I got a rock.

So, I had this whole big entry in process and left the app running for a few days without saving the thing. Lo and behold eventually the app crashed (yes, it still happens in OS X - you just don’t have to restart the machine). Blogger didn’t do its nifty trick of retaining my half finished entry so that’s one for the wind.

In the meantime more Flickr fun. It’s incredibly easy to take crappy photos (of which I take many) and do something with them, at least bringing them up to the level of viewability with Photoshop. Everytime I do it though I feel like I’m cheating somehow - it’s so easy to pull something out of a photo using Photoshop.. Stuff you would have to labor over in the darkroom when I was in school is nothing now.

You decide if the results are worthwhile or not.

The wanderer.

Work is quieting down, something of a relief. By quieting down I mean I get out at 2 or 3 in the morning instead of 5 or 6. It still doesn’t do wonders for my sleep cycle but, I’ll gladly forego deep sleep for a few weeks in the attempt to square myself with my creditors (or at least make a dent).

So, last night I got out at the reasonable hour of 2am. Now, at 2am you can’t really call anyone you know and say let’s meet up for a drink or an after work tete-a-tete (coffee or a meal). Most of the rest of the world is on a different schedule and they are well off into slumber-land saying hello to Little Nemo. The few hardy souls who are still awake don’t feel much like venturing out in the cold Manhattan night.

What to do, what to do?

Well, drive around the city and take pictures for one thing.

So as I made my meandering way home last night. I took a leisurely drive up the length of Manhattan stopping along the way to snap pics of things as they caught my fancy. It’s a bit of self-indulgence if you will, a little treat at the end of a long week.

I took a bunch of photos too. I was surprised at the discomfort I felt though taking them. See, nowadays there is so much more concern for security and there is much more surveillance of us than we might even realize. As you walk around the city, at times you may not even be aware of the fact you are being watched, whether it be by security cameras (rather unobtrusive) or security guards or police.

It’s all in the name of safety but, I have to wonder if the price isn’t too great. I wonder if in fact we are sacrificing much more than we know. I doubt all these increased security measures will truly prevent anything from happening. There is still crime, there is still violence, these things do not go away but, in the name of safety we allow ourselves to be watched and monitored. We give up a piece of ourselves, we give up our privacy and also we wind up giving up part of our freedom.

In the days following September 11th, many statements were punctuated with the phrase, “...and then, THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON!” So, in order to keep them from winning, the law abiding, the decent, the humane, the free allow themselves to give up their freedoms under the guise of preventive measures. It’s akin to putting people in jail so they will be safe from murder or other crime. It makes little or no sense to me.

We give up the very things which our enemies hold us in contempt for and then we turn around and say they have not cowered us.

Anyway, my circuitous route through the city took me many places last night. Often I would find myself walking along in the very quiet pre-dawn hours the only person around that is except for the unmistakable camera, or guard or policeman. Not doing anything wrong per-se but, certainly feeling the presence of the omnipotent eye of authority looking down upon me keeping track of my movements.

At one point, I found myself in a public park taking a picture of Grant’s Tomb of all things. Grant’s Tomb is just beautiful at night. It’s lit up, glorious in all its splendor. It sits in a corner of Manhattan almost forgotten by many except those in its immediate neighborhood. By this I mean, it is something many deem not worthy of a special trip, it is not something big on the destination list of tourists.

Tucked away at the edge of Morningside Heights, it stands vigilant, a last outpost of gentility before arriving into the poverty of Harlem just on the other side of the bridge or down the hill from where it stands.

Truly magnificent, it looks as if it could be plunked down in Washington DC and not seem at all out of place among all the other structures of national significance but, here it is, lonely and forlorn on the edge of the neighborhood.

At night (and I imagine much of the day too) the building has those ugly metal gates used for crowd control surrounding it. They don’t do much in terms of security and only ugly up what is a rather gorgeous piece of urban architecture in the grounds surrounding the monument. There are two guard booths, small structures, much like those used by parking attendants at outdoor lots scattered throughout the city. Ugly, little squat squares with harsh fluorescent lighting, they seem like punishment booths for the personnel required to man them and are structural pimples on the site.

When I snapped a few pictures (odd in and of itself because of the hour), I walked back out to my car only to find a police cruiser with its lights going. It was a bit unsettling. I wasn’t hassled or anything but, there was this momentary panic. I wasn’t do anything wrong but, welcome to the post 9/11 world.

