I am rich, so therefore I am RUDE!!!!!

[drcorey]

I have not seen Bear up close. I had just assumed his head was radio controlled, with one or more operators off camera doing the puppetry. Basically a manually operated AA puppet, run by very skillfull puppeteers.

nah, he is a full body puppet.
the puppeteer uses a monitor to look thru the cameras in his eyes.

[techie-13]

Just chiming in to say "Another lighting tech over here too!" I'm an A/V tech and I love looking at the lighting set-ups everywhere I go and wishing I had some of those toys to play with.
And now Hubby has gotten bitten by the christmas lighting bug and is promising a bigger display each year. I love to tease him about a "glitch" from last year...how do you know when you've put too many lights (controlled by a photocell) on the tree in the front yard? When the the photocell turns on the lights in the evening and the lights are bright enough to make the photocell turn them off. Seriously, the whole tree was lit up and it kept cycling on and off. :D:

[hobie16]

I love to tease him about a "glitch" from last year...how do you know when you've put too many lights (controlled by a photocell) on the tree in the front yard? When the the photocell turns on the lights in the evening and the lights are bright enough to make the photocell turn them off. Seriously, the whole tree was lit up and it kept cycling on and off. :D:

That's pretty funny. I think I've caught the same bug. I may also rebuild my talking robots for Halloween next year.

[Shorty82]

I love to tease him about a "glitch" from last year...how do you know when you've put too many lights (controlled by a photocell) on the tree in the front yard? When the the photocell turns on the lights in the evening and the lights are bright enough to make the photocell turn them off. Seriously, the whole tree was lit up and it kept cycling on and off. :D:

Photocell? You wants a photocell? I want to get me an actual lighting controller sometime when I have the cash so I can synchronize music and lights. I can't afford to get one right now but between post-Christmas specials and a Wal*Mart gift card I can afford to start stocking up on lights.

hhsrat has one and his setup is pretty cool even though it is on his tiny balcony. If he had a whole house to work with it would have been amazing. He has a Light-O-Rama Showtime 16-channel controller and that is what I'm looking at getting sometime myself.

[lady ulrike]

My brother and I went to Disneyland a few years back on New Years Eve! Big mistake, the crowds were bad. We went on 10 rides in 12 hours. We left before the fireworks.

Ummm.....10 rides for the day is actually a successful day as far as Disneyland is concerned. Seriously, they've done studies and have determined that if people get on 10 or more rides in a day then they feel that they have gotten their money's worth and will come back again.

[hhsrat]

hhsrat has one and his setup is pretty cool even though it is on his tiny balcony. If he had a whole house to work with it would have been amazing. He has a Light-O-Rama Showtime 16-channel controller and that is what I'm looking at getting sometime myself.

*Begin shameless promotion* and there's even a low-quality cell-phone video of it up on youtube. (taken from inside the living room, because if I were to take video from the parking lot where it'd look better, the audio is inaudible) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OGW8fjbmUk *end shameless promotion*

[hobie16]

Phasers on stun!!

[techie-13]

Photocell? You wants a photocell? I want to get me an actual lighting controller sometime when I have the cash so I can synchronize music and lights. I can't afford to get one right now but between post-Christmas specials and a Wal*Mart gift card I can afford to start stocking up on lights.

hhsrat has one and his setup is pretty cool even though it is on his tiny balcony. If he had a whole house to work with it would have been amazing. He has a Light-O-Rama Showtime 16-channel controller and that is what I'm looking at getting sometime myself.

Actually, Hubby is planning on purchasing one in the new year. He bought a cheap one that has pre-programmed sequences last year so he could try it out but he's been pricing out the whole system for the last couple of months. I'll have to show hhsrat's video to him. By the way, he's been buying up extension cords at Target the last 2 days. He found out that if they remotely look like a christmas item, Target has put them on sale with the rest of the christmas surplus. Something like 3 for 1.

[techie-13]

*Begin shameless promotion* and there's even a low-quality cell-phone video of it up on youtube. (taken from inside the living room, because if I were to take video from the parking lot where it'd look better, the audio is inaudible) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OGW8fjbmUk *end shameless promotion*

Did I see a mickey head wreath in there? Anyway, great job!

[hhsrat]

actually it wasn't a wreath, but yes, there's a mickey head in there. It is made from two hula hoops. One intact, one cut in half, and zip-tied onto the other to form ears. I then zip-tied a rope light all the way around, and then wrapped each "circle" with a (separate) string of red LED lights. The mickey takes 4 channels on my light controller - whole mickey rope, left ear red, right ear red, face red ... i can turn on any or all of them at once.

and one can never have too many extension cords.

Light O Rama usually does one sale a year, around mid-year, and most of their stuff is around 15-20% off ... still expensive, but i've found it to be pretty well made, and very user friendly.