Cold Nights Spent Indoors
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…
- Take photos
- Put CF card into reader and plug into USB
- View each photo in Preview to weed out the totally crappy ones
- Copy remaining photos to external drive for archival purposes
- Import the remaining photos into Lightroom
- Work on photos in Lightroom, discarding those which “just didn’t work out”
- 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]
I saw at Criminal the other day that In Rainbows will be available on cd sometime in January (1/1/08?). Perhaps that’s why they pulled the downloadable version?
I know they have an $80 “boxed set” available now, and that a normal physical release will be available soon. However, why stop the download service? Downloading is the future of music sales (whether the music industry wants to believe it or not)
I was hoping to make it to George’s tonight for a run also. “Running” on my own has not produced the results I want…I’m spending too much time walking. Instead I will be having drinks with co-workers, the same people I already don’t want to spend 8 hours a day with…I might be at George’s later, I’m sure I’ll need a drink by the time I’m done.
I think I might be ready to drink again…I’ve had nothing since about 3 on Sunday. I think all the booze from the weekend is finally out of my system.
I think charities are actually exempt from the “Do Not Call” list. Although very few reputable organizations still do cold-call telephone solicitation anymore, since the return is usually pretty low. Generally, if a good organization is calling you, it’s because you’ve already expressed interest in them in one way or another.
You are right non-profits are exempt. I still wish that they wouldn’t call though.