Inside The Perimeter

In past years I’ve used the final post of the year to give a synopsis of my year. For 2007 it will suffice to say “It sucked!” Well, there was a fun trip to Arizona and two great weeks spent in Seattle and Canada. And I did really well financially. But other than that 2007 I don’t have much love for the year that was 2007. Time to move on…

Fifteen If By Day, Eight If By Night
If you ever fear being completely alone I have a perfect plan for you to implement.

First you have to agree to host a Sunday Runners’ event. The call of beer and bacon will bring these people out even when the weather is completely crappy (see also “yesterday’s weather”). Yesterday I had ten people come over and run, and another four who came over to eat my delicious food (the offer of free beer helped, I’m sure) along with fantastic unsolicited additions brought over by others (apparently my food is not as good as I thought).

The second part of that plan is to kick the Sunday Runners out so that you can shower and drive to Roswell to have dinner with friends. Be careful with this one however because people at this type of event often know your personal history even though they are generally three-sheets-to-the-wind when such history occurs. Last night’s excuse to get me to travel OTP was to see Laura, who went and got herself all knocked-up by her hubby Bob. I lost the “I traveled the furthest to get here game” because Raleighites (Raleighinians?) Lurking Lisa and Randy came in to visit as well. You’ve probably seen them hanging around the comments here, and my photo of their dog Sugar was my pick for best photo from April. Also in attendance for the dinner Barb (also a frequent commenter), her husband Allan who has no time for such nonsense as blogging, and MC (aka “Sonya”). I am proud to say that the meateaters outnumbered the vegetarians five to three.

ITP Flickr Pic
Did I mention that I was at one of the four sold-out Band Of Horses shows at The EARL this weekend?

Did I mention that I was one person away from the front of the stage? (next to that “annoying girl” who is too cute for words, is always kissing her boyfriend, getting wasted off her ass, and dancing wildly around singing to every song — I think you know the type)

Did I mention that I only brought my point-and-shoot camera because I didn’t think that there was any way that I would get close enough to get good shots of the band?

What Are You Doing On New Year’s Eve?
As for me, the answer will most likely be “staying home.” For me New Year’s Eve is a “couples event” (beaten only by Valentine’s Day). And, as you may guess from my year’s worth of blogging I am currently uncoupled. There is a chance that I’ll head somewhere. There is a chance that I might wander up to the East Atlanta Village. There is a chance that I will not. What ever you decide to do for New Year’s Eve please be careful and watch out for the people who shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

There is a 100% chance that I will be at the annual Cheddarhead Day Hash put on by the Atlanta Hash House Harriers and Harriettes. I’ve got a bowling title to defend you know…

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - ready for change in 2008
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Los Campesinos! — “You! Me! Dancing!” and now Husker Du — “Could You Be The One?” (possible themes for 2008)
Website Of The Day - There are rare occasions that I wished we never moved from New York. Go see how New Yorkers will spend New Year’s at NYC New Year’s.
Exercise (b)Log - hashing, ~4 miles
Monthly Foot Mileage - 24.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Ever become overwhelmed by the tasks you face? I have this morning.

Between now and Sunday I must fix a toilet, clean my house, remove debris from my back yard, go to the grocery store, see Band of Horses and Tenement Halls at The EARL, host the Sunday Runners, go to the High Museum to renew my membership (Warning NerdSpeak: I don’t trust their website since I am not positive that their SSL connection is valid) and some other things that I can’t think about at this moment.

It Almost Became The Rally Tuque
At the Thrashers game last night I bought a $6 knit hat (tuque) between the second and third periods. It wasn’t so much that my head was cold, or that I even needed another tuque (I have four; five if I can find the one I got at Black Sheep this year) it was just that I thought it looked kind of cool, and for $6 I thought I’d buy something other than a beer. I deemed the new headgear to be the “Rally Tuque” since the Thrashers had not put a single goal into the Panthers’ net all night long. Within a minute the Thrashers scored! If not for the fact that the Rally Tuque also helped the Panthers score three goals (one empty net) the damn thing would have worked, for the final score was 5-3 in favor of the visitors.

ITP Flickr Pic
Some dogs have it made.

I wouldn’t mind being in this position right now.

Target Has Let Me Down, Again
First it was not opening super early during the week prior to Christmas, not it’s this.

The other day I went to three different Target stores looking for post-Christmas markdowns.

