BaLtiMoRe RoLL

LakE TrouT, BirDs, and CaT Pee

		I've lived in Baltimore for over five years and until today I'd never tried lake trout. (Or actually, what they call lake trout, but what is really whiting or some other regular white fish.) I saw my opportunity when J started craving fried chicken a few days ago, and today for lunch we walked over to Greenmount Ave. And it was... fine. Nothing amazing, just pretty much what you'd expect from fried fish. :)
		On the way home, we came upon about a thousand birds resting in a single bush. I circled around with my camera until J (who was thinking of our takeout chicken and fish getting cold) finally pushed me along home. Aren't they cute though?

Finally at home, just as we were about to sit down and eat, I noticed Tako (the black and white cat) on the couch, standing on some new towels my mom had just sent us. (Our collection of towels includes really old hand-me-downs, so when we got these new towels I decided that they should just be for guests so we wouldn't always have to be so apologetic about what we were asking them to dry themselves with. Plus, every single one of our old towels has since been used to mop up the flood from last week.)

Well, Tako was standing on these new guest towels, meowing unusually plaintively. I assumed he wanted some fish or something, but then he crouched down a little strangely, and when I went over to him he didn't run away like he usually does. He looked like he was about to reinterpret the towels as an alternative litter box, so I decided to move him and as I did, I discovered that I was way too late. Yep, all over the new towels. And as he peed, he wailed.

Reluctantly we checked out the litter box, and of course, it was so awful we really couldn't blame him for not using it. Well, now the towel is clean and Tako is much happier. In fact, he's in a strange mood, sort of cavorting around the house, running from room to room bothering Koji or meowing for us to come pet him. I think the pee went to his head or something.

Revenge Has A Killer Body *

For a couple of weeks now, I've been getting hits to my school web page from google searches for my first name followed by "2005". I was pretty sure there weren't that many people who would suddenly be interested in information about me from 2005, so I did the google search myself to see what they were looking for. I wondered if there was something I should be looking out for in these remaining days of 2005, but my google search turned up nothing, other than my own page.

The hits continued to trickle in from all over the world, without a single one coming from the United States. (Looking at my log, the last 100 hits included searches from England, Australia, Bulgaria, Holland, Croatia, Poland, Belgium, Lithuania, Romania, Portugal, France, and Korea.) Finally today, my googling turned up this movie, and I am guessing that it has to be what people have been looking for, only because I just can't find anything else. But why there are people all over the world looking for it, I have no idea. It doesn't exactly sound like it would be a world wide hit...

Of course, I've never been a fan of horror movies, so I guess I wouldn't like it even if it was good. It's not that I hate horror per se, it's that... well, I'm a big baby. I am not entertained by horror, I'm pretty much traumatized by it. I remember seeing Nightmare on Elm Street (which version, I can't remember) in high school at a slumber party and thinking everyone else was so wimpy to be scared by it, but then the next night when I had to sleep in my room by myself, I discovered I wasn't as brave as I thought I was. My imagination turned out to be scarier than the movie.

So I probably won't be seeing this movie, even if the chick with the killer bod has my name. I already have my name, the bod (ok, not quite that killer), and I can do without the horror.

* By the way, I didn't make that up. That's the tagline for the movie.

DiNNer AdVice?

Update:

I made the French Onion Soup, and it was all good until I put the slightly too tall bowls in the broiler and burned the bread on top of the soup. But overall it was really good, and just what I was in the mood for.

I also steamed up some broccoli, sort of following Ianqui's suggestion. Actually, she suggested broccoli slaw, which I'd never heard of and wasn't sure I wanted to try. (Though I have to say that this one certainly looks pretty.) But I've never liked coleslaw, so I wasn't convinced broccoli slaw would be any better. I didn't even know you could extend slaws to other fruits and vegetables. But look, you can: Can you call coleslaw "slaw"?

Now that I've dismissed Ianqui's idea without even trying it (don't you like how I ask for advice and then don't take it), this is the abomination that J created to go with the soup: a plain sandwich roll with Steam 'Umms. He claimed it was good, but I was perfectly happy not to partake. I think it's kind of along the lines of what people were suggesting in the comments, though I don't know if they had Steam 'Umms specifically in mind. But that's what we had in the freezer and J loves them...

Original Post:

I'm thinking of making either French Onion Soup or this Riesling Onion Soup for dinner tonight. I'm happy with just soup for dinner, especially if it comes with cheese and bread, but J is concerned it won't be enough. What do you think I can make with soup that won't be a lot of work, won't be terribly filling, but rounds out the meal?

