Oodles Of Doodles CCCVII

It's been a bit since the last doodle I posted, so here's a quick one to tide you over. This festive scene comes from the back side of Karneval In Koln (Music Of The Colorful Carnival Celebration Of Germany) (Capitol T10222). Featured artists include Willi Hofmann, Werner Preuss, Horst Mys, Colonia-Orchester and Rheinland-Chor. This is another record in the Capitol Of The World series which seems to be a particularly rich source of doodles, provided you can find the long out-of-print records in the first place.

Shuttle Shutout

Well, I'd hoped to bring you pictures of the shuttle launch this morning, but this is all I got. Up until a couple hours before launch, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but as 11:38 am approached, so did the cloud cover. All I saw was this little bit of smoke peeking through a hole in the cloud cover. I waited for it to come out above all the clouds, but if it did, I didn't see it. I didn't actually drive anywhere, so nothing ventured, nothing gained. This was shot from right in front of work, so the distance from there to the launch pad is about 140 miles. I was a lot closer last time.

Happy Halloween Music

Prior to today, the only holiday music I've shared out on the blog has been for Christmas. Lots and lots and lots of Christmas music. But occasionally, as I was hunting down Christmas music, I'd occasionally spot something a little less jolly, something spookier, something more appropriate for Halloween. So I started collecting up those tracks when I stumbled across them. And now, the time is here to share them with you. It's just a collection of tracks, no special CD cover, so don't get all excited. Some of these are great, some of them are good, some of them are OK, and some of them, well, let's just say they're worth whatever you're paying for them. I think there are 24 tracks, most of which are instrumentals. The few vocal tracks I think are my favorites, but they are hard to find. Other bloggers have done a great job of bringing you more Halloween tracks, but I don't think I've seen any of these shared out elsewhere. If so, sorry for the duplication. So what's in the zip file?

Sid Bass-The House Is Haunted
Ralph Materie-Haunted Guitar
Phil Napoleon-Satanic Blues (written by a guy named Christian!)
Noro Morales-Mr. Ghost Goes To Town
The Modernaires-The Rockin' Ghost (co-written by Steve Allen, I think this is my favorite. Whoops, I seem to have put in both the stereo and mono versions. Sorry...)
The Mighty Sparrow-Madam Dracula
Michel Legrand-Old Devil Moon
Marty Gold-King Of The Mountain (Great version!)
Lou Levy-Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
Lord Melody-Creature From The Black Lagoon
Les Brown & Vic Schoen-Oh, Those Martian Blues
Lenny Dee-Satan Takes A Holiday
Johnnie Long-The Boogie Man
John Gart-Funeral March For A Marionette (You know, Alfred Hitchcock's theme...)
Jimmy Durante-We're Going UFO-ing
Herbie Harper-The New York City Ghost
Ethel Smith-Ethel Meets The Count
Dinah Washington-My Man's An Undertaker (What was the inspiration behind this?!?)
David Rose-October Mist
The Count Of Monte Cristo & Congo Bey-Zombie Jamboree
The Brute Force Steel Band-Beastly Meringue
Billy Strange-Theme From The Munsters (No, I don't know why it sounds like that...)
Billy May-Return Of The Zombie

There you have it. Lot's of tracks from those old LPs that you know I love. Everything should be tagged with artists, titles, LPs, dates labels, you name it. No covers, though, 'cause I'm lazy. Hope you enjoy it. Here's the Linky-link.

The Next To The Last Week In October

More great fall color for the calendar picture this week. I think I shot this detail of a maple tree behind Stan Hywet in Ohio last year, but it could really have been anywhere at the height of the fall color. Impressive, no?

Field A'Flower

Several weeks ago, I was on my way somewhere when I spotted a large expanse of flowers. I made a mental note to come back over the weekend and shoot some pictures. Then I forgot where I had spotted them. Flash forward to last week on my way home from Big Cat Rescue, and I happened to drive past the spot. I had to cut across a couple lanes of traffic and enter a parking lot through the exit, but I managed to get to where I needed to be for the picture taking. Turns out it was a small, shallow pond that was covered in water hyacinth. Unfortunately, most of the flowers were past their prime, but I still got a few great pictures.

Big Cat Attack, Part 20

This is the last cat I shot at Big Cat Rescue last Saturday, so this is the end of my big cat pictures. Hope you enjoyed seeing these great cats up close. If I remember right, this was their very first tiger, so he has a huge pen, almost a full acre, with access to the lake and plenty of space to romp. Yet he still hangs out in the front so he can watch the tourists and get his picture taken.

