THRILLARAMA.COM

Ya-Hoooo!

But what about the rest of the slogan? "It'll tickle yer innards!"

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Ogilvie Station

Not as many trains this week.

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Lower North Michigan Avenue

Waiting for the No. 120 express to Ogilvie Teansportation Center.

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The Color Worked for Me

Nicely Done, originally uploaded by chi_cowboy.

While riding the No. 32 RTD bus from downtown Denver out to Wheat Ridge last week, I snapped this photo of a rehabbed building on a hill overlooking Lower Downtown.

The dirt on the bus windows gave the image a warmish feel.

Is it Easy Being "Green"?

SDC11558.JPG, originally uploaded by Paul Swansen.

I found this interesting image of a Denver building while looking through Paul Swansen's Flickr photostream. I was trying to identify the cross streets where I shot a photo this past weekend.

Iscorama on my EOS DSLR?

Play Ball! - CinemaScope, originally uploaded by chi_cowboy.

I've known about lens adapters for years, but only recently realized that with a Nikon F to Canon EOS ring, I can mount my Iscorama anamorphic on my trusty 20D and shoot digital widescreen till the cows come home.

Since my 50mm f/2.8 Iscorama lens has a Nikon mount, I've obtained some fun shots by pairing it with my Nikon FM2n 35mm and Nikon Pronea S APS cameras. I shot the image here with the Pronea S; it's of one of Jefferson Park's baseball fields.

After scanning, I apply a 1.5X horizontal stretch in Photoshop to restore the proportions. If I were projecting these images, I'd need to use an anamorphic lens on the projector, same as they do when showing movies filmed in CinemaScope or Panavision.

Several companies make cross-platform adapters, but they're not cheap -- about $250 or so. On the EOS, I'd also lose most automated features, although some metering might be retained.

Halloween is Big Business

My pal Marty "The Rock & Roll Chef®" Larkin is not only a talented chef, musician, writer and entrepreneur, but an authority on all things Halloween.

Marty's published Halloween pumpkin-carving stencils, created a carving kit for X-Acto, and recorded numerous spooky-related songs -- including a South American-flavored version of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and, my favorite, his own "Let's Raise the Dead."

He also has a business that custom-carves pumpkins with often-intricate logos for display at corporate outfits that have included Pixar, BP and the Chicago Cubs. 

Recently, Marty's been branching out into online video content. One of his recent blog posts about YouTube features a brief video he assembled from footage I shot for him when we attended the annual Halloween trade show in Rosemont, Illinois, a few years back.

As you can see from the video, this show has a lot of fun stuff going on.

It's got a lot of pretty creepy stuff going on, too, as many of the exhibits are of complex and gruesome animatronics for use at highly profitable haunted houses where the purpose is to scare the crap out of customers.

I got to meet Cassandra Peterson (better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) and Butch Patrick (whom genre fans recall as Eddie Munster). Both seemed like down-to-earth folks.

The Halloween trade show's shockingly realistic animatronics is what amazed me, though. These mechanical contraptions ranged from life-sized blood-vomiting torsos to gigantic ogres and monsters guaranteed to cause nightmares.

What freaked me out the most were the writhing bodies inside plastic bags.

Scary stuff, kids!

Woolworth's, Once

Woolworth's, Once, originally uploaded by chi_cowboy.

This view is of the back of the building that once housed the downtown Denver Woolworth's.

My mom loved this Woolworth's, which had a restaurant, a lunch counter, pizza, hot dogs, live plants, fish and pets, notions, stationery and more. She loved shopping there and said it had everything -- a virtual "marketplace in Calcutta."

The store's cutout bin always yielded a treasure trove of soundtracks. My best find was the original release of the soundtrack to "Duck You Sucker" for 25 cents.

Remembering Robert Waxman

15th and Champa, originally uploaded by chi_cowboy.

The pawn shop used to be Robert Waxman Camera, where I bought film and darkroom supplies, as well as my Bell & Howell super 8 projector, my Pentax SP1000 and my Nikon EL2. Waxman hasn't been at this location for many years now.

Getting Theatrical

Theater, originally uploaded by chi_cowboy.

Way, way back in college, I appeared in a play at the Changing Scene Theater when it occupied the upper floors of the building on the left on Champa Street between 15th and 16th in downtown Denver. I portrayed one half of a refrigerator -- the door part -- in a production called "The Billiard Ball and Pi Lead Different Kinds of Lives."

I was horrified when a local newspaper critic praised my performance as "graceful."

Allen True's West

Works by Allen True were highlighted in an exhibit at the Colorado History Museum.

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Colorado Capitol

The gold-domed Capitol overlooks Denver Civic Center's museums and libraries.

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Passing Strange

What better place to advertise this exhibit at the Colorado History Museum than above a urinal?

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No Flash Photography

At the Colorado History Museum.

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RealD Glasses

Just got back from "Avatar." The technology worked great -- and the digital stereoscopic projection was flawless. Didn't even see any ghost images. Note the polarization going on here with the RealD 3-D glasses.

As for the story, it's "A Man Called Horse" meets "Ferngully" with the magic Earth Mother tree from "Pocahontas" thrown in.

Not as gaggingly PC as I feared, but James Cameron did spread it on thick.

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