Photolog Folly

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When I first started my photolog in July of 2002, I had a Ten Years of My Life kind of strategy in mind, limiting myself to just one photo a day. I’m not sure why, but I got it into my head to simply use a modified Movabletype template date tag to call the images, so all I would really have to do was post a caption and upload an image with the filename format “YYYYMMDD.jpg” or something, and that’s what would come out, without needing to type out a filename.

Bad move.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my archives, and now, rebuilding the old photolog entries one by one, I have a directory full of cryptically numbered images staring at me in the face, none of the filenames telling me anything about their content. I’m renaming them as I upload them, but this is going to be a long, slow process, during which I face a difficult abstinence from taking any more artsy photos to keep the photolog backlog to a minimum.

Use descriptive filenames, my child, or else take better care of your archives than I did. Your photolog will thank you for it.

background-repeat

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Add to the list of CSS syntax bits I never knew about because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the documentation: the background-repeat property. I knew about the repeat and no-repeat values, but repeat-x and repeat-y are new to me, and should be quite useful for making Faux Columns and other image-backgrounded layouts without needing ridiculuously wide background images.

“Blood, I’m Afraid.”

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The Slacktivist has some excellent running commentary on Left Behind and its implications for Christianity and faith with its pulp treatment of eschatology, doctrine, and fiction. It’s not just bad writing or rapture-obsessed dispensational premillenialism that’s the issue here: there’s something wrong with LaHaye and Jenkins’ characters, the manner in which they conduct themselves, the manner in which the fictional world behaves around them, which betrays a worldview which is, at best, barely Christian. Of special note: mention of Captain Findiesen (that notorious American Airlines pilot who used the cabin PA to point out “crazy” Christians, and the only reporter on board the plane who got the story right); “don’t look in first class”; “his fully loaded 747 on autopilot”; miracles, exploding warheads, Russia, Ethiopia, and implausibility.

Glorious Appearing is out, and you can read the first chapter. Better hurry, before the sequel and the prequel come out. Myself, I’ll stick to my copy of Right Behind.

On Unitarian Ground

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Saturday night, Amy and I watched La Fenice play early baroque music — that’s the best kind of music — at Baltimore First Unitarian. Wonderful polyphonies from Monteverdi, Rossi, and others, all played on authentic instruments like the cornetto and the viola da gamba.

Various religious icons and a Last Supper mosaicIt was also our first time inside a Unitarian church. We nosed about a bit during the intermission, noting the multiple icons for various religious traditions — Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism — flanking the Christian cross below a huge “Last Supper” mosaic behind the altar, the humanistic “creeds” on the walls listing the brotherhood of man above the leadership (not Lordship) of Jesus, the rainbow banner hanging from the balcony pipe organ, and the “sanitized” lyrics in the hymnbook — where anything that was too worshipful of Christ, or too brimming with religious conviction, was replaced with something praising peace, fellowship, and a more ambiguous, less offensive Divinity. Unitarian hymnal(For example, this particular hymnal’s version of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has Stanzas 2 and 3 rewritten. Amy lamented the lack of any mention of Ebenezers. Ironically, the song’s own writer fell in with Unitarians later on in life, though it’s not confirmed that he became one himself.)

Sunday was the historic March for the Right to Kill Children, so I steered clear of The Mall after church and did little domestic things: groceries, laundry, vacuuming, strategizing a new photolog, that sort of thing.

Station Lighting

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One of many globe lamps lining the walls of the Baltimore Penn Station concourse.

Photo taken with a Palm Zire 71.

Meat

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“They’re made out of meat.”

Remember: if we ever meet extraterrestrials, they may turn out to be weirder than anything we carbon-based meat units could ever imagine. I have no idea what kind of aliens are talking here, but I like to think that they’re Blue Hooloovoos.

Speaking of which, John Malkovich will have a role in the upcoming HHGTTG film, as “Humma Kavula.” There’s no such character in the book, though; apparently the late Douglas Adams penned a screenplay which is significantly different from the book in many ways.

Zire Straits

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I’ve had a Palm Zire 71 for over a year now, and it’s been a decent multiple-use handheld. In addition to the standard Palm OS features, it also includes a digital camera and music capability, both of which function acceptably. The camera, though not drop-dead exquisite, produces good enough photos for 0.3MP; while music playback, though quite soft on the default MP3 player, can be ramped up with PTunes or AeroPlayer.

Anyway, after a year with the Zire 71, I noticed that the last batch of photos — the cherry blossoms — was looking rather hazy in places, and a close look at the handheld’s camera revealed the problem: a miniature dust bunny (or perhaps pocket lint) had gotten between the glass window and the camera lens. That’s what was causing the hazy diffusion.

At this point, I’m well past warranty, so PalmOne’s official Zire 71 repairs will set me back at least $125 — which I estimate to be about the resale value of this handheld in its current condition. Another riskier option, but also much more fun, is to take the unit apart and clean it myself: an exciting, no-holds-barred, all-or-nothing gambit.

So what’s a handheld user to do? Get it repaired at exorbitant rates, sell it as “slightly defective” for a dusty camera lens, or disassemble it? (The last option is the most tempting, I must say.) In any case, if I get rid of the Zire 71, I may opt to settle for an older, cheaper handheld for the time being, just for simplicity’s sake. (Well, in truth, to tide me over till a decent smartphone falls within my price range.)

Update: Also posted to AxMe.

CVS Brats

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About 9am this morning: four boys, early teeners, Hispanic-looking, wait outside CVS Dupont Circle, sitting on the rails near the entrance. When you exit the store, one of them will come up to you with a $5 bill and ask you, “Excuse me, sir, can you go back and buy me a patch, I can’t go in there, and I really need it,” then, as you splutter for some kind of meaningful response, his three cohort brats from the sidelines will start laughing — pretty forced, throaty, kiddy cartoony laughs, actually — at your discomfiture. They will keep laughing at you from there even as you walk away in annoyance, and they will try to make sure that their high-pitched, broken-voiced kid laughs carry as far as possible down P St.

Well, I guess it’s a bit more savvy than rocks.