Oct 1 2009

Thursday’s Thirteen: October’s to do list

Since its October first or nearly at this posting, here are thirteen things for October in no particular order.

I would have posted some photos but my internet service is acting funny.

1. Setting out the autumn decorations.

2. Getting out and decorating for Halloween. It’s not the same decorations as the autumn ones.

3. Raking fall leaves. I really hate this chore. We have sycamore trees, they have big leaves. Lots and lots of them.

4. Dusting the house and getting it ready, so I can shut all the windows for the cold season.

5. Picking out a pumpkin. I don’t do this quite so much now that my daughter is older.

6. Pulling out the spent spring flowers and planting fall bulbs or more mums.

7. Cleaning out my planters and planting some fall flowers.

8. Putting away all the shorts and summer clothes. Then digging out of the back of my closet for my long sleeve blouses and long pants. Cool weather clothes, oh how I miss thee.

9. Costume making time. My daughter has taken over this chore. She’s too old for trick-or-treating, but there’s an Ani-jam on Halloween that’s she’ll be attending. She won third place in the last one for her costume she had made.

10. Buying Halloween candy. We don’t get trick-or-treaters, we live too far out of town but I buy them for my small family. We like candy. 🙂

11. This year it’s on us for my daughter’s senior year school picture. It all has to be done by October 15th.

12. Get sign up for the Nanowritmo (National Novel Writer’s Month). It’s always a crazy month for me, but for the last three years I have finished in time with a 50,000 word novel.

13. Celebrate my hubby’s Birthday. His B-day is on the 29th.

Sep 24 2009

Thursday’s Thirteen: Fall colors

Thirteen colors of Fall.

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1. Grass-Green

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2. Light green of faded sycamore leaves.

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3. Olive green of dry leaves.

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4. Red of maple leaves.
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5. Gold of a fully mature Sunflower just ready to pick.
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6. Burgundy of mock cherry leaves.
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7. Light Brown of baked earth after the harvest.
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8. Dark brown of the earth when the first rains come.
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9. Tan of dried corn husks.
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10. Dried Wheat Yellow.
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11. Pumpkin-Orange.
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12. Deep Orange-red of fall decorations.
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13. With October just around the corner what is fall without Halloween-black?

Jun 25 2009

Thursday’s Thirteen: Patriotic songs

Since it is so close to the fourth of July the U.S.’s birthday, that I thought I show my colors and my Thursday’s thirteen will be Patriotic songs.

1. America the Beautiful: Listen | Lyrics

2. Battle Hymn of the Republic: Listen | Lyrics

3. God Bless the USA: Listen | Lyrics

4. God Bless America: Listen | Lyrics

5. My Country ‘Tis of Thee: Listen | Lyrics

6. Stars and Stripes Forever: Listen | Lyrics

7. Star Spangled Banner: Listen | Lyrics

8. Yankee Doodle: Listen | Lyrics

9. This Land is Your Land: Listen | Lyrics

10. What the Flag Means: Listen | Lyrics

11. A New Wind a Blowin’ by Langston Hughes

12. America (My country, ’tis of Thee) by Samuel F. Smith

13. The Marines Hymn

Oct 10 2008

Thursday’s Thirtenn: Early Horror Movies

In honor of Halloween that’s coming up this month, here is a list of thirteen early horror movies you might not ever hear about.

Popular horror movies didn’t start in the 1940’s look these over and see if you recognize any (I got these from Wikipedia) .

The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable (aka “The House of the Devil”) which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film[2].
Another of his horror projects was 1898’s La Caverne maudite (aka “The Cave of the Demons”, literally “the accursed cave”).
[2] Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.[3]
In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, thought lost for many years, film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.[4]
The early 20th century brought more milestones for the horror genre including the first monster to appear in a full-length horror film, Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame who had appeared in Victor Hugo‘s novel, “Notre-Dame de Paris” (published in 1831).
Films featuring Quasimodo included Alice Guy‘s Esmeralda (1906), The Hunchback (1909), The Love of a Hunchback (1910) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1911). [5]
Many of the earliest feature length ‘horror films’ were created by German film makers in 1910s and 1920s, during the era of German Expressionist films.
Many of these films would significantly influence later Hollywood films. Paul Wegener‘s The Golem (1915) was seminal.
in 1920 Robert Wiene‘s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its Expressionist style, would influence film-makers from Orson Welles to Tim Burton and many more for decades.
The era also produced the first vampire-themed feature, F. W. Murnau‘s Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. [6]
Early Hollywood dramas dabbled in horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) (both starring Lon Chaney, Sr., the first American horror movie star).
His most famous role, however, was in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), perhaps the true predecessor of Universal’s famous horror series. [7]
It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931).