Monday Photo Shoot #19: Top of Your Game

Okay, here's an easy one!

New Monday Photo Shoot #19: Show us a game. It can be a board game, a card game or a video game, D&D or football or tag, or...you get the idea. It can be centuries old, or something your kids made up in school last week. Whatever it is, capture the fun in your camera!

Here are mine:

This game is called, "How long can I keep Pepper from running away from the big, scary 1970s board games?" Final score, Pepper 1, Karen 1. She got a bog biscuit, and I got a usable photo.


Both of these TV tie-in board games came from a yard sale or estate sale a decade or so ago. This one is The Six Million Dollar Man Game. It's been sitting on my shelves all this time, but tonight is the first time I've opened the box since the day of purchase.


Here's a closeup of the board. It's kind of pretty, but doesn't look terribly strategy-intensive.


And the Space: 1999 Game looks kind of like cosmic Chinese checkers! But I'm sure it isn't. Like the other one, it's basically gone unexamined in all the years I've had it.

Your turn! Post a photo (or more than one) of some kind of game in your journal or blog, along with a link back here, and then post a link to your entry in the comments thread below. Don't let your time run out: in a week it will be Game Over as I post a roundup of your game attempts!

Karen

Monday Photo Shoot Results: Unreality

Last week, I asked you to show us something that isn't real. Here are the unreal sights we were treated to:

Becky reveals that her son Tyler is a pixie!

Paul shows us... what is that? Or rather, what isn't that?

Kiva introduces us to a strong, silent hero of the Old West. And his skateboard.

Martha takes us to the world's largest, smallest circus.

swmpgrly brings us Elmo - yes, that Elmo! And a duck.

Sky-Blue-Pink

here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs
--E E Cummings

I'm feeling a little Effieish tonight, with nothing in my head but Doctor Who and Round Robin. I almost forgot to write an entry, even! So I'm going to fob you off with some photos. Again.

Tuffy on the bed.

This one was seriously lightened and cropped.

Sunset wedge, 5/3/08

I edited out an RV that was ruining the shot.

Pepper looking sinister.

I've already forgotten the name of the font. Cropped.

Tonight's sunset again

Saturated.

Tonight's sunset, cropped

Half of the original shot, darkened and saturated just a bit

Karen

Round Robin: Spring Cleaning the Sphinx

Hi, everybody! In this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge, Steven has given us the topic Spring Cleaning. Now, I did actually take a "before" picture of my desk two weeks ago, but since then I haven't gotten around to much of what you might call "cleaning." (Let's give John two minutes here to expound on this subject, and me a further minute in which to promise some action in this area.)

But that's boring anyway. I've got a much better clean-up project to show you. And it didn't require any work on my part. Remember my three recent trips out to Magic Carpet Golf? (You can see all of the entries here.) Well, I've got shots of volunteers sprucing up a few of the sculptures out there, and before-and-after shots of several others. Let's take a look!

When I first photographed the monkey on April 4th, he was in sad shape.


When I returned on Thursday, April 24th, two days before the One Last Round benefit, he had received at least one coat of paint, most likely during a volunteer paint-a-thon the previous Saturday.


Unfortunately the paint didn't quite manage to cover everything evenly in one matching color, and camera flashes on the night of the benefit picked out imperfections on this and other figures. Even so, he looked much better than before.


When I pulled up to Magic Carpet on the 24th, one of the first things I noticed was that volunteers were painting this sort of hut thing.

A few feet away, Stoneface was looking much, much better.

Here's how he looked before the work started. Remember?



He looked even more dramatic the night of the benefit, although this is not his best angle.


On the Thursday visit, around to the side, I saw this fellow hard at work on one of the largest figures of all.

I wasn't sure the Sphinx needed as much work as some of the other figures. Certainly it looked good as the kid was working on it.


But again, night shots and flash later revealed imperfections in the paint matching and coverage. On the other had, this sphinx still had its entire nose, so score one for Tucson!


Perhaps the most startling paint job was the one that rendered this change in this snake. On the night of One Last Round, he was quite the colorful fellow - and with glowing eyes, too!

Also on the night, I saw a volunteer replacing a lid on the crocodile after some quick adjustment or repair.

I don't mean to criticize the quality of the painting. It was wonderful of the volunteers to put in the time and effort, all for one final day of miniature golf. Some of these figures, in whole or in part, will now be moved elsewhere. Others, including, I suspect, the sphinx, will be destroyed to make room for a car dealership at the site. You see, these huge cement structures weren't designed to be moved, ever.

But at least people took the time to give them a spring cleaning before their last hurrah.

The other part of this RR topic is supposed to be 3 suggestions for future topics. As it is, I wrack my brains weekly for the Monday Photo Shoot assignments, but here are a few, based on tonight's entry:

Statues - photograph a statue of some sort. It can be as large as the Sphinx in Egypt, or as small as a bowling trophy.

Fresh Paint - photograph something before and after it's painted. It can be a bedroom, a bridge, a piece of canvas...anything!

Volunteers - photograph volunteers helping out in your community - collecting litter, giving blood, helping the homeless, tutoring kids...whatever!

