Knuckledragger

Awww. When I got back from MV, the replacement infrared-converted Canon PowerShot G2 was waiting for me. Yesterday I had to drive to town to my pay my sodding property tax. The center of B'town is quite pretty in early may. Last year at this time I walked around for a couple hours and shot exposures that I converted to HDR. This time I had a go with the new IR camera: Metering with infrared is a trial-and-error process, at best. Also learning a new camera and the relative difference between what its meter says, what its LCD reports, and what the images actually look like on my (calibrated) Mac monitor is always a "learning experience." I had to work over all of these images in Photoshop pretty thoroughly to get decent results, but I'm pretty pleased with the final products.

Sorry to hear that Ken. My own father died when I was 24. As fate would have it, he left me four bottles of Lagavulin 16. I still have one left. I'll crack it open tonight and pour a glass in his honor.

Contrary to what Messers Limbaugh and Schwarzenegger have lead you to believe, it is difficult to avoid looking like an idiot with a cigar hanging out of one's mouth. Shot with my infrared-converted PowerShot G2, under a pair of 90W halogen floods. Straight out of the camera, no edits at all. Headphones are Koss Pro1s, cigar was a Partagas 1845 maduro something-or-other.

Damn, dude. I could use, uh, about half a dozen of those cases.

Hello head-case. Miss me? (Of course not.) I've been busy for the last few weeks on Marthas Vineyard. Did you know that preparing to blow up a house is even more difficult than preparing to rent one? A pity they won't let me do both... While I was there I had a lot of fun taking pictures: Made with three exposures in Photomatix ...twice, and then blended in Photoshop. It took a lot of futzing to get the ghostly look I wanted for the trees, and balancing that with the reflection of the clouds. A 10 second exposure turns the moon into the sun. The Edgartown lighthouse is in the foreground. Twilight over Jernegan pond. Made with three exposure in Photomatix, and cleaned up in Photoshop. I spent the better part of forever converting this shot from color to black & white, and then toning it. Edgartown's South Beach. Made from one raw exposure in Photomatix, and worked over extensively in Photoshop. I foolishly forgot my tripod, so I perched my 30D on a pier piling, turned its drive mode to the fastest setting and fired off three bracketed exposures. Processed in Photomatix and worked over extensively in Photoshop. ~3 1/2 minute exposure. The orange glow is not the dawn, it's light from the mainland. Fun with sun stars: ~45 second exposure of a deserted downtown Edgartown. The path to South Beach. Made from one raw exposure.

Lots and lots of Mythbusters on DVD.

Ergon is the name of the model you bought? $150 shipped is a fraction of the cost of the models I was considering. I am an, uh, beefy fella (5'9, ~215lbs). I also have stubby legs. Most chairs do not agree with me, unless they're quite adjustable. I've sat in my friends dot-com era Aeron, and it was very good. Not $800 good, though.

I charge the center subject with one count of shirtlessness and one count of aggravated mugging for the mugshot. What you did there. I see it. NWA, Panic Zone era, 1987: Ice Cube, Easy E, Dr. Dre, The Arabian Prince.

*ahem* THE FUCKERS. OH THE FUCKING FUCKERS. I am, uh, extremely ADD. In the last 34 years, I've developed a not insubstantial set of ADD survival skills. I file my taxes months in advance. Today, April 15th, I received a call at 4:20PM (heh) from my tax accountant's secretary, who condescendingly informed me that she was giving me "one last chance" to get my signed forms back to her. I said "What!?!" I looked at the packet I got back from them last week and noted that there were in fact two forms that had small marks in black pen where I needed to sign. There was no letter explaining I had to send these back, nor any marks with a highlighter or those cute arrow stickers my insurance company uses on forms. Also, there was no communication from said accountant previous to this afternoon. Yes, I looked at the paperwork when I opened the packet last week, and I probably should have noticed the marks, but honestly paperwork like this makes me go blank unless there's something screamingly obvious on it. Furthermore, I did sign two articles when I was at the accountant's office last month. I had some additional issues this year (mumble "numbers not final" mumble) that necessitated additional signatures, apparently. So this afternoon, at 4:30, I had to frantically find a place with a fax machine. The postage shop I've favored for years went out of business last summer, and my DVD rental store owning friend no longer has a fax machine. Fortunately, a new postage store has moved in to the old place's location. They're called "Goin' Postal" appropriately enough. Luckily for me, the store was dead and it took less than 10 minutes to fax the documents, get a transmission confirmation and receipt. Disaster averted. When I get back from Martha's Vineyard next month I am finding a new fucking tax accountant.

500 pages of conspicuous consumption. Congratulations, head-case! I'm afraid I've not been doing my part to boost the economy recently. I'm in the market for an ergonomic computer chair, however.

In the front / in the back / killer bees on attack!

...and by "missed" I mean "read."