Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Take One Photo Every Day for a Year
January 13, 2009

I wasn’t coerced into taking a picture every day for a year. Actually, I kind of started doing it on the sly, without being asked, fully expectant to give it up after a week or so. Instead, I find it strangely rewarding to see the photos go online, and to see what my interests really are, even if finding photos to take on some days is work.

Other people’s photos look wonderful to me. Some people just do great photography. I think my photo-taking, when it doesn’t include portraits of the light post I ignored or the poor lighting, reflects myself in the same way that my writing reflects myself. By this, I don’t just mean that my subjects are what is me, but more than that – the underlying selection of subjects as a whole shows what kind of person I am.

Why Can't It?
January 10, 2009

My writing queue is a mile long, and a year overdue. I’ve got ideas aplenty, a paradox of choice, and an imagined readership (not in its quantity, but its consistency) that demands perfection.

I’ve just noticed, moments ago, that the blogs I most enjoy reading these days are short. Three paragraphs convey their entire message. Most of the time, the message is a simple impression. You read it and you feel… a certain way. It’s like sense memory – a whiff of a stranger’s prose puts you in a familiar place.

Feedback on Your Service
January 07, 2009

It will probably seem hypocritical to most people to mention this, but I really dislike the way that some companies handle customer service. Not that they provide no customer service, or that they don’t do it well, but that they try way too hard. I’ll provide a couple of examples.

I was out with the family recently for a lunch trip to Red Robin. Red Robin has unusually tasty hamburgers (they’re a 3/3 on the Burger Scale) and the service is always pretty good. It’s generally a good trip if you can ignore the price tag. I don’t really worry about service there. You know that thing that waiters do after they serve your food; when they come back and ask you if everything’s ok only when your mouth is full? That happened to us, but it wasn’t the waitress.

Photos Anyone?
January 02, 2009

Berta got me a home portrait studio kit for Christmas, and now I’m being drawn into the world of “professional” photography. I don’t really aspire to taking photo portraits for money, but I have frequently talked about not blowing $200 on studio photos that I then have to pay them for reprints of because WalMart won’t let me make copies of their copyrighted work. I digress.

I set up the studio in the basement. There are a few lights and two nice backdrops with a frame to hold them. What I’m lacking though, is a tripod. And that’s where my adventure starts.

Kids Menu
December 22, 2008

As you might be aware, we have two kids. We also occasionally like to eat out at restaurants. Inevitably this ends up with an order of macaroni and cheese ordered from the kids menu. Abby is starting to order some more interesting things these days, but that’s really not the point of what I’m writing here. What I’m interested in are the menus themselves.

Depending on the restaurant, you get a varying quality of children’s menu. Some places simply have the menu as a box tucked into a corner of the adult menu, but the interesting ones are full-color activity booklets that come with a pack of crayons. I find these activity books interesting, and themselves widely varying.