I just bought my ticket for August 28th's Ditty Bops show at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. If anyone else would like to go, get your ticket soon, and then let me know if you'd like to carpool. The last time I saw the Bops there, it was a great time. Come on, come along; I think you'll like them.
Gonna get back to my photo-posting... sometime. Been kinda blah lately. Too many other things sapping my energy.
Congratulations to Colby and Annie, whose wedding I attended on Saturday! Here's a little something I snapped.
I got some other great shots at the reception, which was in an old sugar mill converted into a winery. Half the place was abandoned, which made for some really cool rural decay photos. Oh, I also got some more shots of the newlyweds. ;)
Sunday evening I saw The Dark Knight. It was a really great movie. Heath Ledger was probably the best Joker yet, and it really sucks that it was his last performance. I don't think I'd seen him in anything else before. I saw him in The Brothers Grimm, but that movie was rather forgettable. One of these days I'll have to see Brokeback Mountain, I think. I've really got to see Dark Knight again, though. On IMAX, if at all possible.
At the other end of the cinematic spectrum, tonight I watched History Of The World, Part I. Didn't enjoy it. Mel Brooks is hit-and-miss for me, and this movie was about 90% miss. On the upside, I now know where a lot of old pop culture references come from.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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!
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.
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!"
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.
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.