November 28, 2007

I. Am. Tired. Of. Reading!

Yes, I know - I'm conflicting myself by writing a post...but after reading the same six pages about a hundred times today to copyedit, I'm tired of reading!

Short (boring?) storytime.

I was thinking about my family because of the upcoming Christmas and also, one of my cousins is getting married at end of the month. She's a good kid (at least, she was when she was younger), but we've never been close. Anyway, thinking about her got me to thinking about my other cousins. One of them, an older cousin, had twins when I was about nine or so, which was a remarkable event at the time. We never had twins in our family, as far as we know, and that was absolutely fascinating to me at nine(?) years old.

For some reason, I got it into my head that twins' names had to rhyme. And I wanted twins badly because it was so, you know, awesome! So I proudly told my family that when I grew up, I would have twins and they would be named....





Wait for it.








Harry and Larry.




My family still tease me about this. Nevermind that I don't want kids now.

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November 27, 2007

Storytime

I always start reminiscing around Christmas. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But I can't remember any funny stories from when my sibs and I were younger right now. I need my siblings' help with that.

I do have a few college stories that I love to tell. A good chunk of my friends have heard these, probably because KR was there for some of them and she always prods me into telling the stories.

One of our favorites: The Jehovah Witness Story.

My sophomore year, I decided to stay up at my college and take a couple classes to try catch up with my major -- I had changed majors in middle of my freshman year, and wanted to graduate with my class. I decided to stay with a few five girls that I knew through my sorority, one of whom I had known for a long time. They had a two bedroom townhouse which was, frankly, a dump. Three girls (KR and two others) shared the bedrooms, while the remaining two - including myself - slept in the living room on the couches. As you can imagine, that was awkward at times. But I counted myself lucky...the townhouse had no air conditioning and the upstairs was always boiling hot.

Throughout the summer, we heard about a group of Jehovah Witnesses who knew sign and were wandering around the apartment complex, looking for people. They never knocked on our door until one Saturday morning in August.

It was pretty hot that day, and I was trying to sleep in. KR was hanging out on the other couch, watching TV. I remember she woke me, and said/signed, "Jenny! The Jehovah Witnesses want to talk to you!"

Still half asleep, "What?"

"They came an hour ago, and I told them you were sleeping and to come back later."

"Huh? Why didn't you just tell them to go away?"

I'm a little fuzzy on our conversation but I think she said she was nervous and didn't want to upset them.

"Uh, okay..."

Sure enough, about 10 or 15 minutes later, they started knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell. We sat there in the dark, hoping they'd take the hint and go away...But the walls were thin and they probably heard our giggles.

Finally, after about 10 minutes - yes, ten, we watched the clock, I had enough. I got up, went into the bathroom with my blanket, took my top off and wrapped the blanket around me to make it look like I was naked. Teehee. Remember, I had just woken up and my hair was a mess.

I marched to the door, swung it open and glared at the three women standing outside. "What!?"

Their eyes practically popped out and they all gaped at me.

"We wanted to talk to you about..." one of them managed to say in sign.

I interrupted and snapped, both in sign and verbally, "I'm busy!"

One of them retorted, "I can see that."

"Well, don't come back!" And I slammed the door. KR was laughing hysterically.

And that was the last time we ever saw these women. Very effective!

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November 20, 2007

Weird Stuff on Ebay

Someone passed this ebay link on to me.
3 Vintage Raccoon penis bones Texas Toothpicks cabin

What is it, you might wonder. Well, dear reader, it's a raccoon penis-bone toothpick. Yes. A toothpick made of a poor raccoon's penis bone. And apparently, some animals' penises (or is it penii?) do indeed containe bone.

Ebay link: Click here.


This gives new meaning to having a boner.

Now I wonder what other odd items are out there on ebay.

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November 19, 2007

Goals: 3. Me: 0

I wrote a couple weeks ago that I was going to do three things: Write, make a cover for my chair and make a mini-studio.

So far, I'm 0 for 3. But! I have a good reason. Well, for #2, anyhow. When I got the fabric out (which I purchased a long time ago), I realized that I probably should practice first since I don't have much fabric to spare.

So, I opted to make this instead...

What's this? Badly-matched checkerboard?

A really big, colorful mat for Apollo?

No...I have deemed this will be a "manly" bed for Apollo.
Apollo is barking his approval here...(or is it distaste?)

And I will use leftovers to make...something! I bought too much fabric.

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November 13, 2007

The Attack!

This is a brain.
Vacuous, half-empty, drained of its lifeblood
by years of mind-numbing school and work.
Soft, gelid, empty...very little in way of solid thought remains.




WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES FOLLOWS!

This is not for the weak-stomached.

You have been warned.





This is...*gasp* The horror! A Zombie-Dog! "Braiinnnzzz"

With amazing ferociousness and speed,
the zombie-dog, more beast than canine,
pounces on the unwitting victim.


The feast begins!
SLURRRRRRRP!

BRAINNNZZZ!Witness the horror! Half-eaten brain!

MORE!
Mmmmm. Delicious!
All that remains is a shattered shell.
RIP

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November 12, 2007

'Round the World

I use a free program to figure out how many readers I have for this blog (I average about 8 daily readers), and about 25% of that are new visitors. One other feature the program has is it lets me know where the readers' IP originates from. It isn't very specific -- I can't see your actual IP address so don't worry, but it does tell me the country, state and town. What it doesn't do, however, is tell me how often a particular IP hits this blog.