One of my dirty little secrets is that for the past four years I have been buying post-Christmas markdowns of holiday-packed sausage, cheese, and nuts and serving those at my annual Super Bowl party. I consider it to be savvy party planning as it’s not like any of these items are going to spoil between Christmas and the first Sunday in February, and if I can buy them for 50-75% off of their originally-marked price all the better.

Sadly, this year Target’s buyers must have decided not to help me out because there was nary a Christmas sausage or cheese package, and the nuts that I expected to be discounted were not.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - Can’t wait for 2008
Current Music - Yeasayer’s “All Hour Cymbals” cd which I purchased from Amazon’s mp3 download service last night
Website Of The Day - If airline prices don’t start dropping soon 2008 may be the Year of the Car Trip for me. If so, I’ll be sure to check out Map24 to help me plan my excursions.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I am closing down my photoblog Jalapeno Beach for a while. I have started to receive SPAM comments and have not been enjoying the Pixelpost software lately. (When I set a global setting to not allow comments, why do I still receive SPAM comments?) Admittedly I have not been keeping up with that site as much as I should, so I doubt that anyone will be shedding a tear over its temporary shuttering.

My NAS Experience Has Been Nasty
I am also declaring my network-attached storage (NAS) experiment a failure. After countless efforts to try and find a solution that will allow me to centralize all of my data onto a NAS drive and back it up weekly to USB drives hung off my iMac, I quit. I’ve ordered a new 500GB USB drive from Amazon that is due to arrive tomorrow. Getting all of my irreplaceable data to this new drive this weekend will be difficult with the many other tasks on my plate, but that’s the plan.

Once the data is “local” to the iMac I should be able to back the data up without failure.

Two Days After Christmas: Traffic Returns
There was a noticeable increase in morning-commute traffic this morning. Bummer, I was hoping that people would be taking the entire week off between Christmas and New Year’s.

ITP Flickr Pic
Most people think that I try to hang around Betsy because she is a beautiful and kind person.

Don’t tell her, but it’s really to take pictures of Reese. (I kid!)

I Really Need To Learn How To Consult My Calendar
Last night while going through my briefcase I came across my stack of hockey tickets. Fortunately, I found out that I have a ticket to tonight’s game in time to go. Unfortunately I also found out that I had a ticket to last Thursday’s game and I had no damn idea. Man, what the hell has happened to the organized me? The worst part of this story is that I have no one to blame but myself.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - stupid, but not contagious (it’s a 90’s reference)
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Okkervil River — “Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe”
Website Of The Day - For Stacy (aka Cheese Nips) and other grammarians out there The “Blog” Of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

With Christmas now in the rear-view mirror and the promise of accomplishing my 2007 goals fading it’s time to refocus.

Merry Porkin’ Christmas!
Yesterday I ate enough pork to insult two Jewish families. Oh dear God there was bacon, sausage in an egg/sausage casserole, ham, and I think that there may have been some pork in the beer I drank — okay, there wasn’t but you get the idea.

Speaking of beer, our friend Nancy introduced many of us to this infectious Lego Beer Song

I enjoy it immensely! What can I say, I am a simpleton.

Christmas at Betsy’s was another fantastic success. Betsy, you are to be congratulated for pulling off another incredible Christmas day and I thank you whole-heartily.

ITP Flickr Pic
You would think that with twelve days of dragging out photos from earlier this year I’d have more than enough material to post something today. I do not. I haven’t been taking many photos, and today I brought my camera to work only to realize that I don’t have any way of getting the photos off of the compact flash card. I guess I’ll be making a trip to a store at lunch.

My Local Caribou Is Becoming Extinct
To wrap up my Christmas cheer (and because I correctly predicted that Caribou would be selling their Christmas-packaged coffee cheaply, half off) I made a stop on my way in to work this morning.

What I didn’t expect to see was a sign stating that my local Caribou would be closing permanently next week. The workers were given the option to transfer to another location, but it still makes me sad.

George’s? Perhaps.
I can neither confirm nor deny my plans to visit George’s tonight. To be honest, I had a lot to drink (and eat) yesterday so I should run, but I don’t know if I want the ready presence of alcohol afterwards.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - sad
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The Coral — “Who’s Gonna Find Me” (my guess is no one, or at best not who I wish)
Website Of The Day - Get a new digital camera for Christmas and want to take food photos? Head to Digital Food Photography and check out their tips.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

It’s unlikely that you are reading my blog today, but if you are, thanks! I hope that all of you who are celebrating Christmas today are having a wonderful time. And to those who don’t celebrate Christmas, Happy Tuesday!