NuMbEr FivE iS AliVe*

This is another one of those cat stories. Fair warning.

Today Tako really wanted petting and because of this level of desperation he was willing to get it from J. Of course, Tako faces away from J the whole time, happy to have his back pet, but not wanting to have to look at J.

This time, as he was rolling around in ecstasy, he noticed my backpack nearby and dove right in. So there he was, rolling around with his upper body completely in my backpack and the rest of his body out on the floor. As he kicked around, his little feet found the VCR that sits on the floor and he inadvertantly pressed a couple of buttons.

The VCR didn't respond right away, but just as Tako was coming out of the backpack, the VCR emitted this growl-like sound and slowly ejected a tape. Tako looked totally bewildered and got low to the ground. Slowly he crawled towards it, jumping a little at just the possibility that it might happen again. He acted as though the VCR had just violated the laws of time and space.

Not sure what to think of the rest of the world, he turned and looked suspiciously at my backpack. Of course it just sat there, inanimately, but Tako reached out a paw to check. When it didn't respond, he walked off as if he had better things to do.

He's back to normal now, but poor cat. The little guy doesn't have object permanence, doesn't understand mirrors, jumps at his own shadow, can't even meow like a normal cat (usually it comes out more like a gargle), and is deathly afraid of one of the two people living in this apartment. It must be an exhausting existence. Even the way he sleeps looks painfully contorted, doesn't it?

* No, I don't normally come up with lines from this movie. It's her fault.

me On A Mac

I'm working on a Mac right now and I feel completely out of my element. I wanted to download a file from our school server and had to get help. But it turns out you can ftp from a Mac just like from a PC, and you don't need to use Fetch or other programs like that. In fact, I don't even need to use an FTP program at all on a PC even. It made me feel all programmer-y to learn this, even though truthfully I don't know what I'm doing. But just typing commands into a black window makes me feel all technological and stuff.

I even figured out how to call up a terminal window all by myself and telnet to my email account on this Mac. Of course, I can't figure out how to cut and paste in the email window since there's no right button on the mouse...

You know, one day when I learn this stuff I'm going to be embarrassed to read about how technologically stupid I am. :)

Anyway, the reason I'm on a Mac is because I'm running subjects on my final experiment, and the program is on the lab laptop, so that leaves me to find another computer to work on in the meantime. So I am on the Mac desktop in the lab.

Part of me thinks it would be nice to have a Mac one day, mainly because they're supposed to be "better" and "easier" (and "prettier"). But I can't quite figure out what's "better" about them, particularly with regard to photography. Matt Thomas told me once that Macs display colors the same way a printer would print them, so you get a better match between what's on the screen and what gets printed. That sounded good to me at the time, but now I'm confused, because aren't printers limited in the color range they can print and so if that's all you get on the screen isn't this a bad thing?

And as for Macs being "easier", I haven't quite figured that out either. The only thing I've heard is that they have a Find function that allows you to search for files according to text within them (e.g., a document that contains the word "bamboozle") and that sounds nice. But that will be included in the next version of Windows so ultimately that's not going to be the difference. And yes, you don't need to keep up with the latest virus info because you're less vulnerable, but again, most virus protection programs update themselves. So who knows. Maybe this one button mouse is supposed to be easier?

As for "prettier", well, I just checked out my blog and ewww, it's pukey lime green. Why didn't anyone tell me? On my monitor it looks all nice and subtle and organic, but on this monitor, the unclicked links are bright lime green!

Similarly, I checked out my photoblog on J's monitor and the photos looked super saturated, almost painful to look at. Could the difference be that J's monitor and this Mac monitor are CRT and my laptop isn't? If anyone knows about such things, please let me know. I'm going to have to go in research mode about this. The differences seem to be pretty big, and if I'm going to be posting photos on the web, this is worth knowing about.

Anyway, I'm just rambling because for once I'm actually typing this out in the Typepad editor and not in my own editing window (Crimson, y'all, check it out) so I feel more chatty somehow, like I'm messaging with you and not typing up a "post". (By the way, why do people compose in their blog's editing window? I always read about lost posts and I can never figure out why people don't just compose outside of their browser so that if the post doesn't go through, then you don't lose it? Oh, but maybe people like to click on things like "add file" or "add link" and not have to code that stuff in themselves?)

I have more contentful stuff to write about... work and school and such, but I'll leave that for the next post.

