It would not let me get a closeup of its magnificent wattle.

I went back to the pumpkin patch that had turkeys. It was a wild scene today with hundreds of cars kicking up dust, families with costumed kids in tow, wheelbarrows full of pumpkins. Over to the side, there were these turkeys in a pen. This one came right up.

It usually means my connection is going to be iffy for awhile, which it certainly is this morning.

A strange crew on the ship tonight.

We left before this one was finished.

I still get nervous when my kids are around sharp tools despite the fact that they aren’t really little anymore.

Some insides were goopier than others.

The body was burned after being shot and stabbed. The clues were small and seemingly insignificant. But a tenacious detective, Bert Deane, pursued the case until he found the murderer.

It was called nuggets without chicken, found in the frozen foods section.

If your skies are clear in the mid-northern latitudes, you should be able to see a very bright Mars tonight.

Its grin almost goes from stem to stem.

The pumpkins were taller and slimmer here.

Pickings were slim at the video store, compounded by the fact that I didn’t want something that I couldn’t eat during. My expectations were very low for Hidalgo, all I knew was that it concerned a race in the desert, and featured Viggo Mortensen and Omar Sharif. I could probably sit and watch the two of them play checkers, and still have a great time. Yes, it did go on and on, but it wasn’t bad.

One Never Knows from their No Sun in Venice soundtrack.

A friend surprised me with these. I think they would have frightened my kids when they were younger.

I will have hairy, shiny, pelt-like, but very soft feet when I pad to the door Monday night.

In the desperation following the earthquake, impoverished families are selling their kidneys for cash. After a broker claims a share, the payout is about $3000.

A group of Afghans removed kidneys from the bodies of quake dead, thinking to profit handsomely. What they did not know was that kidneys removed from the dead are not usable. By the time police caught up with them, they had 15 kidneys in coolers.

Something a little different for those times when you want to stand out a bit, but not distastefully so.

Designed by Anzevino & Florence, it also comes in women’s sizes and other colors.

The fine can be six months in jail per bird plus a $300,000 fine.

However the judge in the case involving the Leduc Golf and Country Club and 80 Canada geese was lenient.

A club spokesman said the geese were being killed or maimed by golf balls, and moving them was for their own good. But it is a federal offense to move such birds without a permit.

They are both low pressure systems with potential for tremendous destruction in populous areas. In the northern hemisphere, they are called hurricanes, in the southern hemisphere, cyclones. In the latter, the system rotates clockwise, or in a cyclonic direction.

Winners from the City of Heroes contest.

Shadow and Lantern Marsh are pretty spooky sounding. There’s still time to make a second Halloween CD, if I can get my act together.

I’ve read enough about the barbecued turkey legs sold at county fairs. A critical step, apparently, is the brining, which I’ve never done before. But if my kid that is still in college is caramelizing onions in his spare time, maybe it’s time I learned to brine.

The real trick is finding a good movie to accompany such a meal.

At this site, there are many pumpkins with images based on patterns and photographs.

Rice planting involves long, long hours in a bent-over position, putting seedlings into muddy rice paddies. For centuries, planters have endured this laborious method.

Now there is a robot that can plant at a rate of 1,000 square meters in 20 minutes.

Here it is the 28th, and your kids still don’t have costumes? Or is it you that needs one?

Once again, no need to spend big bucks at a store. With a little time, some glue and things you have around the house, you can whip out a presentable look.

Tales from a museum herpetologist, who must deal regularly with airport security as he transports creatures from other countries. Because it is so difficult to translate his purposes and to explain the mysterious powders and fluids that are part of his occupation, he sometimes resorts to a kind of benign trickery to get through customs.

It is currently labeled a tropical storm, and threatens the Nicaraguan coast. Weather experts think it could reach hurricane strength later today.

Cannot be trademarked, even though a French company very much wants to. However, the trademark smell of freshly cut grass was granted to a Dutch company to use in its tennis balls.

It glows in the dark too.

Mars and Venus, they say. Locals who saw them say maybe not.

Some of us miss X-files (when it was good). And we want to believe.

Tenderly, from the Playing By Heart soundtrack.

