianca. I highly recommend the canine blood donor programs, if your dog is the right size (usually over 50 pounds) and friendly, many areas have these volunteer programs. Sometimes they have the volunteer programs for cats as well, one of my cats has also been a blood donor (they have to be 10 pounds or over and have the right temperament for it.)

Bianca went through surgery with no complications. Sadly this was not the end of things, as they had also found some small masses on her liver and took samples of those as well as of the ones from the spleen and a sample of the spleen lymph node to send for biopsy. The biopsy results came back positive for hemangiosarcoma, a type of cancer which is all too common in German Shepherds. However we were lucky in a way as many times this disease is not detected until it is too late to do anything so we were lucky that we rushed her in and caught it in time to be able to do the surgery...
 We consulted with an oncologist who recommended a metronomic chemotherapy protocol (low dose oral chemotherapy) which we are starting now.) My vet also gave us some supplements we can give that may help. Unfortunately the cost of the surgery and the chemotherapy treatment is quite expensive... I was able to get some help from family and put some things on credit cards but if anyone has a few dollars to spare, we have set up a ChipIn fundraising page for Bianca, which goes through Paypal: http://chicagocanine.chipin.com/biancas-cancer-treatment

Also BeatrizFortes has very kindly offered to donate all the profit from orders of her beautiful pawprint pendants($10 per pendant) from her etsy shop to Bianca's vet care: Tiny Paw Pendant in Sterling Silver by BeatrizFortes on Etsy







Below is a photo from last weekend, we got to visit my sister and her husband in a cottage they rented in Wisconsin.

Bioshock Party Ideas

This post is just for me to brainstorm ideas for a Bioshock themed party... If you read this and have any ideas you think would be good for this theme, please post a comment!

Food/Drinks:

-Big Daddy Cupcakes (see picture below)
-Cupcakes (or checkerboard cupcakes) with Bioshock theme decorations (checkerboard/tile pattern, ocean/blue, bunny masks, EVE hypo, etc... made from frosting, fondant, or sugar)
-Checkerboard cookies?
-Bioshock themed sugar cookies (EVE syringes, others: diving suit? art deco?)
-Creme-filled cakes
-Salty's brand potato chips (small individual bags)
-ADAM (red) and EVE (blue) glowing punch (glowing vase base under punch bowls)
-Sparkling grape juice with booze labels from Bioshock
-Champagne flutes (lighted?) and syringes to serve drinks
-Soda with "Pep Up Cola" labels (glass bottles?)
-Jello syringe "shots" (non-alcoholic)

Props/Decor:
-Plaster sculptures
-Rapture underwater window scenes
-Black out room, walls covered with bunny masks
-Underwater room, plastic bubbles hanging from ceiling
-Ocean room, netting, creepy cloth, water lighting, jute
-Underwater tunnel, blue walls
-Blue water fabric over front doorway and/or over walls/windows
-Bubble machine (outside?)
-Paint walls (stairway/upstairs)
-Rapture propaganda posters
-EL wire sign(s)?
-Luminaries or lanterns
-Gatherer's Garden machine (pantry)
-Welcome to Rapture banner
-Coverings for furniture?

Reference Pictures/vids:

Rapture window scenes (see link above for info)

Bioshock bathroom(from last Halloween)



Bubbles from ceiling

Big Daddy cupcakes (see link above for recipe)

Game Reference images:

Mutt Strut Howl-oween and Southport Block Party

We attended a fun Halloween event this weekend. Thanks to the great people from Chicago Canine Rescue, who organized the Mutt Strut's rain date (original date was in September) in connection with Lakeview Chamber of Commerce's Southport block party and Dog-a-holics. I think it was a winning combination. In addition to the Mutt Strut events like the cake-eating contest (for dogs) and silent auction, there was a pet costume contest as well as all the block party fun for the kids (games, bouncy houses, trick-or-treating at Southport businesses.)  After the costume contest there was a pet parade down Southport. Kye Martin from CLTV was there MC-ing the event and said to look for an entry about the event on her blog page. I'd post a link if I could find it. We also got to see our friends from Safe Humane Chicago at their booth as well as check out some other info and product booths at the event.
I will try to add some more photos or links to this post if/when I locate them It's too soon for anything to be online yet, but if anyone wants to check you can go to CLTV.com, chicagocaninerescue.com, and fetchportraits.com

They're not there yet as I post this but also check here for photos of the event:
http://photos.fetchportraits.com/Dogs/Event-Candids

RVAH Halloween Bash and Bark-o-ween photos

 Yesterday we attended the Roscoe Village Animal Hospital's Halloween Bash. It was a lot of fun! There were many great pet costumes (and kids), fun games, raffles and refreshments, and a photographer. The event benefited New Leash on Life Animal Rescue.
We had a lot of fun trying to wrangle two cats and a dog to photograph, but you can see below that the results were not bad (the middle two photos). I also added a few photos below from the Parker's Pets Bark-o-ween party.

Svengoolie's Blog

We were mentioned again this year on Svengoolie's blog entry about Parker's Pet's Bark-o-ween event!
http://www.wciu.com/svengoolie.php?section=blog&assetID=10003632

You can see photos from the event here:
http://photos.fetchportraits.com/Dogs/Event-Candids/Svengoolie-Parkers-Pets/14043861_md6xR#1033636468_zzxRq

Bark-o-ween 2010

Last Saturday was Parker's Pets Bark-o-ween party and contest. We were hoping for better weather than last year since it is earlier in October this year, but we ended up with a lot of rain.  It was outdoors. The forecast called for scattered showers but it rained more than not and at times it was hard pouring rain. Despite that, it was a lot of fun! We got photos with Svengoolie again (they will be added to this post when I pick them up) and there were a lot of creative costumes. We got first place in the cat costume category. I don't have any photos yet but I will post them as soon as I can.

