It's all about the candy.

I love that Google does funky stuff with their logo on special days, but I *really* love what they did for today. If you're reading this on Halloween and want to experience it for yourself, here's your chance.




















OK, presuming you've either already done it, or don't want to do it, or can't do it because it's too late, here's what Google did.


This is what you see when you go to the main page.







If you hover your mouse over the logo, then it has a little pop-up instruction.







If you actually do as instructed and click on it, you get a candy-ized Google logo.







If you click on it again, you get a whole bunch more candy.







And if you click on it again, you see what happens after the candy has been gotten into.







And if you click on it one more time - it just goes to boring listings.




And speaking of it all being about candy, a friend sent a link to this cartoon that I thought was pretty funny. I actually thought it was funny enough that I then proceeded to propagate it everywhere I know, including here.




Hope everyone has a happy, safe and fun Halloween. And don't forget - you get an extra hour tonight to recover because it's daylight saving.

the naked man and Donald Duck orange juice

Multiple years ago, I was at a party. Not a crazy party with drugs and alcohol and such, but just a get-together among adult friends, hanging out, munching on snacks, listening to music, chatting and the like. The party was actually thrown by a friend of a friend who I'd met through another friend, so there were a lot of people at the party I didn't know.

At one point, I'd gotten up to mill around and wander over to the snack table to see what I could find to munch on. On the way there, I passed by a group of people sitting on and around a couch. One particular man caught my attention. He was sitting cross-legged on the couch, with a cushion over his lap. And nothing else. Now, I didn't stare, but it was hard not to notice when he obviously had no shirt on and no pants on. I couldn't tell if he was wearing underwear, but then, I wasn't looking that hard. It was also not a particularly warm time of year where people would be in shorts. I'd also remembered hearing stories from the friend that I'd met through another friend about this particular person who has part of said friend's other group of really good friends.

I had been told that he wasn't an exhibitionist or anything, but rather, that he just didn't like clothes. Sure, he adhered to clothes-wearing in the regular world, but at parties, he had a tendency to just take them off, and his friends pretty much just got used to it.

So I continued on to the snack table and was browsing around when I heard a voice next to me ask if I knew where the Donald Duck orange juice was. That in and of itself was a funny question because even back then, before my Disney-obsession days, I wondered how having Donald Duck on the label was supposed to be some kind of indication that it was good orange juice. Did Donald have some secret interest in orange juice that we never knew about? Were ducks in general experts on good-tasting orange juice?

But more than simply being asked about Donald Duck orange juice, it became even weirder when I realized that the person asking me about it was said naked man who was now standing next to me. I think I turned a tiny bit when I heard the voice but stopped when I realized who it was. No, I didn't look at him to make sure he was the naked one. I kind of recognized his face, and the fact that I could tell that he wasn't wearing a shirt was pretty much a dead giveaway since everyone else at the party had a shirt on.

Now, maybe it's just some weird quirk in me, but if I'm going to be having a conversation with a naked man, I generally prefer that he's someone I'm having an intimate relationship with. Talking to random naked men is not my thing.

I told him that I didn't know where the Donald Duck orange juice was, and he wandered off in search of said juice.

I did make it a point the rest of the night to not sit on the couch or be anywhere near the cushion he had used to cover himself. Ewwww.

Years later, I told the husband about naked man because we were going to a party that naked man might be attending. The husband never encountered naked man in a full state of undress. I think he might have seen him at a party or two without his shoes on and shirt partially unbuttoned, but that was pretty much it. We then happened to no longer go to the parties where naked man might be attending, not because of him, just by circumstance.

And then a few years after that, the husband and I were at some kind of one-night special screening at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. After everything was done, we were getting up to leave, and we had recognized a number of people in the audience since some of the same people tend to turn out for this sort of thing. I saw someone a couple aisles over who was leaving, and the guy looked really familiar but I couldn't place him. I pointed him out to the husband, and it was the husband who recognized him as naked man. How funny to see him at a screening for a Disney movie!


And as a coda to this whole story, we recently had a chance to visit the archives at The Walt Disney Studios, and in the lobby area that we could visit, there was a whole case full of products with Donald Duck's name and picture/face on them, since he was the Disney character who had originally been used to license a ton of products. Inside the case was a carton for Donald Duck orange juice. I laughed.

I wonder if Odin likes fava beans

I'm still a little iffy on the forthcoming "Thor" movie, but I was excited today when I heard that Anthony Hopkins had been cast as Odin, Thor's father. I think Anthony Hopkins is a terrific actor, deftly able to play a gamut of characters, equally brilliant in "The Silence of the Lambs" as he was in "Remains of the Day" and "Howard's End". And now, playing the head of the Norse gods? I can't wait!

But where would you put the kitchen?

Having a treehouse would be a very cool thing for kids - somewhere to go and hang out, away from adults, and hopefully, with a really good view too.