The six children who will receive the transplants suffer from Batten disease, which causes blindness, loss of speech, and paralysis before death.

The stem cells are immature neural cells that doctors hope will turn into mature cells in the children’s brains.

It’s actually pink, and thanks to poaching, overfishing, polluted waters, and heavy boat traffic in its native habitats, it is endangered.

A friend took me to dinner tonight, and I spent a lot of time blinking and tearing out of one eye. A contact lens is not happy on an eye afflicted with a sty.

All the pictures I took were not very good due to the low lighting. Didn’t want to use flash. We went to Max’s, and I had the turkey dinner (no surprise). Dessert was one of the chocolate cake slices, not sure which because by then, I wasn’t able to focus so well. They serve half a portion, but I still couldn’t finish.

The bags seem smaller this year. I may not have enough. Some years I get just a few kids, others I get around 50. It might rain this year.

I will probably go get a few more bags tomorrow.

For those times when you want to be comfy, but aren’t sure just how casual the event will be. A t-shirt with pearls might do the trick.

Do we need more reminders that we’re hungry? If you don’t like sushi and dim sum, there’s always the plate of spaghetti cable that you plug your USB drive into.

The anatomically-realistic thumb drive is even more startling than the human hand replica I put on display every year about this time.

At Home Depot, there was a pallet of cone-shaped rosemary bushes and small spruce trees. I don’t think those were for Halloween.

It is almost November, right?

Sightings go back more than a century, and theories about their origins abound. This site has an in-depth look at the lights that could be swamp gas, glowing jackrabbits, aliens, headlights, or mirages.

Vibrating lights. That must have been an eerie experience. The FAA says Not us, and the air force bases say Not us either.

I should have been staring up at the sky instead of shopping at Home Depot.

Many who live in the shadow of the Alps dread the darkness of winter, but there is hope for some residents. In a project funded by the European Union, computer-controlled mirrors (heliostats) will reflect sunlight onto communities plunged into depressing shade from November to February.

Other villages have to depend on local support to install mirrors.

But will they count toward the 9-serving per day recommendation?

The company expects to roll out new, health-conscious products in 2006.

Over here, if you use a half-sock with your mules, no one wants to see them. In Japan, they are a fashion accessory in their own right.

In Bosnia, archaeologists say they have located two pyramids and labyrinths under two hills. The team, which included both American and Bosnian scientists, is assuming that the finds are indications of an ancient, highly intelligent civilization.

In the not-too-distant future, space travelers in need of surgery will have services provided by surgeons back on earth. Camera-carrying robots the size of a lipstick have been designed by researchers at the University of Nebraska. These can go into small incisions, and are controlled remotely.

Astronauts will receive training in the use of the robots this spring. The technology will enable battlefield surgery as well.

In the underwater area known as Popcorn Ridge, scientists have found rocks that explode when brought to the surface. They are lava rocks from the Krause volcano, which reveals itself as a mound at the base of the ridge.

In many American homes right now, there’s a big bowl of candy sitting by the front door waiting for next Monday night’s trick or treaters. It’s very hard to walk by without indulging in one or two.

Here are some tips about which ones to choose.

A giant that is said to reach over 650 lbs, it can take fisherman on a wild, high-speed run known as an ‘Amazon sleigh ride’.

In Washington state, the patient had just been sedated when she woke to find her face and neck afire. A hospital spokesman said a hair product was the culprit, and the accidental ignition of the alcohol-based substance caused a burn.

And why some mammals get by on less, while some need more.

The French island was mentioned here earlier when officials discovered that dogs and cats were being used as shark bait.

Today, there is news that residents who toured Thailand recently are showing symptoms of bird flu.

The man on the street remains unaware of the headlines in the rest of the world regarding bird flu.

The work is fast and furious, as the city is hell-bent on presenting a modern image to the world. Materials are moving in at record levels, European architects have been consulted, and thousands of construction workers are laboring long hours for little pay.

Drum Circle. Not just drums, but didges too. Thanks, Chris!