Bioshock

Bioshock is not technically Halloween related, but it is a rather spooky/creepy game so I think it qualifies. The music is spooky enough by itself, but when you add in everything else-- the visuals, the sound effects, the Big Daddy and Little Sisters-- you get a game that is fun to play but can give you an adrenaline rush because you just never know what is coming around the corner...unless you hear the distinctive THUD THUD THUD of the Big Daddy's footsteps of course!

Here are a few videos showing some of the scary scenes of the first Bioshock game. The special effects and music really add to the atmosphere!









Here is some of the music:

Halloween Playlist

I created a Halloween playlist on youtube for anyone who wants to get in the Halloween spirit. I chose these videos for the music mostly, so some of them have weird videos:

Creepy Doll

I really like this song, I think it is one of my favorite songs about creepy dolls. Oh, wait...

The video's not bad either.

Must See Movies

I am a big fan of horror movies in general, but at Halloween I feel like watching them even more. So here is a list of movies to watch around Halloween time.

Nightmare Before Christmas
Halloween
Nightmare on Elm Street
The Shining (original)
Halloweentown
Hocus Pocus
Final Destination
Ginger Snaps
Sleepy Hollow
Blair Witch Project
28 Days Later
Rosemary's Baby
American Werewolf in Paris
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead (both versions)
Suspiria
Silent Hill
The Faculty
Disturbing Behavior
Idle Hands
Juon
The Ring/ Ringu

Licorice Zombies

 Spotted these "Licorice Zombies" when I was visiting my brother in Madison. They were in with the Halloween clearance merchandise at Shopko after last Halloween.

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Made by Necco.


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Nutrition Facts:

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Notice, the "Best Before" date box is blank. Considering most of the bags contained a single, solid giant mass of licorice zombies, I question this.


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As for the taste, it's pretty much what you'd except artificially flavored licorice "Mello Cremes" to taste like. Think licorice jelly beans but softer/smoother texture. They weren't too bad if you like artificial licorice.

If you're wondering about the dolls, I needed something to prop the candy bag up because there was too much reflection with the bag flat on the table, and they seemed appropriate for the job. They are Living Dead Dolls. On the left is Posey and on the rightis The Lost.

Let's Visit the Uncanny Valley

Today's post is about the Uncanny Valley. Well, actually it's just an excuse to post a few videos of disturbing human-like robots and animation, but in case you haven't heard of the Uncanny Valley I'll explain it. The idea of the Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis which originally referred to robotics, referring to peoples' reaction to robots that look and act nearly human but not quite. As robots look and act more like humans, the reaction to them becomes more positive until a point at which it drops down into a 'valley' of revulsion/negative reaction. While this originally referred to robotics, it is now often used to refer to anything that is unsettlingly human-like.
A quote from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe fits this pretty well: "...when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet." (funny when you consider this advice was given to the children by a talking Beaver.)

The Uncanny Valley:

For your enjoyment (or terror), here are a few creepy videos.


This video, "The Cat With Hands" is creepy even without the foray into the Valley.



The previous example was intentionally creepy. This robot, in contrast, is not supposed to be.


Another robot, this one a little girl.





This may not be an example, but somehow the idea of a kid that size just scares me.

The October Game

Welcome to October! For an explanation of what this is about, see my previous post "31 Days of Halloween."
This is Day One! Today I would like to share a Halloween-themed short story by Ray Bradbury.

"The October Game"

He  put  the  gun back into the bureau drawer and shut the drawer.
   No,  not  that  way.  Louise wouldn't suffer. It was very important
that   this   thing   have,   above  all  duration.  Duration  through
imagination. How to prolong the suffering? How, first of all, to bring
it about? Well.
   The  man  standing  before  the bedroom mirror carefully fitted his
cuff-links together. He paused long enough to hear the children run by
switftly on the street below, outside this warm two-storey house, like
so many grey mice the children, like so many leaves.
   By  the  sound  of the children you knew the calendar day. By their
screams you knew what evening it was. You knew it was very late in the
year.  October. The last day of October, with white bone masks and cut
pumpkins and the smell of dropped candle wax. 
 
Read the rest here:

http://lib.ru/INOFANT/BRADBURY/october.txt

31 Days of Halloween

I have always said that Halloween ought to start on October first. One year I even proclaimed that I would refer to October as a month as Halloween instead, although I forgot to keep it up about a day later... Halloween is my favorite holiday and I want to keep up the Halloween spirit (not to be confused with Spirit Halloween) all month. In fact it is only September first and I already have Halloween on the brain, but I thought this would be too early for most people to start getting in the swing of things. So this year, I have decided to post all things Halloween related on this blog all month from October 1st to October 31st. It could be a video, photos, Halloween events, memories from past Halloweens or just my take on Halloween related topics.
I will also be posting abbreviated versions on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, with links back to this blog.

So get ready for Halloween!

Bark-o-ween 2009

We went to Parker's Pets "Bark-o-ween Party" and costume contest, where the judge for the contest was <a href="http://www.wciu.com/blog.php?assetID=10000477">Svengoolie</a>, a local TV host, he has a TV show where he shows horror movies and does funny skits (like Elvira.) Bianca was dressed as the Big Bad Wolf and Harlequin as Little Red Riding Hood. Harlequin got 1st place for "Best Cat" aka the "Brave Kitty award" (she was the only cat there...) and Bianca got 2nd place for "Scariest Costume". The overall 1st place was two Chihuahuas dressed as Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.

Here are some photos from the contest, and below that are a few from the other contests we entered recently.

Svengoolie announcing the winners

Bianca and Harlequin at the first contest we went to, at Chi Town Dog House

Bianca and Harlequin at Petco's Howl-o-ween event