Emily! You are leaving tomorrow. This makes me sad.

How is packing going?

The photoshopped photos are creepy. Especially [link] and [link] .

OK. Way creepier. They put a new mouth on the kid because she wasn't smiling. [link]

Emily! You are leaving tomorrow. This makes me sad.

Me too!

Pfft. Packing? We gave up and went out drinking. juliana can now attest to the wonderfulness of AtH!Teacher, who totally needs to be a Buffista. Also, we got ridiculously tipsy and discussed... I no longer know what.

Tomorrow, throwing shit in the SUV. Pray for me, and wish me good parking.

Way creepier.

Not the same kid. To whom does this appeal? Seriously, just hire somebody to draw her. Then at least you could claim artistic license. Here it's kind of "here's a picture of a doll who kind of looks like her. Well, at least it's wearing the same outfit!" Freak. Ass.

I'm glad you had a good last night, Emily.

Even creepier because of how unhappy the kid looks.

ETA: Title: "From Sad to Serious"

To whom does this appeal? Seriously, just hire somebody to draw her. Then at least you could claim artistic license. Here it's kind of "here's a picture of a doll who kind of looks like her. Well, at least it's wearing the same outfit!" Freak. Ass.

It's for pageants. In addition to the regular competition, they've got photo competitions, where the parents of the kids who are competing send in a photo of the kid beforehand, and there are awards for "Most Photogenic" and stuff like that. The rules prohibit any sort of touch-up of the pictures, but nobody follows those rules. So, if you've spent the money on the studio and the outfit and the photographer, and you're planning on spending the money on the entrance fees and getting to the pageant, and your kid just won't smile for the camera, just get a digital retoucher to replace her mouth with a smiling one.

Thing is, later on in the "other samples" there are ones that actually make sense and look like the same kid. And there's a really nice clean-up of an old damaged picture. So the freaky "totally different child" pictures are that much more strange.

I believe it was in this thread that I expressed some doubts about homemade vegan fake cheese. I hereby rescind those doubts. I tried a recipe tonight, and although I've got no clue how it happened, this particular combination of carrots, tofu, nutritional yeast, miso, mustard, lemon juice, and nutmeg tastes just about exactly like Cheez Whiz. It's a little bit freaky -- I'm generally pretty good at tasting something and being able to break down the flavors and figure out the ingredients, but in this, even knowing what's in there, I'm not tasting any of the components.