We really need to fix that.

Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair of Peril?

Looks like Harrison Ford can finally take the fedora out of mothballs.

The Hollywood megastar told a German magazine on Wednesday that after rewrites too numerous to count, he and director Steven Spielberg are finally satisfied with the script for the forever-in-the-works fourth installment of the whip-wielding, tomb-raiding adventurer.

If Harrison Ford were a smarter guy he’d take a cue from Sean Connery, who started out as an action hero but never really lost his cool.

The great chair hunt.

So, I freelance. One of the consequences of being a freelancer means usually getting the worst. The lousiest place to sit in an office (the noisiest, the least private), the crappiest computer, the shi**iest chair. Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to this kind of abuse. It’s not entirely surprising, if something good is in an office, I can hardly see it being set aside for staff that is infrequently there over people who are there day in and day out. I will admit though, it does color one’s view of an office and makes it all the harder to convince me to stay until the bitter end or go above and beyond - two way street and all that.

Anyway, there was an email circulating at one of my clients about someone’s chair which had gone missing. People get possessive about these things (chairs) and with good reason, you spend a lot of time sitting all day and that chair you sit in becomes quite an importrant part of your life. The email in question was trying for the cutesy aspect with the ‘we’ll just turn off all the lights and the party in question will return my chair’ kind of thing. It was more humorous because the chair played a small role in another workplace drama which I started to write about but never got around to finishing the entry on.

In one of life’s ironies, I came across this up on the Monster blog and thought I would pass it along:

Time to stop fooling around — I’ll just steal the chair from the guy who used to sit next to me. He happens to have moved on to a new job today. This one holds its height and is somewhat better padded. But it’s still not right. “When did I become an office-chair possessive?” I think to myself.

Scroll down on the page to see the entry in question.

What the *$&#~!

I was wandering around the internet today, partially because I had grown bored the this show I was watching on (yes, I will admit it) Christina Aguilera. It was an overview of her career and one of the things touched on was a video shot by Dave LaChapelle. I was looking at the videos over at his site, commercials he’s done and the like. Some of them I really like, like this one. Some of them are mediocre, like this one. And then there’s stuff like this which while interesting to watch and has some very interesting selections for the musical track but didn’t make much sense to me. If anyone else can make heads or tails of it, please explain.

Doing my heartfelt best to antagonize the many.

It came to my attention recently, my comments regarding the current administration have been off-putting to some people. The great thing about our country though, is the ability to voice ones’ opinions so I will do my level best to generate even more ire with this post.

I’m a little tired of labels these days. There are a lot of places where the words liberal or conservative are used to divide the population into two distinct camps. If it isn’t liberal or conservative, there’s always the handy Republican or Democrat. Talk about the need for simplification that some people have!

I have always resisted the compulsion to make the world a black and white place, I would think more of the intelligent and forward thinking among us would do the same but that doesn’t seem to be.

Anyway, back to pissing people off...

So, I garnered a certain amount of animosity because of my comments regarding the current administration. The fact is, I have watched this administration squander the goodwill of the American people over the last five years, a display which surpasses the performance of Bush 41. A remarkable feat in and of itself. After the events of 9/11, the government could have pretty much done anything they wanted to do, that’s how much support our government had. The one thing they couldn’t do was fail and it’s the only thing they have managed to accomplish consistently.

Whether it be on the domestic side with the federal response to Katrina or the failed strategy in Iraq there’s very little to point to over the last five years which can be claimed as successes by the current administration. Even the choreographed events such as Bush’s landing on the aircraft carrier and proclaiming victory in Iraq will undoubtedly be looked back upon through the lens of history as one of greatest blunders by a president.

So, even if you support Bush 43, do you think we’ve won?



The reason I bring this up at all is something I saw this week regarding the president’s polling numbers. Bush 43 is tracking downward and perhaps the only solace he can take from his diminishing poll numbers is the fact that Congress fares even worse! But remember, the Republicans have a majority on both houses right now so I have to imagine that it is something of an empty victory.

Stung by criticism, senior officials at the White House and the RNC are reminding GOP members of Congress that Bush’s approval ratings may be low, but theirs is lower and have declined at the same pace as Bush’s. The message to GOP lawmakers is that criticizing the president weakens him — and them — politically.

The current polling results have pollsters comparing Bush 43 to Nixon! Imagine that!