Well, what about the ultimate treehouse? It's 11 floors tall and even includes a basketball court. I'd just be worried that it would all go up in flames the first time I tried to boil some water.

first game is in the bag

The Lakers' new season started tonight, but not before getting their championship rings for winning it all last season.







There was also the small matter of raising the championship banner.


And then came the next task at hand. The score was closer than I had expected, but fittingly, the Lakers won their first game of the season, beating the Clippers.

baby girl is an angel

Players for the National Football League have a bit of a reputation. They get in trouble, they do stupid things, they do illegal things, they get caught and sometimes get jail time. They are trouble.

But that's not true of all of them. Those are the ones you just hear about the most.

And then there are those like DeMarcus Ware, who plays for the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys themselves have been home to quite a few news-making players, but for Ware, he made news for a different reason. He had a wife that he loved and who loved him. He was embarking on a successful career in the NFL. He was on his way to fame and fortune. And yet, none of that could buy him the happiness that he and his wife were looking for. The joyous news of her pregnancy soon turned to sorrow when several months into the pregnancy, it was discovered that the baby had no kidneys and could not survive outside the womb. The child was stillborn.

Happy news came again with another pregnancy. But again, several months in, the baby's heart stopped, and again, it was another stillborn child.

I can't even imagine how devastating it would have been the first time, but for it to happen a second time is unthinking, unsurvivable. But then a miracle happened. Through circumstances, Ware and his wife were able to adopt a baby girl, from a young girl who wasn't ready to raise a baby and who had initially wanted an abortion but then decided to give her baby up for adoption instead.

The Wares didn't care what gender or color or anything about the baby. (It so happens that Ware and his wife are black and their daughter is white - the pictures of them all together are beautiful.)

Ware is fierce on the football field, but his real joy comes from being a father.


Here's a fairly extensive article that tells the whole story.

Here's a second article with other details.

the East Coast series

Well, the Angels lost the sixth game of the American League Championship Series tonight. It wasn't just the loss, though. It was the form in which they lost, an inning in which they committed two stupid and fatal errors.

The Dodgers were eliminated by the Phillies previously, so the World Series is now an East Coast affair, between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees. Which means that I don't care that much about the Series, other than that I want the Phillies to beat the Yankees only because I am anti-Yankees.


At least I have the NFL.

pumpkins and pancakes

This is just a sort of random post with a couple things I found funny or cool.

During Halloweentime, Disneyland has a section in Big Thunder Ranch with a person who carves pumpkins to resemble cool characters. I love the work they do there.

The lighting on this picture didn't come out great, but the detail on Bambi was pretty awesome.






I think Eve is pretty cool, but Wall-E looked to me more like R2D2. I only really recognized him because of his "E" in the middle. That, and the fact that he was right next to Eve.









And this morning, we had breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen, which was actually very good. We haven't had good experiences the last couple times we've been there, though admittedly, this time, we were there *very* early, at 7am, pretty much when the restaurant opened, and we were part of a special tour group. The food selection was very good, and the character interaction was good too.



Start your day the Mickey way.

early morning at Disneyland

We had an opportunity this morning to be at Disneyland very early, at about 7am, before park opening, so I got some pictures without any crowds and in different lighting than usual.



Sleeping Beauty Castle


The view from in front of the castle, looking back down Main Street.


Looking towards Space Mountain.

The Jim Henson Company studios

Earlier this week, the husband and I had the opportunity to visit the studios of The Jim Henson Company. The sign out front proudly displays the name of the company, and the presence of Kermit is also a pretty big hint as to what lies past the closed gates.


The company name on the gate and the figure of Kermit.


A better look at Kermit.



The Jim Henson Company is located on the grounds of Charlie Chaplin's former studios, and the giant Kermit atop the entrance pays tribute to Chaplin in his costuming.


The view of giant Kermit from inside the studios.



We had an opportunity to tour some of the locations on the lot.


A bench near the entrance of the studio.


We had a visit inside the reception building of the studio, where we saw a very familiar figure in the waiting area.


The picture of Jim Henson is currently covered in Halloween decorations.


We also had a chance to visit The Barn, which was formerly Chaplin's scenery shop and which now serves as the creature shop on the lot. I was very happy to see the original latex creature of Baby Sinclair in his high chair from the TV show "Dinosaurs", but unfortunately, no photos were allowed at that point. We also saw the device that is used to create live digital animation that we originally saw experimented with at Muppetfest back in 2001.


Being at the Henson studios, some images are both surprising and not.


Hmmm, who or what is that sticking out of the building?


A close-up of Kermit.


After our tour, we had a chance to enjoy lunch made from the Backstage Kitchen on the lot. I had chosen the garlic shrimp penne, and I have to say it was quite delicious, very garlicky, and not only were the shrimp a very nice size, but there was also a very generous portion of them in the pasta. I wonder if they do take-out? :)

A very nice visit to the Henson Studios.