Amidst the holiday joy one hears on the Friday before Memorial Day (“Three-day week-end [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap]“), we should stop for just a few seconds and think about what it all means.
The History Channel has put together a nice brief history of the holiday.
The fact that you and I are here, that things like blogs and History Channels and vacations (and the things we vacation from) even exist, is *wholly* dependent on the efforts of others. They deserve our thanks.
Britney just hasn’t had that much impact on my daily life; she’s a capable performer, but too dependent on the star-making machinery to ever really make it on her own. She’s still a cutie, but she’s not at the top of that game anymore, either.
So, frankly, I’m just not that interested in daily reports of her performance as a mother– good, bad, or indifferent.
But the media isn’t getting that message. These days, if Britney takes a bad step or is distracted while caring for her kid, the paparazzi are all over it like, well, like slime on a paparazzo.
Did anyone ever consider that maybe they’re the cause of the distractions?
Lately in the paper there’s been a series on what a tacky, ugly place to live Gainesville is, and how much better they do things in Savannah, Georgia.
I did some cursory research and found that Gainesville has ample bus, airplane, even moving van services, that all head up Savannah way.
My suggestion is that anyone who likes Savannah that much better than Gainesville should feel free to move there at once– don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, and see if you can convince a meddling, ingrateful newspaper editor or two to join you.
Further proof that my voodoo dolls are defective: Spammers have discovered the blog.
Luckily I get notified of post replies by email so the average lifespan of one of these parasitic posts can be measured in minutes (the last one lasted about ten seconds). Pity the lifespan of the parasites themselves couldn’t be measured the same way.
Anyway, not that there’s been overwhelming use of the “Reply” feature (which is fine; the logs say that people are reading if not commenting), if the spam gets too bad I’ll have to put some sort of barrier in the way– a login or membership requirement or some such.
Apologies in advance. There are always some people who will abuse and ruin what other people have built and see nothing wrong with doing so.
Followup: I modified the system to filter on a fairly comprehensive set of spam attributes; so far it’s been 100%. So once a week or so I’ll have to take out the trash, but the spam shouldn’t appear anymore.
Followup 2: I went ahead and turned off comments for a while (again, not like anyone but the spammers were using them). We’ll see if that decreases the load a bit.
Spammers suck. Seems that if we just dunked a couple of them upside down in a vat of camel snot, the rest would think twice.
It’s amazing how something called “The Weather Channel” can get away with showing so little actual weather. I think they should be forced to intentionally mis-spell their name, the way food manufacturers have to use labels like “froot” or “choklit” or “cheeze” on articles that don’t contain the actual substance.
Five minutes watching The Whethur Channel usually breaks down like this:
This is of approximately equal value to the old rope-on-a-board “weather forecaster” they used to sell in novelty shops.
So get on with it, Whethur Channel. Content sells.
Well, after weeks of traffic congestion, near-accidents, and apparently futile voodoo curses cast upon the lethargic contractors, my little corner of town now has sidewalks. Actual concrete slabs, to relieve the casual pedestrian from the chore of treading on that soft, comfortable grass.
Of course no one around here seems to have actually asked for them. They were simply installed, like the result of an attack by a crazed, militant Santa Claus.
But requested or not, one group already seems to be making good use of the sidewalks. There has never been a safer, cleaner, more generally pleasant time to be a hooker in this part of town. It’s like OSHA has been through. I bet they install carpeting next.
Ironically enough, the hookers didn’t pay any of the taxes that were spent to refurbish their workplace.
I can hardly wait to see what favor the DOT plans to bestow upon us next. I suspect it involves pushing us down at recess and taking our lunch money.
Shots from the 2006 Gateway Classic in Lake City are up on the site.
Unfortunately, the decision to omit prejudging routines, the rushed pace of the prejudging, and the low lighting levels combined to create some really tough lighting conditions. Some people, alone in their classes, did not even do their compulsories in the prejudging; they got fewer photos in the set.
I apologize for that, but there was nothing I could do. Speed-shooting in bad light is a chancy proposition at best. As it was, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort manually tweaking the sharpness, contrast, and histograms of all the shots, just to make them look half-way decent.
On the positive side, local girl Toni took master’s figure overall; I have approximately ten grillion shots of her and will be posting her page “when I can find time to go through them all”. Ian and I also did a shoot with Wendy, one of the competitors, by the hotel pool and those shots came out very nicely, though they will likely go as a minishoot for now as she only had the one outfit.
One other tidbit: I just noticed from the Florida NPC page that the Space Coast show is back on, June 24. That’s been an enjoyable show in the past and I’m looking forward to it. There are a couple of other interesting things in the works as always, too: stay tuned.