Filed under: tidbit
Tonight was one of those nights on the internet where I have no idea how I ended up where I ended up, but I was certainly glad to have arrived there. I originally started reading the LiveJournal of Todd Alcott (a writer of things, apparently) because of his commentary on Venture Bros episodes. Deeper in his archives I found really good words on one of my favorite topics: movies by the Coen Brothers.
I find these analyses fascinating because I am a very simple man. I don’t enjoy looking for symbolism, I am terrible at picking apart allegory, metaphor goes right over my head, and I just do an all-around poor job at understanding what point a writer is trying to get across to me. Now, I’m not so dense as to be unable to understand the underlying meaning once someone relates it to me – I just don’t take the time (or am perhaps just unable to) pick it out for myself.
That’s why reading the following is so fascinating:
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Raising Arizona
The Big Lebowski
… it really explains to me why I like these movies, or the Coen Brothers’ work in general. It also proves I am a Lazy American who would prefer someone else do my work.
Thank you, Todd Alcott.
Filed under: tidbit
Hey, so I totally stole this post from another … I dunno, maybe it’s a blog. Regardless, here’s the condensed version.
The gubmint allows you to check your credit report for free once per year from each of the three credit reporting agencies. That means if you space it out right you can get a report every four months. Go to annualcreditreport.com and get started.
Actually, first, go to your calendar software of choice and make a yearly recurring entry for January (TransUnion), May (experian), and September (Equifax). That way you’ll remember which one you checked last and which one is up next.
Do this. Be safe. Be good.
And now, if you want to read the whole long article I just stole this from, go ahead.
Okay, so here’s the new weirdness from me. Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve noticed this before during the many long and fortunate years I’ve been on this earth, but I’d never really considered it in any serious way until recently. See, we’re used to our eyes being different in terms of visual acuity, right? How many of you with glasses or contacts have the same prescription in both lenses? Probably not many. Yes, yes, I’m talking about my eyeballs again. Anyway, yes, sure, we’re used to one eye being slightly different than the other or at least we’re used to it in terms of clarity and focus and so forth.
But …
see, my eyes see two different sets of color. I swear it’s true. I also know it sounds very strange, and I also have noticed that sometimes it is more pronounced, sometimes less so. I took a very few short moments to whip up the following graphic to illustrate my point. I apologize in advance, Henry, for the terrible graphic design. I wish I had more time but I must inform the world about my gross deformity IMMEDIATELY, don’t you know.
What you see below is the image as it was taken from my camera (using a custom white balance to try and obtain maximum ‘reality’) and then two images, one portraying what I seem to see from each eye. Click on it to make it bigger.
My left eye at its worst has a slight magenta tint to it. For those of you with Photoshop skillz it’s as if someone chose to adjust color balance, selected ‘highlights’, and moved the slider ever so slightly to the left.
No, I swear I’m not making this up.
The right eye sees more blue. Again, adjust color balance, select ‘highlights’, move slider to the right. Convenient how you have to move the sliders in the direction of the appropriate eye, no? No? Oh.
Anyway, the image above is an exaggeration, of course. My color disparity is not that pronounced. Sometimes it’s almost impossible for me to tell. Other days I’ll have closed one eye for some reason and when I reopen it I’m reminded that the whole color balance of the scene has perceptibly shifted.
Now, of course, you know what’s coming. Your involvement, that’s what. A five-second Google search returned no results for “seeing different color in each eye”. Of course I put it in quotes so that I wouldn’t really get any results, making me seem important and unique. But am I? Does this happen to you?
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In other news, I just wanted to share that I am constantly consumed by low-grade anxiety about photography. I spend most of my waking hours (outside of work, of course, because work is boring and I don’t want to take photographs there) looking at things and thinking that I want to capture them. Immediately follows the whole, “But … I don’t … I don’t know how to capture that correctly. I know it can be done. I’ve seen pictures like that. But … I … I don’t know … I don’t know how to capture that correctly. But I know it can be done. But I don’t know how.”
Did you ever want to know how I spend my time? There y’go.
Filed under: tidbit
It’s a strange feeling when something you do regularly, something you do for fun, turns unexpected and affects you more than you intended.
I received a new lens for Christmas and I spent a good portion of the day shooting pics like crazy just trying to get a feel for it. I haven’t checked how many pictures I took, but it was definitely more than necessary.
I shot the tree, I shot the examination of gifts, and I stood there and documented every step while my mother made her pecan pie. I took pictures of everything.
