LaserBlog.com

I’m so excited. The Festival Of India is this weekend. I love going. I love Indian food, I love Indian music, and it’s a wonderful photo-op w/ all the colors and outfits and performances, and (as far as I’m concerned) it’s one of the few times that I can take photos of people without feeling funny about it (the people there at this event expect to have many people taking their pictures). I normally don’t feel comfortable taking pictures of strangers. Here is one pic I took at last year’s event w/ an old (and wonderful) Canon AE-1 Program slr film camera… I’m really looking forward to it.

Here are some recent pix I took w/ my Canon D60 this month… .:PHOTOS:.

I’ve decided that the Pencam isn’t all that stealth in a quiet place. It beeps whenever you turn it on or take a picture… so people turn to look. I was at the deli today and thought I’d take a snapshot of the demon wallpaper they have… …so I was around the corner in the hallway where the bathroom is, and I turned it on (BEEP!), took a shot (BEEP!), took another shot [for bracketing focus] (BEEP!), and in no time, both employees had come around the corner to see what the beeping was. I felt so stupid. “Uh, I like your demon wallpaper….” They were like, “uh… ok…” . Oh well.

I swear, SP is so brilliant. What takes that one ten seconds to type, so impresses me. I was going to register a separate domain name just for my photos, then I could link this blog, my family’s blog, etc. to it, in order to eliminate duplicate photo folders. (I like to keep my blog life and my personal life somewhat separate… partly because I like to use this space to vent my anger when my PIL piss me off so I certainly don’t want them to easily find this site. [just one example] ) But SP managed to create a “symbolic link” on the server so that when you go to the “gallery” folder on my server, it says “laserblog.com/gallery” if you link from here, and “theotherdomainorwhatever.com/gallery” when you link from there. It was only a few keystrokes, but it solved my problem and I didn’t have to buy or set up another domain! I’m so easily impressed.

I took some more shots w/ my Aiptek Mini Pencam today… .:PHOTOS:. .

I’m also taking pictures w/ my Elph and my beloved D60, too, but I’m in the process of consolidating webspace allocated to images, so once that’s done, I’ll post links to those photos later.

I also have some other “TinyCams”.

SP got a WWF (world wrestling whatever) “slam cam” I think it was called. Totally a toy. I don’t know what ever happened to that one. The intention was to use it on kites.

My Sony Clie has a built-in camera. It takes 640 x 480 pictures. This is pretty stealth since most people don’t expect you to be taking pictures of them when it just looks like you are checking the calendar on your palm pilot. Here’s a sample pic taken w/ the clie:

I’m so happy to find such a pencam following.

I joined a Pencam Webring.

Through that webring I found this site: Tiny Cams. I highly recommend this site, and I also recommend you follow the links on this page. He has some really good pencam links (info, galleries, etc.).

I also joined a Yahoo group for pencam entusiasts: Tinycams Yahoo Group

I took some more pix today w/ the pencam, but only yielded 2 really good photos, so I’ll wait ’till I take more before posting them.

I hate this. I am an American. I was born in America. I live in America. But I did not vote for Bush. And I do not support war w/ Iraq. Yet, the world is moving more and more toward hatred toward Americans. Even before all this, my brother and SP have experienced it in some way.

My brother just came back from vacation (Tahiti) and while he was there, there were alot of French there, and they were SO rude to him, specifically him. They’d stare at him and his wife and made them feel very uncomfortable and talk about them and sneer at them.

I talked to SP about this. When living in Canada, they had to sew Canada flag patches on their knapsacks when travelling overseas for fear that they’d be taken for Americans. They once went to France and were treated like sh*t at this restaurant until the owner realized they were Canadian, not American.

What the hell?

I’m sorry if people have reasons to hate americans, but *I* judge people based only on themselves, not their nationality. If you’re nice to me, I like you. If you are rude to me, I hate you. It has nothing to do w/ your religion, skin color, or nationality. I’d expect other people to return the favor. Guess not.

It makes me sick. People want us to not judge them by their nationality or religion, but they’re all hippocrites, they judge us and treat us like shit, even if we agree with their political beliefs and disagree w/ our own president.

I didn’t vote for Bush.

I took some more photos w/ my Pencam (Aiptek Mini Pencam). Most of these were taken today, the first one was taken on Saturday. .:PHOTOS:.

My God, if I hear “what about the children?!” or “think of the children!‘ one more friggin’ TIME I’m going to wring somebody’s neck! As my SP said last night, in response to one of these pathetic pleas: “Yeah, I’M THINKIN about the children, with a side of mashed potatoes and nice side of fries!” AHAHAHAHAHAHAH I want people to STOP using “the children” as a crow bar for their issue-of-the-day.

