trivial pursuits

so it appears that tv guide is most definitely transitioning into the “special double issue” mode --read: soon it will be the case that they won’t be publishing weekly editions. i can’t help but feel cheated on the horoscope front. it wouldn’t be that bad if they ran two horoscopes pages per issue, one for each week. as it is, they just give you one page, one set of horoscopes that is meant to cover the whole of the two week period. and it’s not even like the horoscopes are longer or more detailed than they were before. i’m currently at the half-point in my double issue week and the focus (according to them) is to watch out for getting caught up with trivial things and/or people. word.

“The sun in your sign will inspire you to try something new, but you should make sure whatever you choose is worthwhile. If you allow yourself to be distracted by trivial things, or trivial people (again: word), you’ll waste time you can never get back.”

i might have done well to have read this yesterday before i went all spazz-tastic and became highly distracted by my not being able to control how the cable box is currently (not) functioning and then engaging in yet another seemingly pointless go round with the external drive. i clearly am not going to outsmart, outplay or control either of these items/situations short of sending the products back to their makers and requesting replacements.

so yeah. distractions. trivial pursuits and people and things. to think i'll have another week of this. as for newness? i started reading books and watching tutorials on html, css, xhtml and action script last week so that counts as something new. it's not "new" in the way that taking up skydiving, camping, fishing, or karate might be new (at least for me) but it's new in ways that matter most to me--meaning it's something new that i can still do while remaining at home, working in my upstairs study and/or while sitting on the couch.

external woes

i'm definitely not loving the new external hard drive. in fact, it's back in its box now--it needed a time out. i've had good luck with simpletech externals before so maybe it's more specifically a problem with simpletech drives in blue casings (yuck). had it been gray or black or leopard, i think we would have gotten along much better. it was reformatted (a process that appeared to go successfully) but now it's telling me that it's parameters aren't right. i can't find a help file for that on their site. hmmm. problem is, i hate returning things--especially things purchased online. what's more, i hate waiting for replacements.

everything's better with leopard

still plant sitting. this one didn't look so great--thought being in closer proximity to some leopard might give it a second wind. or not.

the new external drive arrived today as did the advanced flash/action scripting tutorials. i'm hoping the new drive will help me organize the video projects and related files more efficiently. i wanted to wait to do drafts of the philosophy and materials components until it arrived but i wasn't that patient. i think i've transferred everything it needs to have if i want to go in and alter things there. while waiting for the ups person to arrive, i dug out my mom's old 35 mm camera and began reacquainting myself with how the lenses attach/detach. i think i'd like to get away from the digital shooting for awhile. besides, i think i took way better pics with that than with the cameras i have now. catch is that i'll need to get out and get some film, new batteries, etc. it will be odd not being able to have/see immediate results though.

i had a great conversation with tm last night--remembering late night donut runs (from illinois) to iowa, trying to remember the places we ate (or got take out from) all those years ago.

now i guess it's time for a little action scripting.

speaking of last week

i'm calling this one "keychain in the kitchen." the only reason why i even thought about taking the shot was that i realized that when you say "keychain" and "kitchen" they can sound more or less the same. if, for instance, kitchens were smaller and the kind of thing one might carry around one's purse or pocket, it would take a few minutes, i think, to decide whether someone has asked, "have you seen my keychain?" or "have you seen my kitchen?"

the perks of plant sitting

seriously. i almost threw up while taking this series. and then once again while i was downloading them, resizing them for the web, uploading them here. i have nothing against butterflies, per se (i.e., unlike, say, fences), but i realized today that when one gets this close, they really are like big bugs with wings. . .

turns out my horoscope was pretty much spot-on for last week. it predicted that i would have a lazy week and warned me against engaging in any "activities that might drain [my] energy." i would have written last week about how right this forecast was but. . .well, like they predicted, i was having a lazy week. the good news is that they said that after the 23rd "there will be no holding you back." that's great news and all but i'd have loved a heads-up about the butterfly queasiness.

test

on prescriptions

i spent most of day trying to learn premiere pro. it will be odd indeed to work with something besides windows movie maker. a kinda frustrating day so i made sure to take breaks--i worked through still more ideas for the video portfolio, added another page to the photography section of the website, and when things got really frustrating, i allowed myself to take a few more photos. as i'm looking to alter my palette a bit--i'd like to get away from the oranges, browns and yellows-- i'm most attracted to the idea of photographing whites. not yet ready for primary colors. i am also drawn to the idea of creating photographs as collage. not collaging with photos but creating photos of/as collages.

