Re: Invitation to the 27th annual pumpkin carving party!!

Too much time on your hands Dan, Too much time......

Dan Shapiro wrote:

> My fellow pumpkin people... I warned you this was coming! If are in the area, please come! Someone has to carve them!
>
> Dan Shapiro
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1000 PUMPKINS ON THE ROOF
>
> I wasn't always obsessed. My life was once full of doilies and tasteful decorations; flocked pictures with huge brown eyes. But then I saw my first pumpkin. Now I eat only orange food, and believe giant vegetables will set us free. This makes perfect sense to me.
>
> Naturally, I decided to grow my own. (How many times have those words led to trouble?) 300 lbs looked big, but when 506 was not enough, I wired the patch to my computer. I measured the air, the leaves, and soil. I wrote smart software that watered the yard. I called it a pumpkin robot, and gave it desires. CYBERPUMPK was born.
>
> Then, deep down in the data I detected signals, anomalies only I could see: a temperature spike at 300F, soil moisture noise vibrating in rhythm. The leaf turgor sensor knew I was there. CYBERPUMPK was speaking! But were these slow pumpkin thoughts, or loud vegetable screams? I had to know! I sought the siren; I swam the sea of seething data seeking slivers of certain insight. Then in an orange flash, it dawned. CYBERPUMPK wasn't talking to me, it was phoning home. It was calling... the GORD.
>
> And they came. Huge spherical ships coursing through inter-plantetary space. Technology infused with organic matter. Self replicating, self repairing cucurbits in my backyard, vines spreading, assimilating everything in their path. Then they spoke!
>
> "I am Locutus of GORD. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated by the GORD Collective. Time is irrelevant. Prior engagements are irrelevant. You will fertilize US and your distinctiveness will be added to our own."
>
> What? Root in our brains, digest our precious bodily fluids, absorb us into a collective vegetable? This was... bad, worse than TV! I had to act! Communicate! More data, more sensors! Was resistance futile? Try capacitance instead! No, wait! Use logic: the price of peace is at an all time low! But then I panicked - I pruned! "Target their seed pods! Fire! Razors!", I yelled. We nipped 7 of 9 in their wee buds, but the GORD adapted; those last two globes grew huge. Damn it, I'm a doctor (almost) not a horticulturist! What more could I do? I begged, "No kill I"... but the GORD ignored my plea.
>
> Now the GORD are everywhere. The yard, the deck, the kitchen, the car, they've even invaded my laundry. I have a 400 lb GORD in my shorts, and 1000 pumpkins on my roof. 100 hideous hulks haunt my living room. They must be born pregnant! Sure looks grim for our side!! I need to think, stay focused; keep control of the enterprise, please! Restate the nature of the emergency... in a moment of lucidity I briefly believe these aren't alien vegetables bent on world domination, they're fruit I grew for a party! But then a 500 lb thing hoves into view humming opera, and I don't know what it is, but it's green. Uh oh. The fat thing is singing. But are they the GORD our enemy or the squash our friends? Perhaps both - and we can triumph by understanding their nature.
>
> This is where YOU come in, just in time for a desperate gamble. Link with us for the joined thrill of a GORD experience! Open one and release a vision of its inner art! If you carve it, I'm crazy, and they're squash. If they assimilate us, I'm sane, but we're juiced. Geepers! Tough luck!
>
> So, come to the 27th annual hallucination carving party. Fight the GORD! Separate reality from fiction with a knife. See who assimilates whom. Make it so!
>
> VITAL INFORMATION
>
> TIME: 6 PM into the night, Friday, October 30 (the day before Halloween)
>
> PLACE: House of Dan Shapiro, 181 Leland Ave., Menlo Park, CA (650) 854-3789
>
> I SUPPLY: a plastic-lined living room, a cauldron of cider, a yard full of theatrical fog, 100s of candles, and one Omigod (that's a unit) of pumpkins.
>
> YOU BRING:
> - Knives, scrapers, markers and other carving devices. Power tools are allowed. Given the theme, bring
> some technology to incorporate into your GORD! (Or not.)
> - Food for the potluck
> - Grungy clothes
> - Invite a friend (but please ask first about friends of friends)
>
> SPECIAL EVENT: We open the really big GORDs at 7 PM. We are talking 500 lbs, 407 lbs, 328, 291, and three more in the 250+ range. This is a wad of pumpkin. I have 3,000 lbs of squash out front, and I haven't even bought the second truckload.
>
> SPECIAL REQUEST: Please carve the big ones, too!
>
> PARTY RULES:
> - Please arrange for one dedicated supervising adult per child.
> - Carve as many pumpkins as you like and take home one.
>
> DIRECTIONS
>
> From Rt. 280: Take Sand Hill Rd. heading East; Leland is the first possible left turn beyond the four lane intersection at Santa Cruz. The turn is immediately after a low concrete divider.
>
> From 101; take University all the way onto the Stanford campus. Go right at the first light (Arboretum), go to the end (Arboretum bisects the Stanford Shopping Center) and turn left on Sand Hill. Go ~1.5 miles, past the Oak Creek Apts., over the small cement bridge and through the light at Oak Dell. Take the next right, on Leland (it comes up fast). If you hit Santa Cruz, you have gone too far.
>
> 181 Leland (Termite Manor) is on the left, underneath a huge Oak tree.
>
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