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: December

This may not be the best photo that I took in December, but it just seemed right.

As an added bonus today I you are about to see two never-before-seen Christmas photos of yours truly. (the quality kinda sucks because I scanned these in from fairly ancient photos)

(circa early-to-mid 1970s)

(circa early-to-mid 1970s)

Like A Hi-Tech Joust
Sometime life is surreal. Yesterday on my drive home I received a phone call. Amazingly I was able to hear the phone and answer it before it kicked the caller to voicemail. After a minute or two driving down the road I thought that I recognized the car heading toward me as the one owned by the person to which I was talking. As we passed like to cars in the day my suspicion was confirmed. It was really cool and rather surreal.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - good, except that I am sneezy from the cold I am fighting.
Current Music - listening to Christmas music
Website Of The Day - Merry Christmas, it just seemed right.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - N/A
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Talk about a frustrating two-thirds of a weekend (I count Friday night as part of my weekend).

All I Want To Do Is Copy My Data
I am trying to set a good example by backing up my data to external hard drives so that I can take somewhere “safe” in case there is a catastrophic event at my house. The premise seems simple enough

1. Store all important data on a central network-accessible drive
2. Periodically connect a USB hard drive
3. Start a copy of all data (preferably only updated data) to this USB hard drive
4. Take this USB hard drive to “safe harbor”

Unfortunately I keep getting errors mid-way through the copying process and thereby ruining the entire process. I am trying to figure out why this is happening before I have to blog about a loss of data.

Of Course If I Keep Shooting Poorly I Won’t Have Much To Lose
On Saturday night I did my first “professional” photography gig. It was a disaster. The gig was at Eddie’s Attic where David Ryan Harris was performing.

Having never heard of Harris (whose show turned out to be quite enjoyable) I figured that I could show up at the 7pm show and have the run of the room. Nope. The show was sold out and I had to fight my way around the room. Normally I’d not be able to fight for position, but as the “house photographer” I had little concern and moved about the room as best I could.

Even with my ability to get to the sweet spots for shots my shots are frustratingly horrible. Eddie’s Attic is a dark venue so I was counting on my new Nikon D300 and its “excellent performance at higher ISOs” to help me out. As added insurance I also packed my external flash (which I don’t like to use at concerts because I feel that it washes everything out). For most of the night I decided to go without the flash. Because of the dark surroundings I was forced to set my ISO at 1600 (which turned out still not to be good enough) and 3200 (yikes!) — both settings produced far more noise than I like. These high settings were required to avoid camera shake and motion blur even though I was using lenses that could shoot at f/2.8 (28-75mm) and f/1.8 (50mm).

I am going to try and save the evening’s work through post-processing. Getting it “right” in the camera is far more desirable.

Seeing my results I was pleased that I didn’t take Eddie’s Attic up on their offer for free food. I don’t expect to be asked to return for another gig.

On another note about Eddie’s Attic, rumor was flying around that John Mayer was going to be a “unannounced guest” at the late show Saturday night. I thought about sticking around to see, but decided that I didn’t want to. If anyone out there can either confirm or deny this rumor I’d like to know — just to see if I made the proper decision.

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: November

This was the present that Santa brought to me before tonight and was supposed to be my savior for situations like Saturday night. Maybe it’s not the camera’s fault….

You Pays Your Money, You Takes Your Chances
There are benefits to knowing the area in which you are hashing. Strategic maneuvers can be taken to miss parts of the trail thus making hashing easier. There is a flip side to this theory as well, however. Yesterday I experienced both.

The trail started about half of a mile from where I work. Once I saw the direction in which the hares were running I knew a few shortcuts to help me out. My theory proved to be correct as I came upon the beer stop without having to walk through the small tunnel and climb up the ladder which had water pouring over it.

With the confidence of my success I constructed a plan which I though was rock-solid. At the first check after the beer stop I headed for the culvert which led to more drainage pipes (exactly where I would go!) Unfortunately my plan was foiled by the call of “on-on” in the opposite direction. I trotted along paved roads heading toward the “swan lake with the cool little suspension bridge” (also where I would go!) but lost trail along the way. After spotting a creek and what I thought were marks I got into another tunnel which ended quickly but not quickly enough for me to not fall into a section which dropped me chest-deep in cold water. I realized I had made an error and backtracked to the last place I saw flour only to realize that I had the correct creek but the wrong direction. After navigating drainage pipes which took us under Perimeter Mall (!) I exited to find myself in the same goddamn culvert that I started toward earlier. Dangen!