I saw this disgusting story on NBC Nightly News, and MSNBC’s ever-so-not-helpful website of course has nothing about it, and if it does, it’s burried. It was about some preacher in Jacksonville, Florida (leave it to Florida!) who is preaching hate against muslims. He is wrong, I feel. This is sick. It disgusts me. I want to share the story but it’s already aired and the web-version is nowhere to be found.

Ok, I am going to go to bed now. I could surf all night, but I won’t. It’s 1am, which is early for me lately. I hope to sleep until 9:30am, get 8 hrs sleep (roughly), and get alot done tomorrow. I’m tired of being tired. I slept ten hours last night, and within five hours of waking, ended up taking a NAP! I have no idea what is wrong w/ me. I ate healthy today and did a short workout. What more can I do?

I love this quote:

“Ah, sweet, sweet knowledge, how I love to dine at your all-you-can-eat buffet. ~Wil Wheaton

I feel like that sometimes. Sometimes I just want to stop the clock so that I can sit and read and read and read and read. I rarely read fiction. I love to learn. I love bookstores and libraries. I love to learn about stuff. I’m a dork.

UPDATE on the “movable” “moveable” thing. Thanks to Christine for pointing out that it can be spelled either way, so I’m not such a dork afterall! LOL =:D You can check your spelling at Mirriam-Webster: www.M-W.com.

I physically live in Eastern Standard Time but I’m “living” on California Time. I stay up late and sleep in. I even turn on satellite tv when I get up in the late A.M. and watch “the today show” on California time even though it’s really late here. Luckily I work for myself at home and my clients have no clue. So long as I can meet w/ them when they want and get their websites done, they’re none the wiser. But sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy. Also, SP and I have a terrible habit of napping, so that makes me want to stay up late even more. When I was sick, I tried to fix that by taking a Nyquil every night at 11pm so that I’d be good and tired and go to sleep at a normal time. That didn’t work. Neither did sleeping pills. I wonder if I moved to the west coast if I’d shift my pattern over time to be a California night-owl, or if I’d stay on this schedule and be on a more “normal” schedule in Ca. It’s irrelevant, cuz I’m not moving there. If I move anywhere, I’d like to move to Toronto, and that’s the same time-zone. I’ve been like this for so long, I don’t know how to change it.

I need to get off this couch, put the laptop down, do a workout, and get to work. Ugh.

Oh yeah, I got this via email today: (as usual, click for larger)

Wow, my little pencam (Aiptek Mini PenCam) REALLY can take some nice photos … (click for larger) … It’s kinda trial-and-error, though. (see see my review) You have to guess the focal length and turn the focal-length knob without actually seeing it focus through a lens. So it’s really hit-or-miss. But wow, when it works, it works great! (The Aiptek Mini PenCam is a cheap, tiny digital camera that costs $60 at WalMart.)

I’m such a dork. All this time I have been spelling Movable Type wrong. I’ve been spelling it “movEable type”. Why didn’t I catch on? Because if you type in www.movEabletype.org it takes you to Movable Type’s webpage and the url box sill says movEabletype.org. Yeah, the TITLE bar says movabletype.org, but I never saw that. Oh well.

I’m happy because today I found out that the new Borders bookstore is finally open. One town can never have too many bookstores as far as I’m concerned.

This is really sad: An India-born Toronto woman harassed and sent to Kuwait by US officials. (via BoingBoing)

Went to a Linux Users Group meeting today. These meetings are always very interesting. There was some discussion today about how the name was officially changed to include the words “GNU Linux Users Group” because they are trying to get a 501c3 classification for non-profits (tax thingy). This would enable them to be eligible for funding for pilot programs. How fun it’d be if our group could start spearheading programs to get kids into linux or schools interested in linux, etc.

We were late for the meeting (but it started late thank goodness) because we woke up and found what looked like sesame seeds all over our bedsheets. Right away I knew. Our cat has a tapeworm and egg sacks are creeping out of her anus and onto everything when she sleep. It’s DISGUSTING. So we went STRAIGHT to the vet to start treatment. YUCK!!!!!!!!!!! This cat, Crystal, LIVES in our room (literally) because when we adopted her and tried to let her lose in the house, she beat the shit out of my existing (16 year old) cat Sasha , and ever since then we’ve been afraid to let her out again. We’re supposed to be working on a socialization process but we never have time and I know it’s not fair, but it’s a long story.