ThE FLoodWaTers Have FinAllY ReCeded

Phew. Two hours later, the flood is over. Here's what happened...

Last night I pulled another all-nighter to finish a paper and didn't end up going to bed until 9 am this morning. I cuddled into bed, happy to have maintained consciousness until that hour but thrilled to finally be going to sleep.

I don't know what time J got up, but I think he left the house around 10:30 and set a 12:30 alarm for me at my delirious request. I have no idea if the alarm went off or not (did I turn it off and then instantly forget?), but I found myself awake at 12:33. The sun was shining in the bedroom, Koji was sleeping at my feet, and there was the pleasant sound of flowing water. I considered going back to sleep, but before I could, the peacefulness of the water sounds reached a place in my conscious that dragged me out of my restfulness. Ugh, I thought, the faucet is running and I should really turn it off. I briefly debated ignoring it, but then realized I wouldn't really be able to sleep if I did, so I got up.

When I entered the kitchen, I noticed that the faucet was fully running, the sink was overflowing, and as I moved towards it I splashed through at least an inch of water. My socks were instantly drenched and I saw that both the kitchen and the living room were flooded. Fortunately, the rooms both seem to dip slightly in the middle, so the edges of the room were dry and J's computer and every single electrical cord were safely beyond the reach of the water. However, the water continued to flow out the front door and into the hallway vestibule of our apartment building.

As I was considering what to do, the doorbell rang. It was the postwoman delivering a package, so she and I chatted briefly about my predicament. Fortunately she seeemed to be more awake than I was and less dumbfounded by the water, and she reasonably suggested calling the landlord. I took her advice, but couldn't reach him. Each number I called gave me a message saying that if it was an emergency I should call a different number; eventually I left a messages at a couple of messages and got to work de-flooding.

By work, I mean that I pulled out all of our towels and used them as giant mops. But when you put a towel down in an inch of water, it hardly makes a dent (or whatever a towel could be expected to do to water). Fortunately (for us, less so for the landlord) the living room started to drain pretty quickly; the wood soaked up the water and when I stepped out into the main hallway of the building I could hear the sounds of water dripping down into the basement. I don't have access to that part of the basement, so I haven't been able to check on the damage. Hopefully my landlord will get one of the messages soon and come check it out.

Anyway, ten towels, one tiny mop, and two hours later, I finally managed to clean it all up. I used to think that cleaning would be so much easier if I could just flood the place and swoosh all the water around. Not so. Now I know.

On the upside, the kitchen floor is now sparkling clean.

FlooD!

If anyone in Charles Village has one ore more industrial sized mops and half an hour of spare time right now, please let me know! Will explain later...

all that sausage, you know

What does the following excerpt from Robert Ludlom's The Bourne Ultimatum have to do with the new low price of Valium or Viagra?

the corporals and the sergeants-all that sausage, you know. We had our tricks. Suddenly, as if he had been shot or seized by a convulsion, Fontaine gasped, then lurched in front of Bourne. Mon Dieu! ... Cest terrible! The governor- What? The Crown governor! What about him? At the airport, it was so quick, so rapid! cried the old Frenchman. And everything that has happened, my woman, the killing– Still, it is unforgivable of me! What are you talking about? That man in the villa, the military officer whose uniform you wear. Hes his aide!

I have no idea, but that paragraph came in an email to me accompanied by a list of prices for everything from Amoxicillin to Paxil. I don't really understand why they bother including it. Is it to soften the blow of sending unnecessary marketing to my inbox, like, hey we know you aren't interested in our products, but maybe this little piece of writing will brighten your day?

I'm really baffled, but... amused.

SomEtimEs My WantS ExCeed My BuDget

Remember when I wrote about submitting my photos to microstock agencies? Here's what I've learned from that little experiment...

I am not going to make much money with the kinds of photos I take. In about two months I've only made $42.35. Here are the photos that have done the "best" (i.e., they've earned at least $2 each). I definitely see a seasonal/holiday thing going on. Maybe in the spring I'll clean house with all my flower photos...

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I do think that it is possible to make money with these agencies, but in my case, since I don't have many photos available for sale and the ones that are there probably aren't very marketable, I'm not going to make very much. I've decided that's fine with me because the kinds of photos that tend to sell well are borrrrring. (At least, this seems to be the case in the microstock agencies. It might be different for the "macrostocks".) If I was going to make photography a career, then taking those photos to make money might be worth it. But if I'm only doing it in my spare time, then I really don't want to be spending whatever little time I have taking pictures of people in suits shaking hands or brightly colored objects against an isolated white background. So for now, I'm just going to be happy making a tiny bit of money from photos that I would be taking anyway.

