Did you know that without bats there would be no tequila? Or that bananas, dates, figs, cashews, avocados and many other night-blooming tropical plants depend on bats for pollination? Or that a single little brown bat can catch more than 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour?

I guess you can tell I’m a big fan of bats – even my dog Ren looked like a flying fox. This is my computer wallpaper:

More bats

View a BBC One video of the biggest gathering of bats in the world.

Dawn Summers and I encountered some flying foxes while in Sydney Australia. Once again, she ran screaming like a little girl. I wanted to pet them. Aren’t they cute?

Check out these horrifying photographs from Joshua Hoffine. If they are your cup of tea, you can purchase them online. Be warned, the images below are rather tame – the others on his site are quite disturbing.

© Joshua Hoffine. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

© Joshua Hoffine. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

© Joshua Hoffine. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

With all these paranormal shows and movies hitting the airwaves, how about some old photos of spirits?

Three of the more famous photos:

The Brown Lady

Wem Town Hal

The Tulip Staircase Ghost

Creepy…

Oh and how about one of my fav spirits -

And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
-excerpt from October, by U2

It’s that wonderful time of year again and I thought I’d celebrate this month by posting a different scary/Halloween-y/October-y image each day.

I’ve started off the month with one of my own. If you are into cemetery photos you can find many more on my site.

Happy October to everyone!

Here’s to 2009!

New Year’s Eve Ball, 1978. Photo credit: The New York Times.

Wishing everyone a fantastically spooky Halloween!

Check out this year’s OrangeYouGlad Halloween promotion.
More cemetery photos can be found here.

Another synopsis of Dawn Summer’s hilarious posts about our trip:

Breakfast – DS – insane price, ate a bite of everything on the menu. Mad – my first serving of Australian bacon. My breakfast view:

On to Mansfield. You call this a resort? View from our cabin’s back porch:

Restaurants – order at cashiers, drinks from the bar, food served at table. Flies.

Second Australian bacon serving – lamb noisettes wrapped in bacon:

Internet access? Bugger off…

Bus Stop Cafe – DS ice cream lick, Mad look of horror. My third serving of Australian bacon:

Mt. Buller Beerfest – little beer, little elves and not so little arm wrestling.

Grocery Shopping – why the name change? Burger King = Hungry Jacks. Isn’t Hungry Jacks a pancake mix here?

Birds – SQUAWK!

Wine – good! Ian – nice!

Ceilidgh the Wine dog – cute to Mad, scary to DS

Mansfield Zoo – kangaroos and wallabies too!

Mansfield Country Resort – all the amenities you expect from a resort. Swimming pool, mini golf…

Bingo – no way!

Cemetery visit – beware of zombies!

Bus to Melbourne – yay!

Goodbye Mansfield

I figure there is no need to rehash everything about this trip when Dawn Summers is doing a fantastic job. So for the rest of my AM trip reports I will be providing the Dawn cliff notes (apologies to Bayne for appropriating his creativity).

_______________

Flights – sleepytime for DS, hell for Mad. Stinky for both.

Sydney :

Luna Park – screaming

Harbor – pretty

Breakfast – spilled coffee

Loose animals terrify DS

The Rocks – has rocks but not as many rocks as DS expected.

Not The Rocks but some rocks in Sydney Harbor

Poker

________________

Dawn forgot to mention – while we were waiting to reboard the plane in Auckland, there was a grey-haired, balding bearded guy with a little girl playing with her barbie carryon. I told Dawn that it was David Sklansky with his latest girlfriend/protege. Here’s the proof:

Looking back at the photo I realize it can’t be his latest protege, she doesn’t look anything like a stripper.

I promised AlCantHang that I would provide bacon photos from the trip. Here’s my first full brekkie that I enjoyed at the Blackbird Cafe in the Cockle Bay Wharf.

The old seltzer home delivery truck was on our block again this morning. I don’t know which of my neighbors gets seltzer home delivery but it seems like a very cool 1950s dinner party type of thing to have at home. They must have great happy hours. Anyway a few pictures below. The truck is pretty amazing. How it carries all these bottles without having them tied down, and without breaking is beyond me. Oh, and check out the “antique bottles” that have been riding on the bottom shelf for some time.

And secondly, my friends Justin and Hiro, who know of my love of cute Japanese food and product graphics, gave me this box of panda cookies. Look, one has a frowny face. awhhhh…. (translation anyone?)

Finally got a new camera in the mail (Pentax Optio A30) and brought it to Melody Lanes last night. Andrew celebrated by joining the 175 club! I think there may even be a secret hand shake.

Andrew and I went for a drive down to see Lucy the Elephant (in Margate, NJ just south of Atlantic City) this past weekend. We decided to shoot just a bit farther south and also pay wildwood NJ a visit.

Here is a picture of Lucy. I think this is probably circa 1920-1930s but I’m not sure. I really wish the Coney Island Elephant “Elephantine Colossus” had survived so I could visit that one also. It was 3times the size of Lucy and served as a hotel. Little tid-bit for you – the Coney Island Elephant hotel became associated with prostitution and gave rise to the phrase “seeing the elephant.” Seriously tho, I love this stuff. If I ever win the lottery and Andrew lets me, I’d very much like to build myself an elephant house. Wonder if the original plans from Colossus exist?

Here is Lucy today.

Lucy today.

On our way down to Wildwood we stopped for hot dogs and blizzards. The back of the DQ had a couple of old Dennis the Menace (?) signs.

Being late arrivals to the shore and without reservations we grabbed the only room we could find. It was a dump, but a charming “i’m surprised they don’t rent this place by the hour” sort of dump. That said, there are tons of amazingly cute 1950s motels down in Wildwood and Wildwood crest. Just need to make a reservation.

la boardwalk

Jersey Junkyard ride.

Moby Dick ride

All alone at the teacups.

I’d like to get a sign like this for OrangeYouGlad. I’m not joking.

Yes, that is cheese fries pizza.

The least appealing cheeseburger illustration I think I’ve ever seen.

This lady kicked my ass at the water gun game. I wanted that pink ukulele.

After hours putt-putt.

Just about every one of these iron-ons will make the best tshirt ever.

One of our neighbors let me scan in this photo yesterday. You see the subway ramp being built up on the left and 423 Smith (currently the home of OrangeYouGlad) in its1930′s state as a ice cream/candy/grocery joint on the right. Click the image above for a larger version.

It’ll all be gone in an hour, but it was exciting to wake up to.
A few pictures from our roof.

Hopefully everyone will have a wonderfully horrifying time tonight. Haunt a graveyard, party with the ghouls, hide under a bed to scare a kid, or cast a spell on someone.

Or you can play it safe by hiding behind your computer monitor.