X-mas 2008 pictures! Besides spending time with family in Tucson, we went to the Titan II Missile Museum and the Winterhaven Festival of Lights, basically a suburb that… really goes all out when it comes to decorating for X-mas.

Ken models my new feather boa.

I really like this one. A docent explaining to the younger generations how to blow people up from a distance.

I always think of Alan Dill when I take pictures like this.

People come up with some pretty creepy shit.

Imagine walking around in the dark and stumbling upon this horror. I kept imagining it was chasing us for an entire block afterward.

Another horror. This one blinked in time to music. The soldiers were meant to look like they were advancing forward.

It doesn’t get much worse than this.

Harry Christmas :P

My wish for the ‘wish tree’.

I painted the Most Interesting Cat In The World, my Kitsune!

From the Who Killed Amanda Palmer tour.

The lovely Zoe Keating.

Yeah, so I went to what ended up being one of the last NIN tours ever: The Lights in the Sky show in Sacramento, December 2008. Trent had intimated he’d never come back to Sac after the With Teeth fiasco last time, so I wasn’t gonna miss this. I was not disappointed. As a plus, they let me bring in my camera equipment because NIN rocks. All these were taken with my zoom lens; we were midway to the stage.

Trent Reznor is really good at making the duck face.

You thought I was kidding.

He’s also really good at ridiculous poses. Here’s ‘Airplane Arms 2008′.

He’s also really good at making agonized collapse poses into his mic stand.

To answer your unspoken question: yes. It ended up going into the audience.

Echoplex!

Trent… Trent.

Another thing he excels at: air time.

The installations and lighting for NIN concerts were always so effing beautiful. I’m going to miss that.

Just the trees outside the Arco Arena.

Here’s another digital portrait for your viewing pleasurrrrre. This time, Tori Amos as Pip from the American Doll Posse tour.

Usually we go to friends for Thanksgiving these days. We spent Thanksgiving in 2008 with Fluffy, Jen, and their cats.

Jen’s amazing vertically swimming fish. I think it had something to do with a faulty swim bladder.

Occasionally Ken and I actually throw a party. This was probably one of the most fun Halloweens I’ve had, and with some of the best costumes as well.

First, here’s Ken’s pumpkin, a tribute to Captain Hammer. Mine, which was more a tribute to Boston Legal, didn’t turn out as well picture-wise.

Hang on, I didn’t see rat on the list of ingredients…

Now for the party.

Alan came as Bernard Black from Black Books. At the time I had no idea who this was.

James changed his costume throughout the night, from a Civil War general to Dinosaur Elvis to… other stuff I think. This is because James has too many costumes.

Alex came as Angel of the Morning, a visual pun. I forget what Henry’s costume was specifically.

Mario was a vampire. I feel like Mario is a vampire every year. Not that anyone’s complaining.

I was Sexy Abe Lincoln, basically as a response to all the ridiculous ‘Sexy’ versions of costumes out there for women. I had a beard but it got too itchy.

Ken was George Washington, to go along with my Lincoln. And also because we found this picture:

Anyway.

AJ came as Robert Smith of the Cure.

Janie was Olive Oyl!

It wasn’t long before we started playing the inevitable three hours of Rock Band.

Me and the Mecha Costume: Bernard Black’s ciggies, Angel’s flowers, the general’s sword, George’s wig, Lincoln’s clothes and hat, and the vampire’s trenchcoat.

Jeez, you’d think she never played Eat Poop You Cat before.

and here’s a bonus one of Ken, not Halloween-related:

This was hands-down the coolest thing at Leeds Castle. I want to go back and do one of their falconry workshops someday.

Here’s some kids taunting a hawk.

I honestly can’t remember what kind of bird this was. I think it was very closely related to some prehistoric ostrich-type thing though, and it beats its prey to death. Here it is leaping for its rubber snake…

And here’s what it does with the poor thing after it catches it.

It didn’t want to come back down.

Again, kids in peril. I love this show.

For our last day, we went to Leeds Castle. This was a pretty picture-heavy trip since there was a lot to do there, so I’m breaking it into two parts: the raptor show and everything else. First, everything else!

The path to the castle is infested with birds. Birds everywhere!

The ‘satanic’ grotto. I expected something a little more subtle, but they added sound effects and weird lighting and for me I just wanted to see weird, slightly disturbing art.

The raptors resting between shows!

Dog collar museum!

When I said ‘hot knight’ this wasn’t what I had in mind.

SHOES

And then we met some peacocks.