Karen

Now go see everyone else's spring cleaning!

Linking List

Steven - Posted
(sometimes)photoblog
http://www.sometimesphotoblog.com/

Carly - Posted
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Karen - Posted
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Momma - Posted
Sandcastle Momma
http://sandcastlemomma.blogspot.com

Gattina - Posted
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

Wammy - Posted
The Ellis Family Cincinnati
http://theellisfamilycincinnati.blogspot.com

Martha - Posted
Perception
http://journals.aol.com/lifes2odd/perception/

Lisa - Posted
Lisa's Chaos
http://lisaschaos.blog-city.com

Sarah - Posted
Charish Me
http://Charish-me.blogspot.com

Vicki - Posted
Maraca
http://mymaracas.blogspot.com/

Angela - Posted
Chocolate Syrup for the Soul
http://www.angelas-craziness.blogspot.com

Marie
Photographs & Memories
http://journals.aol.com/mariebm56/PhotographsAndMemories

Robin
Robinella's
http://notastepfordwife.blogspot.com/

Kiva - Posted
Eclectic Granny
http://eclecticgranny.blogspot.com

Kim - Posted
Nekked Lizard Adventures
http://nekkedlizardadventures.typepad.com/

Julie - Posted
Julie's Web Journal
http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx

Teena - Posted
It's all about me!
http://purple4mee.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Robin - Posted
Robin's Woods
http://robinswoods.blogspot.com/

Weekend Assignment #214: Fresh Starts

This is a picture of Jenny Dog in the back of our Dodge van in 1986, as we drove around looking for a place where it wasn't winter. That was part of a huge change in my life, the move from Columbus, Ohio to Tucson, Arizona. The hour being late and the explanation tedious, I will spare you the details of how I happened to think of this week's topic:

Weekend Assignment #214: Sooner or later, pretty much everyone makes one or more major changes in their lives, sometimes several at once. We leave home, go off to college, get married, get divorced, change jobs, change careers, have kids, move to another house or another state, etc., etc. These things can be very stressful, but we do them in the hope of being better off in some way. Tell us of one change you voluntarily made in your life at some point, that worked out really well.

Extra Credit: Tell us of a little tiny change that also went well!

University of Phoenix Tucson campus, 2005, in the rain

There are lots of things I've done over the years that I'm really happy about now, others not so much. #1, I suppose, has to be finding John, but that was more a matter of luck and mutual feeling than actual choice. Moving to Arizona in 1986 was another biggie. But I think for the purposes of this assignment, I'll single out my decision in 2002 to go back to college, and turn my 30-year-old unfinished B.A. in English and Film into a B.S. in Business/Accounting. My mom lived just long enough to see me take my first class at the University of Phoenix; she died the day that class ended. My dad, a former college dean, attended my graduation a little over two years later. Along the way I got over my hangup about writing college papers, learned PowerPoint, discovered a strong interest in the law, gained confidence, assuaged my sense of guilt and failure, learned a lot about accounting, and became a heck of a lot more employable. I'm very grateful now that I did it.

And the extra credit? Well, I'm really happy with the metallic blue spaghetti pot I bought years ago. It's pretty, and oval shaped rather than round, and has a screw-on lid that works as a colander. I love to use it for steaming vegetables.

Your turn! Tell us of some change you made in your life that you're glad of now. Write it up in your blog or journal, with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments thread below. I'll be back in a week to direct everyone to this evidence of your courage and wisdom!

Karen

Weekend Assignment Results: Books, Books, Books!

Last week I asked what sorts of books you preferred to read. I must say I was delighted by the variety, depth, and genuine interest of the response:

Pat, writing directly in the comments thread, says: "well now ms. karen .. lol.. a wild guess on my part is that Fantasy Fiction would be my favorite catagory, mostly with dragons and wizards involved.. big surprise huh?"

Mike favors sf and horror, especially Stephen King.

Carly gives us a tour of some current favorites, and asks, "I have wondered over the years, what would I have done, if I had never fallen in love with reading?"

Saqib says that science fiction is "da bomb," and gives his opinion of other categories as well.

Kristi Wachter narrows her favorite category to a single authors, before listing "a few second favorites."

Duane's interests are wide-ranging.

Florinda doesn't have a favorite genre, but instead ponders why we read, and what qualities she looks for in a book.

Sarah lists quite a few authors and categories, arranged on her shelves with a proto-librarian's eye.

Kiva confesses to book binging in a variety of categories, including science fiction and fantasy.

Having written a few follow-ups myself this week, let me just add that I finished reading Pride and Prejudice not half an hour ago, and find myself half-inclined to write in the literary style thereof, were I not both tired and in a hurry to get on with proposing the next Weekend Assignment topic. This duty cannot be long delayed, however; and it is my dearest wish that you may find the new topic as agreeable as this one has been. I therefore remain,

Yours, &c.
Karen

A Partial Renactment

John: "Karen, did you take care of my leftovers?
Did you put them away?"

Karen: "No, I didn't."

John: "Well, somebody did."

Karen: "I'm sure she enjoyed them."

This was followed by mutual reminders not to leave anything on the pass-through any more.

Karen