and. . .given the way i'm going about learning premiere it seemed appropriate to think about and/or try to work with the notion of prescribing, of prescriptions.

still trying to rock the fence?

so i'm thinking i went about my first fence shoot in the wrong way. i tried to take a picture of a fence when i really should have been thinking in terms of fence-as-backdrop. but here's what i don't get. both of these pics were taken within seconds of each other, neither have been artistically filtered, both were shot through the screen (as i rarely leave the house these days) but the colors here are really different. i think i used different focus settings for each (my meta doesn't track this i don't think) but i'm wondering if the difference in color has simply to do with the slight variation in camera angle and the way the sun factors in as a result. hmmm.

for the week of july 9

I’ve been following the horoscopes that appear in the TV Guide and the Chicago Sun-Times for. . .well, for as long as I can remember. The only birthday ritual I’ve ever maintained has been to check the “if today is your birthday” year-long forecasting feature in the Sun-Times. As an aside: They have been eerily on the mark. And I don’t mean in that overly vague horoscopy way. I remember the year I went on the market the horoscope said that I would meet a new mentor in October and begin exploring new job opportunities in November and December.

When I lived in Champaign the listings in the TV Guide never seemed to match up with what came on in my area, so it seemed pointless to subscribe just for the back page. Instead, I’d check my horoscope while waiting in line at the grocery store. I’d try to make it a point of waiting till the end of a week to check my horoscope to see if they had been right.

My TV Guide horoscope for this past week (their weeks end on Sunday) read as follows: “Forget about sure things this week. Dare to be different and dare to move your life in a brand new direction. Never will there be a better time to reinvent yourself. Never will there be a better time to make your mark. Make it big.”

Hmmm. It was a pretty productive, high energy week. One night I stayed up working on ideas for a new portion of my website till 2 or 3 in the morning and I guess that was pretty different for someone who is usually in bed by 8:30 or 9:00. Having a kitchen table that I can actually sit at now also makes things different. I gotta say that I also spent a lot of time daring to be frustrated as I’m in the process of learning CS2 and Premiere Pro 2. I'm not sure that it's especially daring or different but I decided, today in fact, that my next project will be to create an online portfolio that will feature a series of 3-5 minute videos instead of tons and tons of word docs or pdfs.

I don’t know that my life, generally speaking, moved in a new direction but thanks to Corey the things I photograph and the way I think about photographing things did change. They were kind of reinvented as was my website, my facebook and myspace pages, etc. I also worked pretty hard this week reinventing my relationship with a digital camera that I’ve always hated—that never seemed to work in the ways I’ve wanted it to. So maybe this week's horoscope was not one of those "eerily on the mark" forecasts as was the one some years ago that said that an insurance claim would be settled that week.

elvis food

it's finally here! call it my iPhone. heard about this awhile ago and couldn't wait to get one of my very own. just in time for the 30th anniversary too.

floating basil

"floating basil 4"












"floating basil 2"

not rocking the fence

when i woke this morning, i promised myself that if i were to spend the day taking more pictures i would stretch myself, so to speak, and focus on something i would not normally take photos of. fences naturally came to mind as i am not really a fan of fences. three not-so-good fence photos later, convinced that i had met the day's challenge, i switched back to taking photos of the kind of things i spent most of yesterday on. (NOTE: had the fence at the end of my street not been white but wood-colored instead, i might have kept with the fence theme a bit longer.)










as it was, i switched back to things that
contain glass and/or that used to be made
of glass but are now usually made of plastic.










after i was finished photographing
sunglasses (and my hand) i switched
to regular glasses










and this was my favorite of that series

my final picks for the glass round:

"beads"











"more beads"

got leopard?

"glass"








"glass and tassle"

ipod and moody

"not an entry for the
glass competition"










"not an entry for the
glass competition 2"

today's challenge: photographing glass

"blue glass"












"beads 3"











"brown glass"









"glasses"

to be (still more) fair. . .this round's winning entries are:

"web with water"









"weed with water"

(titles by me, photos by corey z.)

to be fair. . .

and in hopes of giving you incentive to play,
i'll give you the first round since i had to
go out this am and manufacture my own dew.
i am titling this one "(artificially) wet green
tomato with air conditioning unit as background."

still life smack down?

hey corey--this is my official entry for the competition
that i'm calling "still life with a Peanuts character."
i am titling my entry "sleeping lucy #4."

summer fun

the new kitchen table finally arrived.
yeah! and this one wasn't damaged.