Question:

Do you ever find yourself struggling for the energy to do the things you love?

I haven't seriously played music in a week now because of work and that. I think that, if you have heard me complete more than two sentences successfully this week, you should count yourself lucky. As bad as I am at talking normally, it's been really bad thanks to the thinking. It took me two and a half hours to plan tomorrow. Three hours to plan Tuesday.

I think I'm going to go force myself to do some music.

Two today, pt. 2

Here's the second. I got out of the car and said "Wow, that's awesome." Then I went back out to take pictures of it. Fisheye style.



Thanks, headlights. Too bad I was shooting without the viewfinder, could have done a better job on the plane of focus.

Two today, pt. 1

I decided today would be a good candidate for a twofer. The first is just fun:



I like that hard hat sign.

A Postulate

Introduction: I have seen exactly two complete episodes of any CSI series: one Vegas, and one Miami. The Miami was over Thanksgiving 2006, and the Vegas was sometime in 2005 (I think).

Hypothesis: All CSI shows are exactly the same.

Test Methodology: Watch episodes of CSI, draw conclusions about their structure and subject matter by documenting the events and describing them. Tally like events with like events, and compare totals.

Results: Both episodes of the show had three plotlines. First, goofy offbeat plotline, documenting investigation of something mysterious, something without real reason. This is, it turns out, not a crime. Example: the Vegas episode featured frozen airline lavatory waste striking some poor sap in the skull. Second, we have the technical wizardry segment. This is the one where they use everything in the lab, and everything in every yet-to-be-invented computer database ever. Oh ho ho, but it's not that simple: it also involves someone overlooking some obscenely evident piece of information that means whoever their initial suspect was actually did commit the crime. Something about a woman stabbing her boyfriend in the neck with a screwdriver or something sticks in my mind. Third and finally, there's the culturally relevant investigation, where they don't do anything particularly advanced, but they do fight world hunger and communism and terrorists hiding in a cave. Example: a gator ate a white girl in the everglades, so whatever the guy's name is on Miami had to tell the reporter to talk about the deaths of dozens of other missing persons who had gone unfound and undiscussed due to whiteness issues. Seems fair, missing children are a serious business, after all.

Theory: Every CSI is therefore the same. Three storylines, three events, two crimes, one really shiny investigation, and one feel-good Bruckheimer family moment.

Appendix: I can't believe you actually read all of that.

Update on stylesheet progress

Quick, eh? Well, the problem is that I've just discovered that the labels tags along the bottom there aren't properly supported using my "classic" layout template. That means I need to upgrade something, which means I have to start over on my stylesheet in order to be able to access the new blogger tags and hopefully rid myself of the idiot nested P errors that show up if you were to click validate right now.

Oh well.

Updated update: so yeah, blogger won't let me switch to a new template because their drag and drop rearrangement of elements in the layout editor is apparently somehow incompatible with FTP/SFTP publishing.

What does this mean for you?

Well, I'd like to keep the content vortex here. I'd like to be able to maintain the same level of service I've always had going as far as you're concerned, and I'd also like to fix that nested <p> error. I can't, however, edit the insertion of the labels thing. That means getting rid of the labels, or finding a new service provider. Time to start researching, I guess.

css changes coming

While I admit I should have started this project earlier in the day, I've decided to hack on the layout a little bit. Thanks to the MacFUSE project, though, I've dumped all of the HTML to my home computer, so you won't notice until I'm done. Or until I give up... although I'm already certain I'm going to commit one change I've made.

water damage

The not working sign was on it before the rain hit it. It's just a delightful stroke of luck that the massive flood damage visible in this gallery happened to primarily affect the broken equipment we had, for some reason, been hanging onto in the graveyard.

Still, it's funny.

lack of imagination

So yeah, here's another mockingbird. This one lives near the Transportation Services office; I see it every day I ride the bus. I'm sorry I don't have any imagination when it comes to subject matter.



With the 135 again, this time wide open.

on bad songs...

... and how they get stuck in your head:

You know that song? From the '70s? "I feel love," it's called. Donna Summer?

Yeah, its chorus has somehow become stuck in my head.

Snow

I had to show you snow. It's mostly gone from the trees now. Too bad I didn't have a better lens for it on the camera.

addendum: I used my 135mm f3.5 for that. I'm surprised how nice it turned out, although I could have sworn I took it down from ISO 800. Maybe it was on 3200 fo... yeah, yeah it was, cause that's what it took to get the bass picture. Oh well.

Waiting

Ordinarily, I do what I can to avoid waiting. Life is easier when things just happen.

That said, today was fun. I think I'm still feeling the effects of a bit of the frozen skin, but feelings of sunburn and warmth aside, spending five hours in mostly sub 20 degree temperatures was a good way to go through my morning.

Wii sports is fun, that's for sure.

Best I can do

I've probably put one of those up at some point, but hey - I was looking for something to shoot and that was it. Soon I get to go to sleep so I can go do something stupid tomorrow morning. Huzzah!

Hey, get off my wall

In spite of Jason's claim that this mockingbird is inviting people to "come sit next to [it], theres plenty of room ^_^", it was chasing away everything that came near it except for me. That was when it flew off to a holly tree.

a thought

I know it's way too cold and windy outside, but I miss the rabbits.

thing

If anyone tried to comment between whenever they changed the authentication scheme for wam and now, it should be republishing eventually. Sorry.

Rubber Ducky

I'm putting my fisheye lens to good use!

And the third purpose-driven of the week

It's not a Japanese figurine, but it is a Chinese ornament.

My stuff came

From my new DA 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED (IF) fisheye zoom. Funny how I complain at length about not having long enough glass, then turn around and get something so obscenely short... well, I plan on having fun with it, plus it was cheaper than the DA 12-24mm F4.0 lens. Not that it matters - this represents my Christmas gifts from a great many people.

I got it today and everyone said "GO TAKE A PICTURE OF SOMETHING" and I had to tell them "oh, I have one in mind - big nose Testudo."

I'm going to start naming the birds

So this bird I've seen two days in a row. It's claimed a tree outside the microbiology building and likes to sit there, all puffed up, watching the world go by. There's also a bush between Jimenez and H.J. Patterson that has, three times in the last week, had a softball sized mass of angry feathers sitting in and amongst the branches on top. Today there was a second one as well.

I won't actually name them, because that would be insane.

I want my stuff

While I'm waiting for my loan company to actually take the money I authorized them to take on Sunday, I thought I'd take a moment to inform you that I ordered a new lens yesterday.

I hope it gets here tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and tomorrow is my first practice for family music activity.

Oh yeah, and I get next Monday off.

Everything's coming up Milhouse!

The weather outside is frightful

Amongst a field of empty berry stems...

aside: I'm uploading the three-a-weeks at a slightly larger 1000x665 because they're the only picture going up. I figure it's worthwhile, plus it makes clicking on them more fun for you!

Rim

I bet that fountain has been pretty expensive over all the years it's been there... blinged out rim, right?

Bus bolt

The bus was late this morning, so I took a picture of it this afternoon. Seems fair, right?

Resolved:

Among other things, I've decided I'm going to try to take and post at least three pictures each week. Why three? Well, I'd say a picture a day, but there are definitely days I don't want to have my camera out, and there are days (like yesterday) when I'm busy doing other things more important than worrying about a picture. So - I figure three is a good compromise between my current "ehhhhhhhhhhhh okay now I'll take forty pictures" and "OH NO I DIDN'T PUSH A CAMERA BUTTON TODAY ::cry::"

We'll see how long this lasts...

wtf

It's not every day I'm a "blogger" in the traditional sense, but seriously:

What is this?