One positive from this is that I've learned a whole lot about image quality. I really didn't know what jpg artifacts and noise were until I started looking at my photos at 100% resolution. I have since learned how to recognize them, how to clean them up, and how to avoid them in the first place.

I've also learned a lot of technical things, not specifically from submitting to microstock agencies, but just from reading more about digital photography. I've learned that my little camera, while great in many ways, has some limitations that I just can't do anything about. The main thing I've come to realize is that the megapixel race is really really stupid and misguided. Sure more pixels are better in general, but the more you try to cram into a small sensor, the worse image quality you get. I noticed this as soon as I started taking pictures with my 8.0 MP Canon PowerShot Pro1, but I had no idea why. I now know that the reason I get so much green/blue/purple fringing and such horrible noise at ISOs higher than 100 is because of the inherent limitations of a small sensor with 8 megapixels. (So those of you with "lower" MP cameras, take heart, you're better off!)

Of course, these and other things have finally convinced me that it's time to move up to a dSLR. (This is unfortunate because I absolutely can't afford it right now.) I definitely don't regret buying the Pro1 because it's been a great camera to learn on and really offered me everything I was looking for at half of what I would have spent on a dSLR. But I'm realizing that I've reached something of a plateau with this camera.

Like I said, I really can't afford a dSLR right now, but if you think about it, I'm $42.35 closer. :) Sort of. Unfortunately, these microstock agencies won't pay you until you've made $75 or $100, so in reality, until I make that amount at each of those sites, none of that money is real.

And I also have a new part-time paid blogging job (more on that later). So now if I ever get a real job, I can use whatever I make from these part-time gigs towards a new camera and lenses. Of course, in the meantime, whatever I can scrape from those other sources will have to go towards silly things like food and rent... :)

UnReLatEd ThouGHts

• This morning I had a real geyser of a nosebleed. I'm not sure why... guess that kind of thing can happen from time to time. But being a bit of a hypochondriac, I briefly considered whether I might possibly pass out and bleed to death. But within minutes of that thought, my nosebleed stopped and I sit here healthy as ever. Phew. Close call.
• We are now getting some really stupid pre-recorded telemarketing calls. Just now I picked up the phone to a woman's voice who says she's been trying to get in touch with me and I should press 9 to be connected to her. Riiiiiight. Does this kind of calling actually work?
• I still have fantasies of running away and becoming a travel photographer. Well, except for the running away part, because I wouldn't do that unless I could take J with me. :) Still, I will confess to suffering a bit of wanderlust at the moment.
• I am currently uploading all my files to the school server because there is a lot that isn't backed up. I can hardly conceptualize what I would do if I lost everything now. I've been meaning to do this from school, but I keep forgetting. Well, I remembered now, so now is when I'm doing it.
• Some friends of mine had their apartment broken into while they were away for Thanksgiving. The person who broke in didn't take a whole lot, but did make off with a desktop computer and their backup hard drive. I think the worst part for them is worrying that the burglar might come back now, and they have a super friendly dog who they worry about. In all likelihood they will be fine, since the break-in happened when it was clear they were out of town (and that their neighbors would likely be away as well), but I know it's hard to go back to feeling safe.
• I used to live in an apartment a block away from them, in the most unsecured apartment you can imagine, all by myself. I had a second floor rear apartment that you could easily access by a fire escape and no bars on the shabby wooden door. The door was so shabby in fact, that one time it fell off its hinges when I opened it. And shortly after that, the front door fell off its hinges too. Either I am stronger than I think, or that apartment was made of cardboard. Anyway, I'm very glad to be out of there as I think it practically calls out for someone to break in. Fortunately, my friends' apartment is much more secure with bars on the windows and doors and a jumpy, barking dog who makes herself known to anyone who even walks by on the sidewalk.
• Tomorrow I am having lunch at the Ambassador with our colloquium speaker and some of the other grads. I love Indian food. Whenever I'm going to a restaurant that I really like, I spend the time leading up to it deciding what to eat since I only get to pick one thing. Should I go with the bengan bartha? Or the okra dish? Or something different this time? Decisions, decisions...
• Nope, no word on the job situation yet. This makes me nervous. I think I've retreated from excited and moved back to anxious waiting. I'm much less optimistic than before.