It's fascinating for me. Especially when I see foreign countries on the map. I always wonder if they like the blog, how they found it. Will they read it again (I also wonder that for U.S. readers)? Can they read it (especially in non-English countries)?
Here's a list of non-U.S. countries for the past 30 days:

  • Brazil
  • Turkey
  • Latvia
  • Ireland
  • Spain
  • France
  • Germany
  • Canada

As for U.S. I haven't gotten readers from all 50 states. Yet. Soon!

And please remember to comment, even if it's to say "God, that was a boring post. You just wasted 30 seconds of my life." I don't mind that. Really. I'm still figuring out what I want this blog to be about.

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November 11, 2007

Pooped

I can't remember when I last had a weekend with nothing to do. It's been GO GO GO GO for the past few weeks. I did manage to snatch a few minutes to snuggle with Apollo this morning though.

Tomorrow is the Veteran's Day, so in honor of that, I went to Arlington Cemetery again and to the war memorials at the mall. Most of the pictures are on Flickr, I like most of them, although they need to be cleaned up a bit. Here are a few.

Men in uniform, yum.
Not so yum.

Domino, anyone?
Bloody leaves. Somehow poignant.

Somber view.

To see more photos, click on Apollo's picture to the right, and it should be on main page. If not, it'll be in the "Other" set, tagged Veteran's Day.

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November 8, 2007

Eye-Crossing

Now and then, I'll read up on photography techniques and equipment in my spare time. But I'm finding that the more I read, the more confused I get. I really need a nice, organized site that clearly explains them. Most sites I find are either overly simplistic and too general, along the lines of Photography for Dummies, or overly complicated. To the point where I'm overwhelmed by information or just plain don't understand it.

I need something in between. Any suggestions, fellow photographers?

I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to do much in ways of writing, photography...or anything else. Well. That's partly true. The daylight savings time change is doing a number on me, and by the time I get home, it's dark. And I feel like it's time for bed. It's very frustrating because I'm the sort of person who likes to be active. I don't want my life to be about work and sleep. These days, that's what it feels like. I spend about 9-10 hours at work - 11-12, counting the commute time), and sleep 8-9 hours. That leaves me with a paltry 3-5 hours to do anything (if you count the hour I spend in the morning in a sleep stupor walking Apollo before work).

"You can sleep when you're dead." I really wish I could follow this adage...I'd love to be able to get by on 4 or 5 hours of sleep and still be functional the next day. But I'm simply not built like that. I like my sleep too much. And my dreams can be so interesting. More than reality sometimes (dragons, anyone?).

Anyway. I got a little off track with my train of thought. I'm famous for starting projects that I don't finish. Let's see if I can finish a couple this month.

  1. Set up a mini-studio and play with creating artsy-fartsy shots of "stuff". Then I'll actually have photos to post during the week.
  2. Re-cover my armchair (I actually started this week, but got stuck)
  3. Write! Look for freelance gigs, etc.

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November 7, 2007

Headaches

First, little update - I loaded a few pictures from Shenandoah to Flickr (click on the picture of Apollo in the sidebar). If they're not on the main page, look for them in the "Other Pictures" set - they'll be tagged Shenandoah Park. These are completely unaltered pictures. Enjoy.

I've had a headache for the past couple days. It sucks. Fortunately, it isn't constant, it comes and goes. So I'm able to do my work without too much problem.

For some reason, I keep thinking about the old 80s commercials where they'd show people grimacing in shadows while a hammer pounded away at their heads. Or thick ropes twisted their brains into knots. Or a vise squeezed their skulls.

I don't know about the rest of the population, but my headaches don't feel like that. At least, I don't think they do...I've never had someone hit my head with a hammer, try to crush my skull with a vise or turn my brain into a tangled mess. I suspect that'd feel wholly different. Although my nose did get beaned by a softball (thanks, Sarah!) once. I remember that my parents rushed me home instead of the hospital, where they consulted my brother and sister to see if I had a broken nose. The siblings were in highschool at the time.

Different times.

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November 3, 2007

I Truen!

It's after midnight...but in about 20 minutes (as of this post), it'll be midnight again.

I'm pretty exhausted. I finally made it out to Shenandoah park today. I almost talked myself out of going, which is pretty easy when I have no one else coming along. It's harder for me to say, "I don't feel like it" to someone else. So, this morning, I overslept. Then made an excuse after an excuse. "I'm too tired." "It looks like rain." Blah blah. Lameness.

When the clouds cleared up, and blue skies broke through, I knew I had no excuses. And that if I didn't go, I'd regret it. It was a bit late in the day though (around noon), so I didn't get to hike much.

For those of you who don't know Shenandoah park, it's quite possibly one of the largest parks in this area. I drove about...Oh, I think, a little over three hours, and only just made it to the midpoint. Basically, it's this mountain ridge that stretches for about 50 miles, and is about, what, 10-15 miles wide (although other parks butt Shen's borders). There are about two dozen different trails and about a hundred different-yet-same scenic vistas parking lots.

Since I got a late start, most of my photos are of those "scenic vistas", but as I'm finding, as I browse through the pictures, they're not very interesting. And for some reason, they always seem blueish. I'm not sure why...I remember seeing same with my point and shoot digital camera when I went out there last year. Smog, humidity, pollution?

I'll load more onto flickr later, right now I'm too pooped to look at them closely. In the meanwhile, here are a couple teasers that I do like.

Closeup of some leaves.
Not a stellar view, but the bird gives it some perspective, which makes the vastness of this view a little easier to take in. If you can, try clicking on the picture to view a larger version.

Read more...

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