Monthly Archives: February 2010

Feb 28 2010
Uncategorized

Camera Project(s)

I’ve been doing the 365 project on Flickr, although it’s been more of a take photos every day and post the ones I like.  So far, I think that I’ve gotten used to the idea of carrying the camera around everywhere and seeing things differently.  Which is a good thing.  Opportunities are numerous, but I have to leave my apartment in order to see them.  I think I’m about ready to transition over to the 18-55mm to have a few more options while shooting.

I like the way that they days are transitioning.  How the great white swatches of snow have become these grey monstrosities on the sides of roads.  I like to think that in the future, you’ll be able to recreate the entire Washington DC landscape just from the pictures people took during the Blizzard of 2010.

I have also purchased some light stands for my strobes.  I’ll need them eventually for some of the portrait work that I want to start doing.  I’m working more with flash and manual settings.  Trying out different styles of lighting to see what works and what doesn’t.  The camera has glitched once during this period, which resulted in two glitch photos and about three irrecoverable files that just didn’t write correctly.  I’ll have to pick up another card to see if it is really card related, but it seems to have happened on both of the cards that I swap every other day.

Feb 27 2010
Games

More Borderlands

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is out.

It’s the third piece of downloadable content for this game and I really want them to make more.  The game is just fun.  At least it is for me.  I’m trying to figure out what makes it work for me, what magic combination of RPG Leveling lite with First Person Shooter and offbeat humor that has enthralled me for this long.

Full Disclosure:  I’ve bought the game twice, on two different platforms so I could play with two different groups of people.

Feb 26 2010
Uncategorized

It's just water

There is that slender graceful moment.  When the wind dies down and you see it.  For that half second everything becomes clear.  There is a subtle movement of the head, the neck, the upper body positioning moves in slow motion, but without hesitation and you just know that everything is going to work out.

You stop, open your mouth, stick your tongue out, and catch a snowflake.

Feb 25 2010
writing

The bathroom

Let’s pretend that there is a small Japanese restaurant that you have been going to for years.  It’s nice, quiet, and they know your name.  The food is delicious and a fair price and they even make special orders for you.  Now you have been going for years, and there is something that you never noticed until recently.  It’s just that, the leftmost stall in the restroom is always out of order.

Always.

At the engagement party.   The night you celebrated your new job.  The day you had two bottles of sake with your coworkers at lunch then went back to work and no one noticed.  The day everyone was snowed in and they were the only restaurant open.

It’s just that tonight, tonight as you are washing your hands you notice that there is a new sign taped to the stall.  The paper is white, taped up with cello tape.  The letters are large and red, and simply read, “OUT OF ORDER.”

But this time you really look at the door.  The metal lock has been mangled shut and the space between the door and the wall has been taped over with black duct tape.  There are plywood panels that extend from the bottom of the stall to the floor.  There is a similar treatment from the top of the stall to the ceiling.  You think nothing of it until you notice something.

The bolts holding the plywood in place were screwed in from the inside.

Tagged
Feb 24 2010
Uncategorized

Are made of this

Over the last few months I’ve written down some of my dreams that flutter from behind my eyelids.  Here are a few:

  • Matrix “Burly Brawl” style fight where I take on dozens and dozens of balloon people.
  • High school anti drug church function featuring skateboarding and a Silent Hill themed bathroom.
  • Very fast party boat that turned into an inflatable mattress that dropped me off at a swanky lake house.
  • Drawing artwork on a whiteboard.
  • Getting caught stealing from a coke machine, but Dwight from the Office was blamed immediately, even though my arm was stuck in the machine.  Doubly funny because I’ve never watched The Office.
  • Sparring with someone and watching them die of exhaustion.
  • I was buying photography equipment.  Oh, wait.
  • I was so fantastically wealthy I was tipping people with large carat diamonds.
  • Work relocated all of us to a disused prison and our cubicles were in cells.  Still trying to figure that one out.
  • Rescuing someone from a pelican, in between eating chicken tenders, while wearing no pants.
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