Journal entries for February, 2006

It amazes me that the White Stripes are so popular. Jack White's lyrics are interesting and his voice is kind of cool, but Meg White is terrible at the drums. She sounds like your average ninth grader playing Eye Of The Tiger in band class, and yet she's in a famous band playing sold-out arenas to worldwide acclaim. When you've only got two instruments in the band, I'd think it'd be even less acceptable to have one of them suck a lot. Apparently not, though. Weird. That's good news for all the aspiring ninth-graders who just got their first drumset though — you've already got all the qualifications necessary to be a rock star. Now you just need to find a quirky guy in weird clothes, marry him, and claim to be brother and sister. Cover of Rolling Stone, here you come!

Michael David Murphy has a good solution to the problem of missed photographic opportunities. His descriptions are eloquent and beautiful, and you can reallyvisualize what he saw. I wonder if it would seem derivative if I started doing the same when I see something I'd love to photograph but can't. I think it would, but I might do it anyway.

Yesterday at the Girl Scouts meeting, Natalia and her friend Anna Sofia were "Junior Aides" — they were in charge of teaching a class of Brownies about Girl Scouts around the world. One of the things they had to do was teach them a song or story from a different country, and a few days earlier she asked if I knew any. I told her that actually I did — there was a song about a bunny we learned in Japanese class called 'Usagi Usagi.' I agreed to come to the meeting and teach the girls the song, and Natalia brought a picture book I brought her from Japan that had pictures of bunnies in it. Mami came to help out, and she took some pictures while I taught them the song.

The kids picked up the song pretty fast, especially considering they're like six years old. They didn't really get the melody right, but it's difficult since it uses a scale that is uncommon in Western music. I remember my Japanese class practicing the song over and over before we got it down, so the fact that six-year-olds learned it at all is quite impressive. It was also very cute to see these tiny little kids singing about bunnies hopping.

Ever since I first got into Dream Theater back in 1992, I've longed for them to play a concert in Puerto Rico. I remember writing a letter to the band when I was 14 begging them to come down. Finally last night they granted my wish. I guess maybe my letter fell victim to Puerto Rico's notoriosly slow postal service.

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Almost every day as I'm going about my day I see settings and situations that appeal to me, and I'd love to stop and take a photo. Often it's just a shared expression between strangers or a chance alignment of unrelated objects, and since I'm usually in my car at the time, it goes unrecorded.

But occasionally I'll see something that I really want to capture, and I'm not in a hurry so I could easily stop to take it, but it's in an area I don't trust. Partly I'm concerned for my wellbeing of course, but it's mostly the expense of my equipment that tends to make me wary of wandering around in such places, which means that I end up missing lots of shots I'd have loved to get.

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For my birthday, I would like someone to obtain Björk and Allison Hannigan and make them both be my girlfriends, please. Thank you.

While I was waiting for my connection at the Atlanta airport on my way home from Clemson, I tried a veggie burger at Burger King and it was surprisingly good. I got excited, because the Burger King on my way to work is open until 4am, so this could finally offer me an option other than the damned Veggie Max at Subway. Puerto Rico doesn't usually get the transient, temporary menu items at most fast food restaurants, but the veggie burger has been around in the US for quite a while now, so I was hopeful that they'd have it by now. So today on my way into work I stopped by Burger King to see if they had it.

"Can I take your order?"
"Hey, I was wondering if you guys have the veggie burger."
"...The Angus Beef Burger?"
"No, the Veggie Burger. They have it in the States."
"Um... The Jumbo Burger?"
"No. It's a veggie burger. It's made of soy and has no meat."
"Oh! Like a free burger¹?"
"What? No. A veggie burger. I'm guessing you don't have it."
"Um... I don't think so. Do you want an Angus Burger?"
"No, that's OK. Thanks."

Alas. Looks like I'll have to stick to the Veggie Max if I don't feel like bringing something from home.

¹ He said 'gratis', which means free as in no cost, not like 'fat free'. Spanish doesn't have the same 'free as in beer, free as in speech' ambiguity that English does. I'm not sure why he thought I was asking for a free burger, but maybe I should have run with it.

I got back from Clemson a few hours ago. I took two days off from work and flew up for Meg's birthday, and Andrés drove down from Orangeburg where he's interning. As expected, it was a really fun weekend. I've just finished posting all the digital photos I took, but I actually used the Holga much more than the digital camera, and I've still got five rolls and two sheets of film to develop. Those will be posted over the coming days.

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Today I shot and developed my first large format photo. It's not a terribly interesting image — just a shot of the backyard — but I was pretty sure the film was ruined, so I didn't want to put too much effort into it. Surprisingly, it's actually quite decent.

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Back around the beginning of January, I was at the local photo lab/camera store, and I asked if they had any used large format cameras. They actually had several, although most were in the $3-4000 range. One, however, was an old Graphlex Crown Graphic, which was closer to my price range. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for (this camera was designed for newspapermen back in the '40s, so it's oriented more towards being used quickly rather than creatively), but they only wanted $300 for it, whereas the one I really want, a Shen-Hao, would cost around $1000 to get started with. The Crown Graphic had a cracked ground glass (the viewing screen you use to focus the image), which costs about $50 to replace, but they said they'd include that in the price. Still, in the end I decided I wasn't ready to spend even $300, so I put it from my mind.

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When I was a kid I used to watch Chip 'n' Dale, Rescue Rangers religiously. It was on at 5pm, and I was mad when the bus ride home from school took too long and I didn't make it back in time to watch the show.

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An interesting description of the wasp Ampulex compressa, who has evolved the ability to perform brain surgery to subjugate cochroaches, turning them into docile zombies that it can then lead back to its nest and use as hosts for its babies. Reading this set me thinking about the evolution/ID argument, and I was going to go into that here, but then I see that just such a discussion sprung up in the comments of that blog, so I figure it's kind of unnecessary.

Last night I was driving to work when I felt something on my right index finger. I tried to brush it off with my thumb, but it didn't immediately come off. I could feel it moving around, so I realized it must be some sort of insect. I started to do one of those reflexive limb shakes you do when you realize there's an insect crawling on you. The quick motion must have frightened it, though, and I felt a sting. As I realized my visitor was in fact something hostile like a bee or a wasp, my shake evolved into flailing my hand around in a combination of panic and pain.

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