Big Bearcat Attack

There are very few not-cat critters at Big Cat Rescue. I already showed you one (two, actually), and this is the other. This handsome fellow is a bearcat, also known as a binturong. These critters are native to Asia where they spend most of their time in the trees trying to look cute. OK, maybe they don't work at the cuteness, but that's only because they don't have to. They're mostly nocturnal, put this guy was puttering around for some reason, maybe just being curious about all the tourists. I didn't really get a great picture of his whole body, but he's about 2-1/2 feet long, plus a tail of about the same length that's prehensile. He can do plenty of stuff with that big bushy tail. They eat mostly anything, but stick to smaller things they find in the trees. And if I remember right, their musk smells like popcorn...

Big Cat Attack, Part 19

Thankfully, the next tiger on the tour didn't look at me like I would make a nice aperitif. He did, however, seem to have it in for one of the keepers. He was actively stalking the guy, crouching down behind the available cover in his enclosure, pacing back and forth as the volunteer cleaned a nearby cage. Eventually the poor fellow got close enough, and this tiger took off like a flash in that direction. I'm not entirely sure he was just playing... Anyhow, the enclosures are pretty strong, so no harm was done. We were told that the same scenario plays out pretty much every day, but only between this tiger and that specific volunteer. Everybody has to have a hobby, I guess.

Big Cat Attack, Part 18

Here's another tiger from Big Cat Rescue. This guy made me nervous, the way he kept looking right at me and licking his lips. Of all the cats they had at this place, tigers were the only ones they said eat people on a regular basis. Other cats might occasionally attack humans, but they never actually eat them.

Big Cat Attack, Part 17

Four more pics of the same tiger that I showed you here. This guy was just begging for his picture to be taken, and I was happy to oblige.

Big Cat Attack, Part 16

Great series of shots here, featuring the same lioness I just showed you. She broke out into a huge yawn, and I got several shots of it in process. Don't look too close, or you'll see that the camera is actually focused on the wire cage and not her face, which is maybe a foot or two beyond. It's not what I would like, but it's still a great series of pictures. I can't catch my own cat yawning like this, so I counted my self very lucky to catch a full grown lioness with a lack of sleep.



Hmm, are yawns a popular subtext here at the blog? They show up more than once...

Big Cat Attack, Part 15

I think this is the first lioness I've shown you from Big Cat Rescue. She's certainly a pretty kitty, and big too, with a body length of almost six feet, not counting the tail! And she's got a little junk in the trunk, so to speak. Check out those haunches in the third picture. I suppose that's all there so she can run you down and kill you if you don't show the proper respect. I wish the wire wasn't in the middle of all these pictures. Someday I'm going to have to break down and take the special photo tours they offer. I don't think you can actually get into any of the cages, but maybe they allow you a little more flexibility in composing your shots. Those tours are a little expensive, but if you want that special shot, I'm sure it's worth it.

Big Cat Attack, Part 14

This guy was great. Back and forth he strutted, back and forth, just keeping an eye on things. This was probably the oldest tiger they have at Big Cat Rescue, and unfortunately, he's probably not much longer for this Earth. Take a look at the picture at the bottom of this post, and you can see how skinny and frail he's become in his old age. But he's still up and around, keeping his big paws in the game, making sure that the tourists get a good look at him. At least he's in a place where he can live out his life in peace.

Patches

I pointed out white patches on the backs of the ears of several cats in the past few posts. This one is on the ear of a tiger. Turns out that these patches serve a similar function in big cats as they do in moths. It gives the impression that you're being watched when you aren't. Dumber animals can't tell the difference between real eyes and these white patches that move and twitch as if they were looking at something. But it turns out that these 'eyes' are just listening in the other direction. Pretty sneaky, huh?

Big Cat Attack, Part 13

Here's the fiercest looking picture yet from my trip to Big Cat Rescue last Saturday. But I assure you it's not ferocity you're seeing, but a big yawn. This leopard was too busy wondering what time breakfast was to be snarling at anyone. I felt pretty lucky to catch the yawn in mid-stream. Makes for a great picture, doesn't it?

Big Cat Attack, Part 12

I couldn't resist throwing up some more pictures of the big black leopard.

Big Cat Attack, Part 11

Probably the hardest of the cats to photograph was this black leopard. The camera just will not properly expose for the black coloration, yielding photographs where the fur either comes out too light or just a black hole with no features at all. I think I finally got it right this time, so these shots came out pretty nice. You can even see that she's not really black all over, but actually has the spotted pattern common to most leopards, only her spots are black-on-black. She is beautiful, though, whether in photographs or in person.

Big Cat Attack, Part 10

These are the first cats I've posted who's species I can't remember. Again, two individuals, one in their den, and another sprawled out against the cage. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go over to the Big Cat Rescue website and flip around until I found their name...

OK, I looked. I think they are caracals.