One more dune in the endless desert of life.
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Neovenator's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, July 18th, 2008 | | 8:57 pm |
Have you ever bought a magazine subscription from a door-to-door salesperson? I just finished reading this compelling article about the traveling magazine sales industry. I am now ashamed to admit I fell for a "dirty canvassing" sales pitch and bought a couple subscriptions from a guy claiming to be competing for scholarship money.
Spread the word: buying subscriptions from those people only supports a dark, sleazy and corrupt industry.
| | Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | | 9:23 pm |
Last night I spent an hour and a half teaching my neighbors about photography. It was fun! I had walked out with my 300mm to see if I could shoot those damned white egrets that hang out in the creek, but they flew away as soon as they sensed my intent to allow light that had reflected off them to enter my ocular sensor orbs. Those buggers are timid! Anyway, a neighbor from a few doors down came out and mentioned he had just been talking about photography with someone. We ended up talking about what I was doing with my camera, and the camera he'd just bought. He expressed frustration at not knowing what most of the features were, and, long story short, I ended up teaching him and his wife about photography. Just the basics, really, but it was a lot of fun. That's the second time in the past couple months that I've done this. I ought to do it more often. And charge for it.
Unrelatedly, this trailer for Watchmen is quite intriguing. I doubt they can live up to the original graphic novel, but on its own it should be a good film.
I would like to note that it really fucking pisses me off when my bosses are talking right-wing politics with a customer and bashing the left with Fox News-spewn lies and mistruths, all less than ten feet away from me. I would really like to say some things, but my opposite viewpoints often meet with... well, exactly what you'd expect. There is no discussion, only conservativism.
| | Friday, July 11th, 2008 | | 9:13 pm |
Money money money money. MO-NEY! Lovely. One of the very important case fans for my computer burned out last night. I went to Fry's to find a new one, bought one that seemed fine, and took it home. Plug didn't fit. Took it back. Turned out none of the fans they have there will work with my computer. Damn you, Dell! Your proprietary plugs make life suck.
Bought a used fan on eBay, since there's no way I'm paying Dell's price for something like this. Thankfully, I recently set up a 4" air duct to bring some cold A/C air over to the desk area, so that should help a lot.
While I was on eBay, I found a shop manual for my car and bought that. Was pretty cheap, actually. Should get here in a couple weeks, since the seller pretty much insisted on Media Mail shipping. I look forward to its arrival, as there are a lot of things I'd like to fix in my car. It's not looking like I'll be finding a replacement for it anytime soon, so might as well put some work into keeping it running.
Trying to figure out how I'll be able to afford the expensive mouthguard. Maybe I can pay for it with those low-interest-rate checks my credit card companies send to me every friggin' day. I've already got a big chunk of debt on one card, after putting insurance payments, dentist bill, and new shoes on it (along with the usual crap). The shoes were sorely needed, but damn, what bad timing.
| | Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | | 8:38 pm |
Still working on 2004. Wasn't expecting it to be this tough. There's a lot of crap to go through.
On Tuesday afternoon, this fellow decided the top of a garbage can was a good place to beat the 109 F heat:
( It sure ain't Zorak. )
Biggest mantis I've seen in the wild, and also the most pale. I'm sure you'd all hate me if I made a "womantis" joke, so I will hold back this one time.
On a semi-related topic, I think I need to replace my 50mm. Too bad that costs money!
| | Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | | 11:22 pm |
Went to the dentist monday. Jaw's been sore lately, and I figured I'd been clenching or grinding my teeth at night. Dentist agreed, said a mouthguard would be the solution. The one he would make me would cost $560. D'oh! Guess I'll be getting one of those boil-to-fit sports mouthguards instead. | | Friday, July 4th, 2008 | | 11:42 pm |
I hope my fellow 'mericans had a nice 4th of July. I had a good one! Here's a couple pics: 
"Your soul is mine! Tee hee!"
| | Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | | 9:58 pm |
Working on gathering my 2004 pics. Lots of crap that year. Some good ones from my California Tour roadtrip, thankfully. While you're waiting, here's a video I discovered last week that I really enjoy. The song is very good, and the video is strangely intriguing. Makes me want to buy a pair of stilts.
| | Sunday, June 29th, 2008 | | 9:58 pm |
I went to SF Pride today. The feeling of joy in the air was palpable. So many recently married couples! So much happy! Hooray for equality!
Unrelatedly, congratulations to Heather, who got married to Brian yesterday in Seattle. Wish I could have been there! Congrats to Tristanne as well, who got hitched last weekend.
| | Saturday, June 28th, 2008 | | 1:19 am |
| | Friday, June 27th, 2008 | | 12:00 am |
I can't sleep.
My eyes are burning. The smoke from a thousand wildfires hangs in the air, desaturating the world. Trees across the street look like trees across a wide canyon, faded and grey. All I can smell is the tenuous odor of distant burning. I wear a mask, but I can feel a thin layer of ash building in my lungs, making energy and enthusiasm hard to come by. These flames need quenching so I can relight my own. | | Thursday, June 26th, 2008 | | 6:08 pm |
The beginning and the end.