I commend those clever bastard hares for creating a decent Black sheep experience in an urban area and was glad that my mental errors didn’t cause me to be DFL (although I was pretty close).

Remember Kids, “Tattoo” Rhymes With “Fuck You”
Considering me for an Amazing Race partner? You can stop right now. I’d consider shaving my head for the million dollars (really 500k before taxes) but there is no way in hell that I’d get a tattoo. Further I’d be incredibly pissed if I did and then found out that it wasn’t an elimination leg.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - blah, not only am I at work today I thin that I have something working on me. I hope that I am not sick tomorrow. Also I really wanted to take the step-aerobics class today that I was challenged to take so I could show of my former step-aerobics superiority.
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Husker Du — “Never Talking To You Again”
Website Of The Day - The Writers’ Guild of America strike is still happening and some actors have decided to bring it to light with Speechless Without Writers.
Exercise (b)Log - hashing, about 3 miles for me
Monthly Foot Mileage - 23.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

It’s my own fault that I’ve waited so long to get the last couple of Christmas cards that I need to mail. This morning I was expecting Target to open early (7am) during the final push toward Christmas, but my plans were foiled when I drove up and found out that they didn’t open until 8am.

First Place? Ver’ Nice!
What do three people who attended UGA and one person who attended UF have in common? We were all winners last night at Team Trivia. Against all odds we managed to take first place with the final question — beating a team that had gotten every question correct until that point!

I’ll take no credit for getting the final question correct, but I don’t have to; that’s why it’s called team trivia.

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: October

In October I visited Cordele/Vienna for the Big Pig Jig, partied hard on Halloween, and witnessed Georgia’s drought firsthand at Sweetwater Creek State Park.

While driving around southern Georgia I saw this tree standing all alone in the middle of a field. I couldn’t help but stop to photograph it, even though the weather outside was fairly crummy.

Putting Money Where My Ears Are
I have become a huge fan of This American Life (although I wish they wouldn’t recycle so many stories). Rarely am I around a radio when TAL is broadcast so I’ve subscribed to its podcast feed. Yesterday I finally decided to help make sure that TAL is continued to be delivered to my iPod by donating money to the cause. I feel a little better about myself, and will have a nice small tax deduction come next April.

Too Much Online Security
“What?” you say? That’s right, I’m here to say that all of these added layers of “security” that online institutions are adding are nothing more than a hindrance to usage.

I consider myself to be an internet ninja, and if I cannot remember how to log onto my accounts because I have to hop through two or more layers of entering passwords, identifying pictures, or answering “personal” questions then how the hell can the casual internet user?

And for fuck’s sake if I finally get to the point where I am making my payment, the system better fucking work. I’m talking directly to you AT&T!

Maybe This Will Get Some Of You To Comment
What is your favorite adult beverage? More specifically, if you were to into a package store (say Green’s, Tower, or Toco Giant in Atlanta) what is the one thing that you seek out for yourself?

For me? I love beer, but not just any beer mind you. If I was in a part of the country in which New Belgium’s products were available then I’d definitely buy one of there beers. However, I live east of the Mississippi River so that is not an option. Therefore, if I am entering a liquor store for beer then it better be something that I can’t get in my local Kroger; I’ll be looking for something from La Trappe.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - all things considered, fair
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Nirvana — “Negative Creep” (I hope that this describes my weigh in 2008)
Website Of The Day - The Big Pig Jig is very different from Atlanta’s Macy*s (nee Rich’s) Pink Pig — warning sound plays, including a voice with a Southern accent that hasn’t been prevalent in these parts for decades.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 11

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

This morning I was miffed when the Marta driver would re-open the doors for me, then not a minute later another train arrived at the station. Upon getting to Five Points I had to wait for a while for a train, which turned out to be a Doraville train, but was pleased to see that a North Springs train was hot on its tail, scheduled to arrive a minute later.

Oh It Sucks, But It Only Sucks Half As Bad
It’s funny what one misinterpretation can do to one’s taxes. I will not have to declare bankruptcy after all. Okay, it wasn’t that bad but Christmas will be a lot happier for me now.