When I finally got home and reviewed my pictures, the one of Mom’s hands holding the eggs caught me by surprise. I actually had to skip over it because I was confused by what I was feeling, didn’t know how to deal with it. I left it alone for a day or so.
I finally went back and took a long look at it. It’s a spur of the moment capture – she just held out the eggs for a second, I snapped, we went on in our conversation and pie-making. It wasn’t posed in the traditional sense, I didn’t ask her to hold them a certain way. It was just in the moment.
The more I looked at it the more I realized I’d reached a new thing, a new place. I was looking at a picture that actually moved me – one of my pictures. That had never happened to me before. The emotions were what confused me the first time I saw it. I’m used to making images, some kind of tiny art perhaps, not feelings.
I have memories of being a child and sitting in church, not listening to the sermon, just holding Mom’s hand, looking at it, feeling how soft her skin was. It wasn’t so much thoughts of “these are the hands that cook for me, that comfort me, that put on the bandages when I scrape my leg,” but more strange realization of detail, how just one part of the human body can sum up the whole of what they mean to you.
This picture just made me realize that I hadn’t really looked at my mom’s hands in forever. It made me remember what it was like to be a kid. It made me think about who my mom is, and how much she means to me.
Somehow this picture just says more to me about my mother than any portrait ever could. I never expected to do this to myself. I could never have set out to do it on purpose.
I’m grateful that it happened the way it did.
Filed under: tidbit
This post started out full of details, but those get boring, and quick. Instead I’m just gonna say that the past two weeks have been full of works, weddings, finals, houseguests, and everythings else. I’m pooped.
I had the ENTIRE day off from everything today, though, and was able to spend it doing whatever I wanted to, which really boils down to a whole lot of nothing. Best news: I finally get over to see the doctor, and that constant nagging low-grade pain I’ve had in my side for almost a week and a half is NOT a kidney stone, and is NOT intestinal parasites, but apparently just some pulled muscle that I am (for whatever sadistic reason) not allowing to relax and heal. Better that than the gut worms, I say.
MMmmmmm. Worms.
Anyway, I’m just very excited about finally being truly relaxed. It feels so good. In fact, it’s time to go relax some more. Amazingly enough I’m making progress in all the books I wanted to read. Funny how free time allows that.
I hope that every single one of you had a day just as good as mine. I wish you all the best. Should I forget to write again before Christmas, I wish you all the happiest of December Twenty-Fifthsths.
EDIT! I totally forgot to mention that once again I’ve had someone (an out-of-towner co-employee) tell me that when I speak I sound just like Jeff Goldblum. I couldn’t be more pleased.
EDIT EDIT! Ah-HA! I’ve finally found my favorite Jeff Goldblum / Apple commerical. Someone has uploaded it since the last time I went looking for it. This is …
you know, for you this is probably totally boring. But for me? Sometimes I stand in the mirror and talk normally and pretend that I am indeed Jeff Goldblum.
He even rolls up his sleeves like I do. I think … this means something.
Filed under: tidbit
I was listening to music this morning using earbuds plugged in to my laptop (which in turn was plugged into a power outlet) and occasionally as I’d shift in my seat I’d get a strange crackle sound. I kept jiggling the cord, trying to find a short, but none was becoming obvious. Still, every time I fidgeted I’d get that crackle-pop again.
I finally realized what it was when I warmed up enough to take off my fleece jacket. As I pulled it off I felt the familiar tug of static cling between my jacket and my shirt, and then immediately got static electricity shock in both ears simultaneously.
Let this be some sort of strange lesson to you. May you learn from my experience.
Filed under: tidbit
This picture represents the fifth time that I have challenged my Cookeville peeps to identify or locate a local … um … thing. Guess I can’t really say place or building ’cause sometimes it’s neither of those things.
I’m constantly surprised and amused at how rapidly the answers come back. Either this town is exactly as small as I think it is, or my friends are just as observant as I think they are, or maybe it’s a combination of both.
Regardless, the activity amuses me to no end, and I’m always thinking of new places or things to photograph and use to quiz my degenerate Flickr friends. The first two were a bit hard and the last three a bit easy, so I’m going to try to think of something a bit more in-between for next time.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention I’ve tagged them all with ‘trivia’ so it’s easy for me to go back and relive the fun. Thanks for playing, everyone – I’ll try and think of a new thrilling adventure for you all soon.