I’m really tired today. I don’t do well on 8 hours sleep. I do well on 4 or 5 hours of sleep, maybe 6. I also do well on 10 hours sleep. But roughly 8 hours of sleep leaves me headachy and tired. But I took a nap and now I’m good.

I wonder if my all-time favorite flash movie is still around. Lemme look… Oh yeah! Here it is: Kimble, The Movie. This flash movie RULES. Linux lovers and bill gates haters will love this.

WarDebate.com, a site where you can debate about the war (or no war) on Iraq. (via Lyanna.com)

Oh, this is pretty cool. Problem is it supposedly only works on “blogger” blogs. It’s AudBlog. You call a number (say, from your cell phone on the road), record a message, and it is posted in your blog as an MP3! (thanks Mikeintosh) This has to be one of the coolest things I’ve heard of in a while. [I still maintain that Spamex.com is the A#1 single-most useful thing I've ever found on the web.] I hope AudBlog supports Moveable Type soon, I think I’d use it!

I heard about something on the internet. And, w/ my mind, if I heard it on the internet, it might not be true. It’s so awful I thought for sure it had to be an urban legend (false rumor). I went to Snopes.com (where they verify or debunk rumors) and it’s not there. I emailed them to see if they could verify the story. But, in the meantime, the story’s all over the place. The topic: Kopi Luwak coffee. “There is a type of nocturnal civet called the Luwak that roams around in Indonesia and eats perfectly ripe coffee cherries. After the coffee cherries pass through the Luwak’s digestive system, the locals collect the Luwak’s droppings and wash them off…” and make coffee out of it. I’ve read this many places, and it makes me sick. People pay about $300 a pound for this shit (literally, shit). Google Search of the term. Blech!

Ok, it’s friday, so I guess I’ll do a Friday Five…

1. What is your most prized material possession?
     My D60, my family photos, and my computer files.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?
     No sure. I lost everything I owned once when I was about 13, so nothing I own is older than 1983. But I think somewhere is a hairbrush that I had since I was a baby.

3. Are you a packrat?
     Yes.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?
     Well, I PREFER spic and span clean, but I live like a pig, clutter defines my life, although it drives me NUTS.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?
     Not really. One bathroom is light green and I was going for a japanese theme w/ bamboo, etc., but now it’s such a mess (from storing a rambunctious cat in there) you can’t tell there ever was a theme. The 2nd bathroom has a lighthouse theme that SP wanted. The downstairs bathroom is purple with flowers and photos. Otherise, no real theme. We like wood so we have nice wood shelves, and our living room drapes have leaves on them.

I don’t know about this. Dr. Phil’s show today, this woman wanted a new diamond ring so she went to Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil got the husband to get her a new (huge) diamond ring. Hmm. This is psychology? Maybe I ought to call Dr. Phil and tell hime I REALLY want this new Alienware laptop and SP is’t fessin’ up!

This other women wanted her husband to shave his mustache off, so she went to Dr. Phil and with NO persuation the husband’s like “yeah I’ll take it off”. So what did they have to fly to the Dr. Phil show for? And where does that women get off pressuring her husband to shave it off?

Also some women was asked to take her make-up off. O…..k….. Why is this show-material? In the end she was like “oh yeah, it’s easy to take it off, no big deal”. So, if it’s no big deal, then why did she have to go all the way to the Dr. Phil show? Not only are these topics assinine, but the guests didn’t seem like they really needed Dr. Phil’s help for anything.

I think Dr. Phil must have been pretty desperate for topics today.

Cool. Supposedly Iraqi Tv’s website “was hacked by, apparently, a Jehovah’s Witness(or someone putting up an anti Iraq page who did) in order to attempt to reason with the people of Iraq.” Screenshot HERE. Found via GeekBlog.net.

I just stumbled upon this quote in a blog:

“I’m also tired of hearing representatives of the telemarking industry whining about how a national no-call list would devistate their industry. In related news, hemmoroids* have filed a lawsuit against the makers of Preparation H, stating that the ointment would devistate their industry.” (lactose-incompetent.net)

I love it.

Hahah. Here’s Calvin Peeing on all sorts of things, such as fire (on a fireman’s car), “my ex”, etc. (via sporked.net) This page has some pretty funny ones, like Bob Dole on Vigra peeing, an alien peeing, etc. I’m still looking for Calvin peeing on Osama.

What are people searching Google for these days? Interesting.

Recently Overheard: “I had a nipple and I lost it”.

(overheard in an ER, male voice, probably a medic, but it struck me as funny at the time.)

Oh, this is too cool: Make your own snowflake. This is great for me since it does not ever snow where I live. (via #!/usr/bin/girl)