Superbad Was Actually Pretty Good
With a bit of time to kill I dropped off a television to a friend whose place has recently been robbed. With an offer of a glass of wine, the idea of watching a movie with two attractive women and the most incredible dog ever^*, and the possibility of ordering in a pizza (a way to my heart) what was I to do? Go to George’s to run and then drink beer? Be real….

The movie we watched was Superbad for which I must admit that I had very low expectations. However the fact that one of the “stars” of the movie was Michael Cera (”George Michael” from Arrested Development) made the idea of watching this palatable. I was amazed by how much I enjoyed this flick. Go ahead and put it on your Netflix queue, we’ll wait — and tell them that McLovin sent you.

btw- if you are expecting something along the line of Schindler’s List then you may want to go back to your Netflix queue and remove Superbad.

_{* not really but I don’t want to make anyone feel badly}

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: September

Wow, September feels so long ago. Looking back it was a good month which included trips to Lake Hartwell, Gainesville, and Miami. One of the only blemishes on the month was that damn parking ticket I received at that two-bit school Florida Atlantic University.

Trivial Matters Back-To-Back
As it stands right now I will be returning to Raging Burrito in Decatur for trivia tonight. I don’t know what I will eat tonight, but I may avoid the burritos after last week’s mediocrity.

OTP? I Believe That I May Have Heard About It
I am normally not one to promote the goings-on outside of Atlanta’s precious perimeter, but it’s nearly Christmas so whatthefuck. Check out this music video called “Bumpin’ In The ‘Burbs”

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - relieved
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Sunset Rubdown — “Up On Your Leopard…” (I don’t think they are referencing Apple’s latest operating system)
Website Of The Day - Have you ever wanted to read books by email? If so, check out Daily Lit where they will mail you (or supply RSS feeds) chapters of books for you to read.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - Marta
Monthly Marta Rides - 10

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

My hermit tendencies manifest themselves the most this time of year. I had to participate in a 5pm phone call for work so I didn’t get onto Marta until approximately 6pm. By 6pm things were already cold and dark outside. I arrived home around 7pm; I reheated the last of some leftovers, did a little organizing, wrote out some Christmas cards, surfed the internet, and then dropped off to Slumber Land to dream about sugar plums (yeah that’s right, sugar plums).

Hello, Operator….
First my cell phone cuts out as my good buddy BWanA is calling to gloat about his seat behind the Lightning bench at last night Thrashers’ game (although he did lie about his seat last Friday to someone else…. ;P).

Then at least three times during the early evening I let my land-line ring through to my answering machine only to have the caller hang up without leaving a message. I assume that these callers were marketers or charitable organizations even though my number is in the National “Do Not Call” Registry.

This morning I awoke to find a message on my answering machine from my mother who called about 11:30pm (not unusual for her). I apparently never heard the phone ring and slept through it doing so.

The phone has become a horrible communication tool for me.

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: August

August wasn’t a prolific month of photography for me. This photo of Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull is the best shot that I took that month.

One Of The Drawbacks Of Buying A New Camera
The other night as I attempted to go through the photos taken at Friday night’s Thrashers’ game with my new Nikon D300 I found out something I hadn’t thought about — Apple’s Preview application doesn’t understand the D300’s RAW format yet. I had thought about this before plunking down the money for the camera and the summarily dismissed the concern when Adobe released an update for Lightroom which could handle the D300’s RAW.

Apple’s omission screws with my current digital workflow…

1. Take photos
2. Put CF card into reader and plug into USB
3. View each photo in Preview to weed out the totally crappy ones
4. Copy remaining photos to external drive for archival purposes
5. Import the remaining photos into Lightroom
6. Work on photos in Lightroom, discarding those which “just didn’t work out”
7. Post some to Flickr so that people can admire, or more likely ignore

Without being able to perform the “View each photo in Preview…” step I am forced to import more photos into Lightroom (time consuming), copy more photos to the external drive (more time consumed), and do a double delete of crappy photos (once in Lightroom and once on disk — even more time consumed).

Apple, all I want for Christmas (as of now) is for you to update Preview so that I can have some of my time back. Pleeeeeeaaaaaase!!!

The Spammers Have Won
Even though I spent hours going through and disabling comments on all but the past seven days of blogs the spammers have figured out a way to comment on Wordpress. At first it was all prescription medication spam so I started a black list of medicine names, but now the porn industry has gotten into the act. I just received notification of seven more comments which need moderation, all of which are from spammers. Dammit!

