I wish I’d brought my camera to the office today. Some guy in a long, flowing, metal-studded black trench coat just drove under my window on a Segway. I didn’t know there were Segways in the Matrix.
Controlling the Infestation
AskMefi on cockroach extermination. I’ve been dealing with an infestation problem for the past few weeks now, even after bombing out the roaches’ main breeding grounds under the kitchen table and in the fuse box. They just move to a new spot in the room, and I can only spray Raid and apply Combat Gel so much before the fumes become potentially harmful to my cat — and to me. I’ve told the landlady, and the exterminators have responded with more Combat Gel, but it just hasn’t worked as well as it should.
This Essortment essay on roach extermination has been of great help in controlling the worst of the problem — the tips on water sources and bay leaves are key. As soon as I stopped leaving stagnant water in dishes in the sink, and left a couple of dried bay leaves under the pet dishes, the number of cockroaches crawling around my room lessened significantly. Next step is roach traps, and if those don’t work, I order some Siege Gel.
I really am turning into a priss. Back in Manila, cockroaches the size of cellphones were just par for the course, and I’d make sure to step on one at least once a day. Here, I’ve only had one Cockroach Challenge of Doom in two and a half years.
Sox Resurrection?
Congrats go out to Ortiz and the Red Sox for snatching a win from the Yankees after 12 innings, narrowly avoiding a thourough 4-0 loss. Last night, I was sitting in the cafe car of a train heading home from New Jersey, getting updates from one of the [Bostonian] conductors via his GPRS phone, and there was something unreal about “watching” a game via this distilled stream of names and numbers.
Now all the Sox need to do is win three more in a row. Piece of cake, eh?
Update: And Ortiz does it again. We Yankees fans are thunderstruck, I tell you. But what’s up with Wakefield’s pitching? Or was it Varitek’s catching?
Nighttime: Courthouse Cross and Nemo Window
My last three cameras — Pencam, Communicam, and Zire — had no flash, so I got used to drawing on existing lighting to illuminate my photos. It’s a habit I’ve carried over to the A400: the environment composes light and shadow for me, and I turn off the flash, using it only as filler for unbalanced light or bright backlighting.
An incidental cross pops out at me at Court House Metro station. Left and right arrows on a cross under a courthouse: are you reading the same metaphor into this that I am?
In the building next to my apartment, a light is on and “Finding Nemo” is ready to play, but the only audience is a little girl’s pair of shoes.
Photos taken with a Canon Powershot A400.
Pandora and the Powershot
Thanks in part to a $50 Amazon coupon plus the A9 half-pi instant reward. I treated myself to a Canon Powershot A400 (blue), which arrived this week. Here’s the first photo:
A bit fuzzy, because I had to turn off that pesky orange autofocus assist beam, which was causing the cat to squint. This is my first high-quality digital camera of above 1.3 MP, and it’s a bit overwhelming to have all these features and pixels suddenly at my disposal. More photos soon, as I learn the ropes. Right now I’m flying up to NJ to spend the weekend with Amy and her folks.
You can buy the Canon Powershot A400 (blue) on Amazon. Remember, regular users of A9 (signed in via Amazon) get a discount of half-pi percent.
New Little Garrett Girl
Congrats go out to Jason and Dawn! Though they haven’t updated their weblogs yet, the news is spreading through the grapevine (1,2,3) that a little bundle of joy was brought forth Wednesday, Oct 13th; thus the child shares a birthday with me, Wendy, and Netscape.
Better yet, I’ve checked the calendar for the year 2017, and just like myself in 1989, the young lady will be turning 13 on a Friday the 13th. Quite auspicious.
Update: Update and pictures from Dawn.
Inq7 Talking Points
Some hubbub going on about Filipino news outlet Inq7’s Talking Points “blog.” Heh. That’s not a blog, anymore than a guestbook is a magazine. My underwhelmed reaction is posted as a comment to Sassy Lawyer’s Mislead Us Not entry:
Corporate groupthink seizes on the latest buzzword — “blog” — and attempts to capitalize on it by implementing a half-baked op-ed stream. I couldn’t even get past the kilometric self-congratulating introductory “happy text” before losing interest.
This isn’t the first company to try and co-opt the term “blog” for its own ends. Remember Amazon’s “plog?” (Where is it now?) Inq7 had a great chance to roll out a Mefi-like weblog, to build community and enhance the Inq7 brand. Instead they have what amounts to a static email-submission page with less interactivity than a guestbook; neither compelling nor revolutionary.
More fascinating to me is this new example of the fierce protectiveness webloggers have over terminology and concept. Remember the JesusJournal brouhaha? We feel strongly about this medium and our place in it, and are quick to jump on anyone who gets it wrong. Why is that?
Next time I want lots of attention for a non-weblog project, I’m going to pull a “Talking Points” and call it a “blog.” </silly>
Inq7 tech guy Joey Alarilla defends himself, and Sassy Lawyer has yet more linkage.
Update: You know what? I take it back. Inq7 Talking Points is a regularly updated series of posts in reverse-chronological order. Sure, it only has one “real” contributor who just pastes in emails he receives, and sure, the blog lacks permalinks and commenting, and each entry ends with a word “Links” which only goes to one link, and it starts with a mile-long string of what usability expert Steve Krug calls “happy text” — but still, in the loosest, most magnanimous sense of the word, it is a blog.
Just not a very good one. Sorry.
Netscape at 10
Here I Stand
My foot is down.
It is my firm conviction that salvation from damnation is through Christ and Christ alone, that all are justified freely by the eternal redemption that is given us through Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice, and that if a man confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead, then he is saved. There is one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus, the Christ and Messiah.
This also means that I reject anything which would dilute that mediation and redemption. I reject the veneration of saints and of Mary, I reject a daily-repeated, church-officiated, transubtantiatory sacrifice, and I reject indulgences and purgatory and rosaries and scapulars and apparitions and anything else which burdens pure faith, which negates the “alone” in Christ alone.
In “A Papist Life for Me,” the InternetMonk captures perfectly the reasons that I retain a soft spot in my heart for the Roman Catholic faith, while also detailing the doctrinal issues which keep me from returning to the Romanist fold for the foreseeable future.
Ironically, I find some of my sentiments best expressed by a Catholic saint: Teresa of Avila.
Nada te turbe, Nada te espante;
Todo se pasa; Dios no se muda.
La paciencia todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.
That last line is key: God alone is sufficient.
Additional reading: Challies.com on Marian Devotion, and the Epistle to the Galatians.
Twenty-Eight
I turned 28 today, and I’ve got the love handles and thinning hair to prove it. Five years ago, I was 23, in the Philippines, working 36-hour days in digital video editing, living in a tiny shared room, and wondering what goals I should set for myself. I remember clearly, writing them down:
1999: Within five years, I aim to:
- Move to the US. (How very Filipino!)
- Get a Master’s Degree in something creative and computer-related.
- Get a decent web development job.
- Settle down someplace nice.
Here I am, five years later, and by the grace of God, everything on the list is checked off. Now I guess it’s time to plan for the next five years.
2004: The next five years:
- Homeownership.
- Marriage.
- Build up upper body strength, arrest accumulation of waistline fat, and become paragon of masculine physique.
Yup. I’m going to pray over these goals tonight, then break out the exercise gear.
“For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”