Entries tagged with “Halloween”.


Long thought to be extinct, and to live only in its natural habitat of Southern Australia and the island of Tasmania, a fine specimen of Tasmanian Tiger (aka Thylacine) was spotted and photographed in Pittsburgh!  Amazingly it was also in my front yard… during our pumpkin carving party… and it’s wearing a collar… and looks suspiciously like someone just panited our dog.

Real Tasmanian Tigers are incredibly cool animals.  For more info check out the Thylacine Museum.

I just redid my pumpkin carving page.  If you’re carving a pumpkin and would like some tips, I bet I have a couple that will help you out.  The best jack o lantern ever: isn’t that what we all want?  This year I think I’m going to do another one with its face on fire, as well as one with a laser vortex coming out of it’s mouth.

Fire-face, from 2006

Last year I published an ebook on pumpkin carving just barely in time for Halloween at Lulu.com. I just posted the second edition of the book, and this time it’s early enough that it could actually be of use to people in time for Halloween. It’s got more tips, more photos, AND more patterns (drawn by me of course). It’s awesome. Now all I have to do is get people to buy it. One thing that I think would help would be reviews. If you are one of the people who already bought the book, I would sure appreciate a review on the Lulu site here. If you haven’t bought it yet, TIME’S-A-WASTIN’! There’s pumpkins to be carved!

Also, if you liked the book, please spread the word and tell a friend. It would make me very happy.

I’ve already started thinking about how I’m going to carve my pumpkin, I just can’t quite decide between fire and lasers though…. I’ve also been scheming about how I’m going to scare the snot out of the children in my neighborhood.  Good times.

Get Carving Tips and Tricks here, along with photos of the pumpkins I’ve carved in the past OR check out the enhanced version in my ebook with patterns, a seed roasting recipe, etc.  Get your $2 ready and go here.

If you have always wanted to carve the Best Pumpkin in the World you can get in on the action with this book.

Mark Hayward has just released his first eBook: Pumpkin Carving Tips, Tricks and Patterns.

Even if you don’t want to be the Best in the World and just want to carve a better pumpkin than last year, you should check this out. It’ll be the best $2 you ever spend on Halloween for something that wasn’t covered in chocolate.

A lot of work went in to putting together this first edition of Pumpkin Carving Tips, Tricks and Patterns, and the second edition will be out in time for Halloween next year. The book was written as an enhanced version of Mark’s pumpkin web page.

We had our annual pumpking carving party Sunday night, and it was a good time as usual.

Many a good pumpkin was carved, and some new tools were even introduced, including a wood-carving chisel set and a eye-gouger/mellon-baller that Richard brought.

This year my pumpkin was not very intricately carved, this time it was all about the fire.

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This weekend I had a couple of gigs in the Chicago area, but I went up a day early to participate in a taping for Chicago Public Access Cable TV.

Harper, Matiss and I showed up with a bag full of juggling machetes and two pumpkins.


We carved this one in advance, and the other was to be carved while we juggled.

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As a kid, the way I remember it, was that on the day after Thanksgiving all of a sudden you would see the Christmas stuff appear in the stores. Then, as I got older, I remember being offended when the Christmas stuff started appearing before Thanksgiving. Recently, Christmas stuff has made its debut just after Halloween, but THIS IS THE LAST STRAW! Just LAST WEEK I saw an entire area of red and white, and ornaments and little Santas at Macy’s! Not only is it not Thanksgiving OR Halloween yet, but IT’S NOT EVEN OCTOBER!!!

What’s going on here?!? Are retailers really that desperate, or is this a sign of the disintegration of modern society and the onset of Armageddon? I mean really… September is the start of Christmas? Come on! We’re not even in the same financial quarter as Christmas yet. Maybe I’m getting cranky at an early age, but I think this is SICK and WRONG.

For those of you who are in an accelerated holiday state, you may have already started thinking about pumpkin carving. If so, I can be of service. I have amassed some pumpkin carving tricks and tips for the betterment of mankind. And please… let’s all try to remember that there are still two major holidays BEFORE we get to Christmas.