Category: Life

Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).

Yellow Lily 001

Over the summer I dug out my old Pentax K1000 SE and started taking pictures on 35mm film (specifically, Fujicolor Superia X-TRA 400). In part this was to help out a friend with her upcoming costume feature in AniCoz and in part it was a desire to go back to a camera where I had all the control. I’ve finally gotten around to scanning some of the photos I’ve been taking on film and have posted them online. Please take a look at my 35mm gallery and let me know what you think.

Like most Americans I’ve been a bit more glued to my TV this week than usual due to the return of fresh programming for the fall. Here are a few quick impressions of the shows I watched this week.

Monday

  • Chuck: The producers/advertisers of this show are obviously targeting something very close to my demographic with this show. The first episode was nothing special, butit did amuse me. I suppose if this show is playing while I want to watch TV, I’ll watch it but it is nothing I would go out of my way to see.
  • Heroes: What a disappointment. I really enjoyed last season, but bringing back both of the Petrelli brothers in the season premier when last season’s finale showed them getting nuked cheapened the show immensely. I had been looking forward to this, but now I doubt I’ll be watching it.
  • Journeyman: Meh, this looks like a weak remake of Quantum Leap only significantly less interesting. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood, but I gave up watching it 10 minutes in. It was just putting me to sleep.

Tuesday

  • NCIS: Yup, I’ll be watching this one all season long again. The season premier didn’t pull off any astounding changes to the show but did show off the writers’ ability to keep giving us what we want. Explosions, murder, mystery and action.
  • The Unit: First off whoever came up with the new intro clip to this show should be fired. It’s utterly horrible. That being said, like NCIS this show delivered. While the show is going a lot darker than before and looks like it will be spending this season mostly inside US borders; it looks good and was a solid hour of entertainment this event.

Wednesday

  • Bionic Woman: Surprisingly, I was impressed. I expected it to be considerably cheesier and crappier than it turned out to be. I didn’t much care for the main character but it was nice to see some actors from other shows I’ve liked.
  • Life: Heh, this was quite a bit of fun to watch this evening. Though the main character was excessively flakey for my taste and I’m not sure I’ll keep watching it given that it’s got the same timeslot as CSI: NY.

Thursday

  • Ugly Betty: This show is really more one I watch because my wife likes it and I fiddled around on my computer while it was on. What I caught of it was funny, but not enough to draw me back to the couch to watch it.
  • CSI: I had been looking forward to seeing this right up until it was on TV. I don’t know if I was just in a bad mood, but I just didn’t care if the CSI member was going to live through the episode or not. Perhaps I’m getting a bit burned out on all these CSI shows.

Friday

  • Moonlight: Cheesy, vampire, detective show. A bit funny, a bit dark and worth watching if you happen to be home on a Friday night.

So there’s my quick thoughts on the premieres I’ve seen so far. Did I miss anything good?

Overall a very good weekend. Saturday, Ariesna and & hung out with our friends Bryon & AWelkin. We shot a ton of pictures1 of AWelkin in a couple of her excellent suits. We also learned that velour makes an excellent burr magnet, so don’t go tramping through wood areas wearing a velour cape (especially don’t go off trail in such a thing). Sunday, Ariensa & I just enjoyed a lazy day. Mostly we just hung around the house and did a whole lot of nothing. Though we did go to the grocery store for some reconnaissance on the tea party she’s planning for October. Oddly enough when we got to the store, I noticed a flyer on the community bulletin board inviting people to the world’s biggest tea party. *shrugh* Odd timing that. Oh and the reason this post is called what it is, has to do with a startling experience I had Sunday morning. After I took my shower and was going through my morning toiletries, I caught sight of something moving by the bathroom window. I turned to look over and realized we had a wasp crawling around on the inside of the window. *shudder* I quickly finished up and got out of there. Ariesna dug up the bug spray and then we took care of the little invader. Nobody got stung or anything really unpleasant like that. It’s just if there’s a specific time you don’t want to see a wasp; it’s when you’re standing around nekked. *grin*

1 Some were digital, some were 35mm. When all the film has been developed, we’ll select some of them to send off to the magazine who requested the photos. Once I have clearance from the AWelkin & the magazine people, I’ll post some of them to Flickr.  Though we also have a couple more shoots to do, so don’t expect to see those photos any time soon.

Leatherman Squirt P4

I carry a Leatherman Squirt P4 and once in a while, I take out of my pocket and set it on my desk. Either because it’s poking my leg or I’m using it for some reason or another. Today I had it sitting out and was concentrating on our current big project, headphones on and oblivious to my surroundings.

When I suddenly noticed two of my co-workers leaning over my cube wall, looking at me. One of them noticed the Squirt sitting on my desk and started talking about how cool it was. Then our supervisor walked over and mentioned how I was popular today. The other of my co-workers piped up with “We were just admiring his tool” and all of us got the giggles. We thought about all the various ways she could have said that…

  • “Admiring his pocket tool”
  • “Admiring his Leatherman”
  • “Admiring his Squirt”

And decided there was no way we were not going to laugh at the comment.

Still battling the plague, but did make it to the clinic this weekend. The wonderful doctor gave me a nice, wide-spectrum antibiotic and even better a codeine-based cough syrup. The past week or so, I’ve been getting very little sleep do to this nasty plague-induced cough but with this cough syrup I slept roughly 14 hours last night! Wahoo! It feels so good to be rested again.