The first photo I took with my *istD. I call it "Death of a PacMan."
Closing time at Reed's.
My parents' new house, under construction.
Thus ends 2003, with a light drizzle. Working on gathering my 2004 pics now. Will probably start posting those in the next few days.
| | Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | | 6:05 pm |
Today I punched 800 .25" holes into 200 18"x24" sheets of .040 aluminum. Ah, the life of a graphic designer.
Today is Flower Day, plus some other stuff. We start with flowers.
I can't decide which version is better, this one...
...or this one. I like them both.
2003 was the start of my interest in shooting flowers. It would later become an epidemic, as many of you no doubt remember.
Too much eggnog?
It's just a couch at my parents' (then-temporary) house, but the warm tones really make this image feel like home to me.
Is that not the awesomest blue you've seen today?
Tomorrow's the end of the 2003 photos.
| | Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | | 9:29 pm |
| | Monday, June 23rd, 2008 | | 5:50 pm |
Hey, how you doin'?
You've seen this one before. Gonna try to get through the re-posts quickly.
I miss this place.
Been meaning to try this sort of shot again. Mt. Diablo is hard to shoot effectively.
I need to get myself to a Giants game sometime this season, regardless of how much they suck.
Perhaps I'm not being objective enough when I post photos like this. I don't know.
This one too. Amateurish.
This is one I used to think was good, then I cropped it and it got better. It's no masterpiece, but it appeals to me.
( Cut for extra-wide original San Francisco Panorama pic )
| | Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 | | 11:12 pm |
George Carlin has died of heart failure.
This has made me very sad. He's been something of a hero of mine for a long time. He will be sorely missed.
| | Friday, June 20th, 2008 | | 8:07 pm |
The portrait theme continues.
This is George. George is not usually this creepy.
Black Lego race car driver/astronaut, shot in super-high contrast mode with the old Olympus.
A handful of self-portraits to round things out.
I, like George, am not usually this creepy.
I like this one because it looks like a pencil illustration. Plus, look at all that hair. Ah, the good old days.
This is an example of "How To Take a Horrible Self-Portrait for a Social Networking Website." I'm posting it because I like my expression. And the shirt.
| | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 9:04 pm |
Been watching a lot of movies the last couple months. Got a free month of NetFlix and decided to keep it going for a while. Watched too many violent movies (Goodfellas was the worst offender, with such stark, cold killing), so I decided I needed something lighter. Watched Amelie on Tuesday night and fell in love. Such a great movie! I can't recommend it highly enough.
The most colorful bum I've ever met.
This young lady is getting married soon.
I'm still sad that I can't make it to the wedding. It was going to be a great vacation.
Heather makes some of the greatest facial expressions! It's no wonder she's an accomplished actor.
Melissa makes a great example of the effectiveness of shallow depth of field in portrait photography.
This shot of Tristanne, along with a bunch of other shots from 2003, were posted some months ago when I began this gallery. Hope you don't mind my posting them again as I fill in the years.
This shot of Daniel, a dude I used to play Ultimate Frisbee with, has always intrigued me. It has an element of mystery to it.
| | Monday, June 16th, 2008 | | 10:06 pm |
Had a busy weekend. My li'l brother CJ is now Dr. CJ, having graduated from John F. Kennedy University with a PsyD. Congrats, bro!
Don't have the energy for a proper post tonight. Here's a couple snaps I caught of baby AJ friday night before CJ's "Sash Bash."
Dude's six weeks old, but sometimes he looks a lot older than that.
Also, I'm jealous of his hair.
| | Thursday, June 12th, 2008 | | 9:35 pm |
Well hey, that didn't take nearly as long as I thought. Looks like the majority of post-college film I shot is from 2003, so most of the stuff I had to find dates for was from that year. Simple! Shedding light on that fact helped me decide on a theme for today's photos, too. Bet you can't guess what it is.
This was on my business card for a long time at Reed's.
I tried to make this one a business card too, but it never really worked.
The other lights were yellow. I decided to have some fun with selective color editing here.
Just an exercise in composition.
A ceiling fan/light at a restaurant in Walnut Creek where Reed's held its annual Christmas dinner, three months after the holday.
For a while I hung out with some old high school friends and their group of Ultimate Frisbee and RPG-playing friends. There were usually candles lit when they were playing their RPGs. I tried playing for a while, but just couldn't get into it, so I took photos of the candles and other things instead. The kids thought I was weird for it.
| | Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 | | 9:38 pm |
Crap! I forgot a bunch of pics from 2002, and in realizing this I also remembered there's a bunch of photos for which I still need to find dates! Crap crap crap!
2003 is delayed pending the completion of 2002 and maybe 2001. Dammit.
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