Fifty years ago, there were 6,000, now there are less than 50. They have suffered at the hands of progress, losing habitat with the building of the Three Gorges Dam. Fishermen have netted them, and they have struggled to survive in polluted waters.

A gull that calls Asia home is spotted by an alert birdwatcher. The bird is rarely seen in the U.S., and even then mostly in Alaska.

I also got some pumpkins last night.

After work, I get to play with my new iPod, which I got last night.

It’s our turbulent atmosphere.

We had hesitated to used poison pellets, fearing that the rat would die in a wallspace or other difficult spot. The variety of baits (peanut butter, cheese, nuts) did not work since it seemed wary of traps, both the wire and the usual kind.

After three weeks or so, we were desperate. It still made these strange huffing sounds when we went in the garage. The pellets were put out over the weekend, and there were signs that they were being eaten. Daily. We braced ourselves for a search for the body.

Yesterday, the pellets were still being eaten. Occasional sounds could be interpreted as, ‘Ha! Like blue candy! Ha!’

But this morning, it went for a regular trap.

If there are more sounds when I go in there again, I’ll assume it’s the gnome.

A new computer simulation from Purdue indicates that extreme weather such as droughts, flooding, and intense heat may be in store during the next 100 years. The study takes into account the effects of ozone depletion and snow reflectivity, and includes the role of high mountains that block weather from moving across regions.

Rumor is that they have a new online selling service in the testing stage.

At this site, scroll down to the last two pictures.

Not much action at Lake Machado as Reggie might be opting for semi-hibernation.

Alex became infertile after chemo from cervical cancer. She and her husband wanted a child very much. Her twin sister Charlotte offered one of her eggs, and another sister, Helen, said she would carry the child in her womb.

Charlie is now four months old.

At Target, they are still packed. What did I get? More Snickers, 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, Nestle’s Crunch, and Butterfinger. Candy companies are always trying to embellish old favorites, and it takes some vigilance not to grab the Butterfinger with wafers, for example (wait, wafers?), or the Nestle’s with caramel. An elderly couple were deliberating in the giant assortment section, where a large bagful has some of this and that. She was insisting that she wanted Hershey’s, and I started to tell them they were in the wrong aisle. But he was patiently reading with some glee the various names of the candies, some of which were indeed Hershey’s.

I know what she means. Once a year, it’s perfectly okay to go out and buy a ridiculous amount of candy, because it’s not for you, you see. Having an entire bag of your favorite candy is acceptable behavior.

There is a big food drive every year around November. All the excess candy can go to that. Really, it can.

But for real excitement, these same aisles the day after Halloween are an entirely different scene. I’d hit the decorations and masks which were at deep discount for the boys when they were younger. We don’t eat that much candy, but passing the candy sections was always entertaining as people fought to fill up their carts with crazy amounts of candy. Most would be exhorting their loved ones on their cells, ‘Get down here honey, it’s at 75% off!’

The little girl is Sierra Stiles, and she shot the 211-lb bear with a .243-caliber rifle. It was the first kill of the bear season, which ends Saturday.

A few days ago, I posted some facts about armadillos, and included the information that when startled, armadillos jump straight up in the air. Here’s a t-shirt celebrating such a moment.

A doctor is highly skeptical when patients complain of bird flu symptoms. In reality, they have much more pressing health issues.

NASA’s Beam Power Challenge and Tether Challenge, both with $50,000 as the top prizes, did not yield winners in either competition. Despite the inability of entrants to meet the challenge, NASA announces that next year’s contest will be even harder, and the purses will roll over.

A man of multiple talents, he designed and built the analog camera himself, and is working on a project called Portrait of America. It will be the sharpest view of the country we’ve ever seen. When visitors look at his images in a gallery, they are given a magnifying glass to better see the astonishing detail.

Many people took echinacea to ward off colds, only to learn that recent studies proved it ineffective. Now comes a report that ginseng cuts the risk of colds and reduces the severity of symptoms if you are unlucky enough to get one.

In Inner Mongolia, another 2,600 birds are dead of the H5N1 strain.

If the ants weren’t bothering me so much, I would adjust the levels of this, but they are being particularly annoying at a time when I should be doing other things.