The 51st Annual Surrogate Pumpkin Carving Contest!

[Gare]

Here's a double-dipper: this year, you have not one, but two chances to win our carving contest.

Actually, the pair of pump's could be a twosome: create a homage to Laurel and Hardy, Crockett and Tubbs, Scully and Muldoon, Bush and...okay. you get the idea, now get to carving!

Entries will be judged and the winners announced on Monday, November 2nd.

You can use your own photo, draw a pumpkin, and you can use any digital art tools you like to carve that kisser.

We're still deciding on a first prize (it will probably be one of Gary's books); second prize will be the candy we have left over from Hallowe'en, and third prize will be candy we've had left over from Hallowee'n from the past four years.

We think that's motivation to win first prize.



My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

I'll go first...

-g-

[nikkie]

OK i am next....

[Gare]

So far...

you WIN!

[nikkie]

Not hard without any competiton, so folks pleasssse .........create something.

[Welles]

Pumpkin Craving Contest!

CravingPumpkins500.jpg

Of course the bigger version... http://homepage.mac.com/wellesgoodrich/CravingPumpkins1024.jpg

[nikkie]

Good one Welles !!!

[Gare]

It's great artwork, Welles, invisible PS retouching with the shadows and edgework there!

I'm also impressed with your clever Spoonerism.

Or should I say, your cleaver Spoonerism?

Reminds me of the news story yesterday about the editors at The Nation releasing a book, day and date with Palin's epic.

They're calling the satire "Going Rouge", careful misplacement of the "g", the cover looks almost identical to "Going Rogue", and here's hoping the Palin-drones buy the wrong book.

-g-

At McDonald's: you'd reverse a beak today.
(Oh, those poor chickens...)

[Welles]

Thanks Nikkie. Your heartfelt plea for 'entries' pushed me over the edge! The spoonerism was keyed by your sending me that "Going Rouge" info the day before, Gare, as you guessed I guess. Oh a contributing factor was that Vue 7.5 Infinite was offered with a free upgrade to Vue 8 which is to be released shortly. I had been giving 7.5 a pass but as Vue 8 was included and the news that e-On has almost finished a rewrite of Vue for Mac in Cocoa which will be 64 bit and make use of all the new Snow Leopard technologies, I jumped. Vue 8 owners will be given the new Mac upgrades when they are ready for public testing. Finally 64 bit on Mac. Using XP Pro 64bit to render Vue scenes proved to be about 20 -25% faster. All I can say is Whee!

[Gare]

Good for you, Welles!

I'm eyeing version 8 myself.

Did you go to Snow leopard?

BTW, I never did Win XP 64x due to the general lack of support for drivers, but I'm very happy to report that Windows 7 64x works well with XP apps, there's a virtual machine provided by Microsoft for the scattered few legacy apps that will go belly up (or won't install) into a 64x environment, and native 64x apps:

•Photoshop CS4
•Cinema 4D
•Vue 6
•Sonar Cakewalk

...and others, will indeed a speed improvement that seems unimaginable after you first install and use them.

...then the honeymoon fades and you're wanting still more speed!

And that's why we'll see 128x processing in a year or two. Not a pipe dream, Microsoft has already announced plans.

-g-

[Welles]

Yep, I installed Snow Leopard within a week of the release. Per my normal system update strategy, I kept a Leopard HD ready to go in case I ran into any serious issues. I also knew that some of the system enhancements and applications would be broken so a Snow Leopard system would take a bit of 'building.' I had planned to boot up into Leopard for work and Snow Leopard to slowly build up a new system but it was good enough that I've never gone back to Leopard. Presently I don't have any 'issues' at all so I'm good to go.

If you do plan to upgrade to Vue 8, you might consider this strategy...

On Oct. 12 there was an e-On news letter which announced that anyone purchasing an upgrade to vue 7.5 from that day on would be given an automatic 30 day maintenance plan which entitled them to a Free upgrade to Vue 8. Current upgrade price from Vue 7 Inf to Vue 7.5 Inf is $295. I think that is the cheapest route to obtaining an upgrade to Vue 8.

When you go to this page, scroll all the way to the bottom for that announcement.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/about/newsletter/

[Gare]

I'm not going to text you or anything, being technologically challenged, Welles, but you and everyone else should

Go here!.

New free art program, our members only read this thread (!) so go download a free, neat toy!

-g-

[Gare]

Judging this year's pumpkin carving competition wasn't all that hard.
(Sigh...let's have more entries next year?)

First Prize goes to Nikkie, for the spirit and her hard work on the scene.

The prize is right here, Nickster: I know how much you like JMJ's music, so I personally wrote out the score and re-recorded one of his tunes, with digital technology this time.

Right-click to save the mp3, or click to play it

Welles wins second prize for his elegant riff on a typographical error.



Hey, get your pencils sharpened, members. Only 11 months until the 52nd competition!

My Best,

Gare

[Welles]

Congratulations Nikkie! You actually maintained the spirit of the contest theme and created a proper (and well done, too) Halloween image.

[nikkie]

Thank you Gentlemen, for the compliments, but i do admit that it,s technically speaking not perfect, but it is fun to produce this for an occasion we don't know at all....