Hey WordPress, blog entries which have their “Allow Comments” flag unchecked should not allow comments! This is a bug and should be fixed no matter what you say.

Errata
Yesterday I mentioned going to download the Radiohead “disc” “In Rainbows.” Apparently Radiohead has decided that the grand “pay what you want to download” experiment was a failure because when I went to the site to buy it I was greeted with a “no longer available for download message.” Pity.

I don’t really fault Radiohead for stopping the downloading but I wonder if this will just encourage free trading of the music now. I have grown increasingly weary of the music industry this year. My disgust is mostly fueled by the RIAA (whose evil motion picture twin the MPAA is equally oppressive) and their abusive relationship with music listeners. I have become so frustrated that I have considered selling my entire music collection on more than on occasion this year; believe it or not, I get so much content through podcasts that I have spent little time listening to my music collection.

George’s? It’s A Possibility
The clothes are packed and the intent is present currently. However, I have an extremely important meeting this afternoon which may take all the wind out of my exercise / socializing sails. If I am there I will be there by 6pm. If I am not there, then Merry Christmas to all of my George’s companions.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - uncertain about my future
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Manchester Orchestra — “Golden Ticket” (great song from a great album)
Website Of The Day - If you have a land-line and haven’t put it on the National “Do Not Call” Registry you really should.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing (it’s been a bad week stretch)
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car
Monthly Marta Rides - 9

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Sadly I have not volunteered to help Santa Claus. Instead one of the tasks I performed last night was to start logging serial numbers for all of my electronics. Yes, crime has gotten so bad in Atlanta that it has come to this. If for some reason I lose my stuff I want to be able to produce serial numbers for everything lost. If I can match a receipt for each item, I know that there will be items for which I have none, that will be even better.

It’s A Wonderful Life (The Movie)
I was stunned to find out that I didn’t own It’s A Wonderful Life (Hey IMDb, keep up the pop-up / pop-under ads and I will stop linking to you!) on DVD. That all changed yesterday with at timely order at Amazon.

While I have yet to embrace the Christmas spirit (and Christmas is seven days away!) I have a desire to watch the classic Frank Capra movie. Maybe watching George Bailey lose it all only to be saved by his friends (oops! SPOILER) might convince me that my life is wonderful as well.

Twelve Days Of ITP Flickr Pics
Each day through Christmas I will be picking my favorite photo for each month of 2007.

Today: July

This was my hardest pick so far. In July I photographed the Peachtree Road Race, went to Seattle and Canada, and celebrated my forty-second birthday. It was a busy month indeed. I chose this picture because I think technically it’s pretty decent, but a large impact is made by the story behind it (which I cannot find a link to currently dammit!)

It’s On “On”
Ha, I bet you thought that this is going to be about hashing. It is not.

Lately, in part due to the writers’ strike and in part because I am not watching my Christmas stories, I have been subscribing to new podcasts. More and more I find myself subscribing to downloadable (that’s not a word, is it?) offerings from On Networks.

My favorite show so far is Stump The Chef where a chef named Matt Weaver is given three ingredients from which he must prepare a meal. Watching Weaver create the dish is good, but the commentary associated with the show borders on absurd and hilarious.

To their credit On Networks has agreed to pick up Beautiful Places TV one of the most stunning HD podcasts that I have seen to date. In each episode the host Tony Farley visits a visually stunning part of the country and films his hike through it (obviously the podcast is edited down to a manageable size to download and watch).

I have a feeling that I will return to On Networks’ site often to keep an eye out for new offerings.

CD Pick Of The Week
I just can’t stop singing “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.” Can you tell which from this list of artists releasing new music today?

• Mary J. Blige
• Chingy
• Rivers Cuomo
• Jaheim
• G-Unit
• Lil’ Wayne

Apparently the Hip-Hop crowd is putting on one last Christmas push.

That being said, I will pick the Rivers Cuomo (front man of Weezer in case you didn’t know) disc out of this motley crew. If Cuomo’s work doesn’t float your boat you could always do what I did and finally get around to buying that Radiohead “disc”. All of the critics are saying that it’s the shit (in a good way) for ‘07.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - okay
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Meat Puppets — “Plateau”
Website Of The Day - Don’t have the time to watch It’s A Wonderful Life? Then you can watch it performed in thirty seconds — by bunnies.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Foot Mileage - 20.1 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - Marta
Monthly Marta Rides - 8

December Goals
1) Run no fewer than 50 miles
2) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]