By comparison, Presidents Clinton and Reagan had public approval in the mid 60s at this stage of their second terms in office, while Eisenhower was close to 60 percent, according to Gallup polls. Nixon, who was increasingly tangled up in the Watergate scandal, was in the high 20s in early 1974.

So, as a registered Republican you would think I would be terribly upset but, I’m not.

I’m not upset now – if anything I was more annoyed when I was hearing all the histrionics during the 2004 campaign about the world coming to an end if Bush 43 won reelection. See, I won’t let anyone plant Bush’s failings at my feet. I didn’t vote for the guy - either time. As a matter of fact, I was quite disappointed when he became the Republican standard bearer in 2000. Of all the people, talented, educated, committed people to choose from, I was really upset when Bush 43 became the front runner. I much preferred McCain, Dole or Powell, three choices which somehow didn’t make it.

Looking at Bush now, I have to wonder if his name had been anything other than George Bush if he would have even made it out of the primaries but, that’s the way politics is in our country these days. A Johnson, Nixon, Eisenhower or Truman probably couldn’t get elected in today’s society - they’re just not telegenic enough. We pick our political leaders based around appearance rather than substance and this is particularly true on the national level.

I’m not upset because I think Bush‘s polling numbers prove that deep down, we’re not as stupid as we would appear at first glance and when someone does a bad job, we recognize it. Even if you like the guy (and I have to imagine he’s not a bad guy), he’s just done a bad job. We have a midterm election coming up in a few months and the onus will be to take the administration to task for its missteps.

I’m actually looking forward to it. It proves that things do work.

Let’s change the name!

If you’re out of the New York area you may not have heard about this story.

Families of people who perished in the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center petitioned the court Friday to stop construction next week of a ground zero memorial that they say fails to do justice to the memory of the victims...

The petition says that unless the current plans are blocked, “the ability to visit and contemplate the authentic site where their family members’ last remains reside will be forever lost.”

Yes, something will be built on the land. It will not remain a gaping hole in the center of downtown forever so the authenticity of the site is without question going to be lost. Maybe instead of Reflecting Absence we can rename the memorial Inciting Stupidity as it becomes clearer and clearer that there will be absolutely no way to make everyone happy whatever happens to the site.

Think about it, they’re suing to stop a memorial!

Flattery, will out.



So, I’ve been doing the Flickr thing quite a bit. I put everything I shoot up on the site regardless of whether or not it’s the perfect picture. Consequently, there are as many failures displayed as successes. I think it’s the way it should be. The flickr thing (the photography) is an experiment for me more than anything else, an experiment and an outlet.

I enjoy recording the things I see in the world around me during the course of the day. The world is such a beautiful place and I feel we are often exposed to that beauty if only we take the time out to look for it.

I live very close to one of the planet’s most notable and large cities. Often, I take that city for granted having grown to know it so intimately through the years. Still, even though I may take the city for granted, the love affair has been simmering for a long time and a deep seated passion exists within me for New York.

New York is a funny place because New York is much like a person. Each of us are many different people, depending who we are interacting with at the moment. New York is similar in this way, it is many things depending upon the viewer. While beauty in the landmarks and the incredible architecture is apparent, the ugliness of poverty and street life inherent in big cities is also in abundance.

So, the other day I had a picture picked as a favorite by someone. Shortly afterward a few more pictures were picked as faves by someone else and I would be lying (sp?) if I were to say I wasn’t incredibly flattered and didn’t get a bit of a boost from the selection. Yes, I am as susceptible to praise as the rest of the world, I guess.

Friday cat blogging:

Since I’m up at a reasonable hour...

I love stuff like this:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

I love my cat but...

... I know she is taking things for granted when I come home early from work only to find her sitting up in my favorite chair smoking a cigar, watching TV and drinking some whiskey. I mean, really! I had no idea the trouble she was up to at home when I wasn’t around. She tried to play it off like nothing happened. You know how cats do that, when they fall they try to walk away gracefully like nothing happened only to turn the corner out of sight and begin kitty swearing.

Well, she tried the same thing except it was really hard to get rid of the telltale smell of the cigar smoke.

Who knew!

Photo fun.



More new photos up on the Flickr site. I still haven’t mastered the art of taking pictures of people candidly. There is something about taking the unrehearsed, candid photo that seems like such an intrusion into a person’s life. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with it. I do it from time to time but, truthfully when I do I want to remain somewhat innocuous in the process. Consequently, most of the photos I’ve been taking have been devoid of people. Mostly, I do shots of what I see during the course of my travels.