Filed under: tidbit
Two years ago I attempted to start writing a little bit. Well, a lot, actually – I involved myself in the NaNoWriMo project which basically entails pounding out 1,666 words a every day for a month. I’ll have you know I didn’t make it – November is a hell of a month in which to attempt to dedicate hours every day to writing for pleasure.
Something in conversation over this Thanksgiving prompted a discussion of the Great Unfinished O’Mara(can) Novel and I dug around on my hard drive until I found it the other day.
I started re-reading it the two nights ago and I don’t even know what to say or think. I have an absolutely terrible memory so aside from the basic plot outline I didn’t remember anything about it. Besides, when you’re writing nearly two thousand words a day you don’t have time to dedicate them to memory, and besides that even it’s been two years – more than long enough to forget the details.
I’m finding myself pleasantly surprised by what I wrote. I’m actually enjoying re-reading it, and I’m sure any of you self-deprecating artists (in any medium) out there know that anguished feeling when you review your work and it just isn’t as good as you wanted it to be. For some unknown reason I’m not getting that nasty sinking feeling this time. I’m proud of my work.
I’m actually still awake, up far past my bedtime, because I’ve been treating myself to a few chapters. I can’t stand to read it all at once because … honestly, because I find myself savoring it. I don’t want to finish.
I don’t want to know how it ends.
Fortunately for me, I never finished it, so it doesn’t end.
Maybe I’ll have to do something about that one day.
Filed under: tidbit
So hey, I’m just gonna go ahead and buck the trend here, mmmmkay, and discuss something for which I am NOT thankful.
Two-thirds of the population is considered right-eye dominant. You know, that means that they (and I’m referring to ‘they’, not ‘us’, for a reason which … well, you’re smart, you’ve probably already figured this bit out) prefer to view objects with their right eye. It’s called ocular dominance if you want to read up on it some more.
Aaaaanyway, I’m part of the one-third group that’s left-eye dominant. Anyone that has tried on my eyeglasses for fun or profit has probably noticed there’s almost no correction in my right-hand lens. That’s because my right eye has nearly 20-20 vision – it’s my left eye that sucks. Astigmatism, if you want to get picky.
All this means is that I’m having to train myself to put the camera up to my right eye, which feels totally wrong to me. I usually don’t wear my glasses while shooting, and therefore doing any sort of manual focus with my screwed up dominant left eye is a royal pain in the ass. Plus if I use my dominant eye I’m always smashing my nose into the back of the camera. Smudgy.
THIS IS SOMETHING FOR WHICH I AM NOT THANKFUL. My body has cursed me with a preference for the lesser choice. Blargh.
Do you know which of your eyes is dominant? Doesn’t really matter, but if you want to find out, do this simple test. Look at a distant object, extend your arms, and form a triangle around the object with your hands, like this:
Close your left eye, then open it and close your right eye. Whichever eye is seeing the object is your dominant eye. Notice: do not attempt this while drunk.
Okay, okay, fine, here’s a list of things for which I am thankful today.
I have my health, I have a functioning version of sanity, I got to eat a fantastic Thanksgiving lunch with my parents and an old family friend, and I also got to eat ANOTHER fantastic Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws, my brother-in-law and his wife, and their beautiful baby.
Seriously, my stomach is very thankful that my family’s tradition is an early afternoon meal and that my in-laws prefer supper. That makes it real easy for me to stay bloated like a tick the entire day.
Also, I’m grateful that I’ve a tiny Christmas wish list, meaning that I have been successful in eschewing overwhelming greed and materialism. Okay, yeah, so there’s a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens on there, but that’s the only thing I actually really want, and I think the parents are going to take care of that. The rest of you, you poor souls who torture yourself by reading my drivel, I love all of you, and having you in my life is gift enough.
I hope everyone’s T-Day was as simple, heartwarming, and relaxing as mine. You all deserve the best.
Filed under: tidbit
I was standing around with a group of my classmates discussing what a terrible fate it would be if our syllabus was correct and we did indeed have a test today. I threw a granola bar wrapper at the hallway trash can and to my amazement it actually went in. The guy next to me said, “Nice shot!”
I said, “Yeah, well, doesn’t happen often. You know, people always say, ‘You’re tall, do you play basketball?’ My usual answer to that is, ‘Come sit with me in the office for a day. Watch how many things I throw at the trash can and how often I miss. You’ll understand.'”
There was a pause, and he said,
“You should be in a movie. You’re like a character from a movie.”
“I … I suppose … I will take that as a compliment.”
“Oh, totally.”