Posi's Birthday

Birthday silliness with posicat at Medieval Times. Pretty horses and pretty men. I'll write more about it at a time when I shouldn't have been asleep three hours ago.

Thanks for inviting me along, Posi!

Car Repair

Well, nothing wakes you up like a phone call to tell you your car requires $661 worth of repairs! Good thing I saved money on that tow, huh?

I didn't ok the work right away, but I guess it really makes sense to go ahead and do it instead of hunting for a new car. I should call them back...

Medieval Times Photos

My write-up of Medieval Times:

For Mark's birthday, a group of us got together for a visit to Medieval Times in Shcaumberg.

The show was technically impressive. Great lights and sound. Lots of action. The stage combat was a little bit unconvincing to me at times, but it was still fun to watch.

What weirded me out was the plot. It started out as a ren-fairesque chivalrous tournament. That was enjoyable. But at the end it devolved into a spectacle that reminded me of Roman gladiatorial combat. It became out-and-out blood sports, and I was uncomfortable watching it, and with the crowd's reactions to it.

There were some plot threads that were a bit difficult for me to follow as well, but I blame that on a combination of hearing difficulties and distraction with my camera.

Shooting the event was a lot of fun. I learned more about how to use my manual f2.8 135mm prime. There were many pretty horses and pretty men to keep pointing my camera at.

The food was plentiful and good. I was a little unsure about how much to tip servers, since I don't know whether they make tipped minimum wage or not, how many people they're serving, and how much work was going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty fun. I don't need to go again, but I'm glad to have gone out and done something memorable for a friend's birthday.

I want hair like this horse's mane. Or at least a chance to brush it.





A few more ( behind the cut. )

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I asked my brother to get a photo of me at my extended family's Christmas party in 2014. The picture is overexposed (not his fault; still learning this new lens), but I really like the way I look in it.

That's my aunt and uncle's new kitten in my arms.

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Ok, I'm going to use today to go over all my grad school apps and see what the status is. I can be productive dog!

I just finished putting my laundry away while listening to Laurie Anderson. Now that the album has arrived, and I've figured out how to get the mixed-mode CD to play, I have to think Lisa for bringing Anderson to my attention. I like some of these tracks more than others but it's a really interesting album and I will likely acquire her others. Here's the first track:

I would characterize most of her work as sort of spoken word accompanied by music.

This is the time. And this is the record of the time.

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Let's add a rusted-out gas tank at approximately $200 to that car bill! That makes it about $900. Yeah, still a good thing I saved on that tow. And a good thing my Spring financial aid disbursement is coming up.

I'm really wondering whether this car is worth it. But this is really not the time to go car hunting.

Last Name, First Name, Red Name, Blue Name?

Do any of my readers with a last name that might, by some stretch, be thought of as a first name (such as Allen) ever get a response to an email written by someone who, for some reason, has decided your last name *is* your first name?

I've been called Allen, as in "Hi Allen," by staff at three different grad programs I've applied to. This happened to me a lot when I was working in tech support too, and it really confuses me.

And now, suddenly, I've entered that headspace where you think too hard about an everyday word and it loses all meaning. I'm looking at the word "Allen" there on my Facebook wall, and I'm like "That's such a weird word. What does it mean? Why is that a last name and how did I get it?" Which is only made funnier by the fact that my last name was completely made up by my dad's mother, who was a single mom and wanted to avoid stigma.

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I don't know anything about creating movies in Windows. I have a series of 1000 x 1000 jpgs. about 380 of them. I'd like to turn them into a movie file that I can host somewhere like Flickr and embed online. Can anyone give some general directions on how to do this? I probably need to shrink them down, but how much?