Last night, there was this really interesting picture I wanted to take. They’re demolishing a power station over on the east side by the UN and the building is all lit up at night so workers can see what is happening with the building. The interior of the building is exposed and the light gave it this eerie glow.

Only problem is to get the shot I have to stop on an exit ramp on the highway within a stone’s throw of the UN an I’m reluctant to have an encounter with the PD in these times of heightened security.

He looked like a fireplug...

A proven team leader with an ever-present smile and infectious exuberance who led the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. Over 12 seasons hit for power and average, batting .318 with 414 doubles, 207 home runs. Also a prolific run producer, scored 1,071 runs and drove in 1,085 in 1,783 games. A six-time Gold Glove winner who patrolled center field with elegance and style, routinely scaling outfield walls to take away home runs. The 10-time All-Stars career ended abruptly due to irreversible retina damage in his right eye.

There are few ballplayers I really, really enjoy watching play the game. Kirby Puckett was one of those players.

At 5-foot-8, Puckett was a risky pick when the Twins selected him third overall out of Triton (Ill.) College. After two years in the minor leagues, he made it to the majors in 1984 and was an immediate defensive presence. In Puckett’s third season, his bat caught up with his glove, and he hammered 31 home runs to go along with a .328 batting average.

It was tough not to like Puckett. He looked like a tree stump, short and thick, and playing so uninhibited, it seemed as though he had little regard for his body, something that would truly manifest itself once he retired.

Now for some real news...

For everyone for whom this is important, may I have the envelope please...

The Oscars winners list.

Yes, tomorrow the front pages of many papers across the nation will be running front page story on who took home the Oscar. Me, who cares! Ranks right up there with the Emmy’s, the Tony’s, the Grammy’s, People’s Choice, Country Music Awards, MTV Awards and any other stupid compilation of clips assembled together to fete the rich and the famous. I don’t care about the red carpet, I don’t care about the stupid awards (quick, who won the emmy for best tv series in 1995?), it’s just non news. Overblown and just unimportant, why has society become obsessed with this kind of crap?

The 2008 Republican Convention.

Rather than deal with the messiness of primaries and the like, the Republican party today announced the convention in 2008 would commence with a hunting expedition led by VP Dick Cheney. Party leaders thought this was a more expedient way of choosing the next Republican candidate.

(IT’S A JOKE, PEOPLE!)

Oh, get a fuc**ng life already!

About 50,000 people, many chanting “Hang those who insulted the prophet,” rallied Sunday in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. The protesters burned the Danish flag, hit an effigy of President Bush with a stick and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Musharraf.” Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf welcomed Bush to Pakistan on Saturday.

Cartoons, they’re demonstrating over fuc**ng cartoons!

Too bad they couldn’t get behind ending hunger, illness, or poverty the way they can get behind these demonstrations. What an absolute fuc**-ng waste of time and energy.



50,000 people!

Think about all the time and energy and effort spent in organizing and getting all these people to show up just to burn flags and yell and scream. You think if you could get 50,000 people together like that you’d do it to make the world a better place and to ease some suffering on the planet. What morons, find something better to do with your time.



Thing is, them burning the flag and everything, like who gives a flying f**k. Waste your money, buy more flags, make us rich! Idiots, come up with something new. I am morally outraged they have burned our flag! (NOT!) Like that hasn’t been done in the Muslim world before. Oh, the humanity! The best part is when one of these dopes gets over zealous and sets themselves on fire too.

Oh no, Mister Bill!

Wow, Sunday night already! Where did the weekend go?!

Well, to start your week off right (if you’re reading this on a Monday morning) here’s a little something called What if the Fantastic Four got real jobs?

Fractured fairy tales.

Another take on Red Riding Hood, enter the world of Black XXX-Mas if you dare. (borderline NSFW - play it wearing headphones)

A musical interlude.

I came across this in my wanderings. I found I iliked it quite a bit:

Cherry Blossom Girl by Air.

or if you prefer you can watch the interesting video of the song here.

WARNING!

Click on the following link only when you find yourself incredibly frustrated at your job. It will bring you immediate relief and provide much humor and joy. So far, anyone I have shown this link to has not been able to contain their laughter. I bring you the interactive world of the Whack Your Boss game. Move your mouse over the various items in the office and click on them when they change color. This is the virtual answer to “Going Postal.”