When the News comes to your studio...

So Brooke and Eric of Fox News "Better" Portland TV, along with a fairly large fancy camera and microphone clip just left my studio.
The marketing/advertising guy at the Saturday Market set it up to come look at my work and how I do what I do. He says I'm an asset to the market, isn't that sweet, I'm sure he says that to all the vendors...
It was an interesting interview. Not REALLY interesting, but a funny experience for sure.
They made some strange choices as to what to talk about in my opinion, but they are the editors, so I let them to it.
It's funny to see "TV" in action. They really know that they need to make a 'story' and to have an 'angle'. So they ask you to do things, and you say 'oh, okay yeah, i can do that I guess'.
I wish I had known when the camera was off or on, and when they were asking a question that they wanted to record or were just fishing for a line or something.
We had a lot more interesting things to talk about when the camera was off its tripod in my view, but, that's perhaps not what 3 minute afternoon news segments are really all about.
I'm glad I didn't make any large gaffs though, except for a stutter or two, and generally not being my best fluid self.
I'll be as intrigued as anyone to see how it all edits out in the end.
I think in the end, it will just be another 'lets poke the monkey making art, ask him questions and see if he flings poo in response' type of thing. It's what the masses want. Not most of my customers mind you, just the 'masses'. The people who just walk around waiting for entertainment to hit them in the face.

Oh and Mike, they MADE me play the book on tape I had which was Metal Swarm, book 6 in the Saga of Seven Suns series.
-sigh-
I told them 'we could just put on OPB?', but they wanted the dorky fantasy novel going while I worked. Great. But damnit if I can't say that I didn't have it right there, so I suppose I am to blame.

anyway, I make it sound like it was awful, which it wasn't, I'll post a link here when it airs and is put up online!

Pumpkin Carving Party

Ashley and I hosted a little Pumpkin Carving Party this last Wednesday, and it turned out pretty fun for all.
We had Pumpkin Ale, Ashley made Pumpkin Cheesecake and Zucchini bread, I made mashed Sweet Potatoes, a friend brought some Chili, and a few other provided side dishes, all of which everyone seemed to enjoy quite a bit.
I'm happy we fit everyone in my kitchen just sitting on the floor to carve the pumpkins. I was surprised a bit. We had 12 attend, 9 of which were carving at the same time.
Here are just three pics.
This last pic is Ashley's pumpkin which I liked and tried to take a photo of as if the cat is playing with the candle inside.

Mine is the last on the right in the picture above for those who wanted to know.
Oh and Ashley took all the Pumpkin Seeds we collected from them all and toasted them up. I don't know how they turned out, but I imagine pretty well.

Cheers!

Ah Portland, let me count the ways...

Let me set the scene for you -
I'm chatting with another vendor in the aisles of Saturday Market today. It's a beautiful Fall day actually, a little bit of chill in the air, but nice. People around are the normal Market flair - a mix of middle class tourists, young college kids out checking out the town, local people aimlessly walking...
We are talking about the slowness of the day and how we can't wait till closing bell; a guy walks by about twenty feet away with a fairly pronounced limp and seems, by casual glance, a bit worse for wear, but I think very little of this, it doesn't stop conversation, just a background half observation.
We continue with our probably typical 'any office co-worker' conversation, when one of the tallest men I've ever seen comes blazing past us moving as fast as he can with arms outstretched and legs stiff as boards, in an outfit torn and covered in blood with the most vacant yet hungry stare.
A zombie.
It was humorous, and I'll admit a tad bit scary to come out of nowhere really. Conversation resumes, only now talking about how Halloween IS only a week away; 'are you gonna dress up? go out somewhere?'
'Hey do you hear something?'
A strange low noise in the distance, outside of the Saturday Market boundary.
It gets a little louder but still low and ominous like a moan. Or maybe many moans...
It gets loud enough that you know it must be within the Sat Market boundary now, and coming this way. You can hear lots of shuffling steps, odd rhythms, definitely moans, groans, 'ArrRGhS' and 'rrraaaAAAAA's.
Holy Crap, the Zombie Apocalypse has landed in Portland!!
And it's fairly true, at least A THOUSAND zombies paraded themselves, in a very odd, yet very coordinated zombie way, across the Market grounds today.
All were quite done up in blood and gore and pasty body paint (or just pasty w/o paint) and torn clothing. There were handicapped zombies, zombie pets, half naked zombies, zombies in pajamas, doctor, nurse, construction, and office zombies. It was quite the scene.
My favorite part was how our local security official in charge of taking care of such 'ruffians' was trying to herd the hundreds of zombies, who are in full 'act brain dead' mode, away from the market grounds.
Just a simple waving of "Move along zombies. Keep over there please", and if one 'shuffles' over a little close, push them back to the main line. Quite amiable really, zombies. I thought you would need a baseball bat or something, but a simple push in the right direction works just fine. Like their really just drunk, not undead.
Love it.

Ah Cyberspace, you fooled me so.

I was on the computer (well still am) and found myself wondering whether I had a second keyboard mouse tucked away somewhere in case I needed it.
So I pulled up my desktop Finder window and right before typing in "computer mouse" in the search box I realized I was trying to do a file search on an object that may or may not exist in the reality that is my basement.
.
.
Time to get off the computer I'd say.