A friend telephoned the other day. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Watching Dr. Who reruns," I said, "and eating popcorn. I don't know why but, somehow, I watch nothing but British TV now, Oh, and, this popcorn is really, really stale even though I just got it."
"I was with a British man once," she told me, "Did you know that they aren't usually circumcised?"
"I've heard something about that," I told her, "I think only here in America do we get all sort of 'cut happy' when it comes to our infant boys. In Europe, they only do it if you're Jewish or some such thing."
"It was really weird seeing the little top hat on it," she told me, "like it was all covered up under a hood or something. I couldn't get used to it. I kept just staring at it wondering...watching it, waiting for it to pop out. I kept wanting to ask the guy 'so, are you going to take his little coat off or am I supposed to peel it or something?' It was really weird, like I just couldn't get my head around it..."
"That was a poor choice of words," I replied, "a very, very poor choice of words...."
And, to think, the popcorn's still stale. Pffft.
Until next time...
I've been extra busy recently and haven't had time to blog. Thought I'd blog off a quick one to let you know what's been happening.
I created my first blurb book yesterday (actually, quite technically, maybe literally, today, since it was uploaded just about midnight Central Standard Time.) It's called Drive and it's a small (soon to be expanded) collection of images shot while driving. It's my "drive by" now high and dry and, well, I guess, blurbed for all to enjoy.
Steve is turning 40. Gosh, I feel old.
I have some dirty jokes to share, but I'm not going to tarnish this nice image with some of that. Be on the lookout for another gargoyle, or some such thing, if you are one of those "dirty minded" folks (and you know who you are :~)
I saw a new (well, new to me) episode of Top Gear. It was funny but then, you probably already knew that. A few kind folks (and you know who you are) have taken to sending me bit torrent downloads of the new episodes but I haven't had time to watch. I'm been up to my elbows, and points higher, in broken electronic equipment, missed deadlines, and photo crap that I just so need to do. Maybe soon I'll catch up. Don't worry-The Stig still makes me all giggly.
I'm going to get a new computer. The Mussolini hard drive is killing me. The laptop is burning me. I'm surrounded by tons of broken equipment and I just can't take it anymore. Even the cell phone has started to konk out and, with all the broken crap piling up, I just can't handle another broken electronic device or even one more dead battery. (Hide me.) I'm going to splurg, spoil myself, and get a new iMac. Wish me luck. I'll have to fend off all the ipod 3G angry mobs just to do it too.
I'm going to try to attend the Austin Pond Society tour this weekend. It's an annual event celebrating water gardens in and around Austin. Yes, I plan on bringing my camera with me. (Silly, that's the whole point.) Look for color infrared shots of that stuff once I take them. (Hey, you heard it first.)
No word on the Polaroid film. It's supposed to be here by now. I'm getting worried.
Chase is still curly-he badly needs a shave.
I'm sure I've forgotten something but this should tide you over. Oh yeah, speaking of "tides," it hasn't rained in so long, I've forgotten what water looks like. It's only wet in my.....and me without my gargoyle.
Until next time...
This is a shot I uploaded today in honor of the last season of Hell's Kitchen. For those who didn't catch it, the girl from Missouri won (nice job, chica!) Maybe, now that he has some free time on his hands, the cursing chef could cook me up a new hard drive. Eh, nevermind that, the last time I tried to eat computer equipment I found it to be way too crunchy-the metal bits gets stuck in your teeth and all. Not a good idea, if you ask me but, hey, maybe if he put a sprig of parsley on there, what with him being some kind of royal five star chef and all, he could cook it up a bit tastier. Gigabyte, anyone?
In other, less British news (why, oh why are such great Dr. Who re-runs wasted on an odd lot of folks who drive on the wrong side of the road and couldn't tell a time machine apart from a wild free roaming sheep?) Kathy has made it back from Kansas, I've been busy doing lots of odd crap and I soon to have a new blogging friend to tell you about. Yes, it's true snowflakes, I've corrupted, I mean, um "converted" (yeah, that's it) anotehr of my friends over to the entire "flickr, blogger, I so need a life but here are my glorious megapixels anyway" existance known to the rest of the free world as "public blogging." (Not to be confused with "public flogging" which is, as you know, is not nearly as fun, though a bit less painfull from what I've been told.)
I'll put a link to the new website, photoblog, dark hovel of her inner mind once she gets going and feels more comfortable sharing in her site. In the meantime, I'm busy trying to help as best I can while printing, uploading, writing, and doing all of that while praying my hard drive lasts another day. Is that the sun I see rising? Crap, the vampire in me must rest now.
Until next time...
This morning, I was all set to sit down and write you a kickin', killer, hilarious post (well, ok, maybe it wasn't really all that funny but, hey, I can pretend, right? Besides, I was all out of words starting with the letter "k") about some such thing or another, when I turned on my computer and it started making that expensive knocking sound.
Something that cars, computers, Carol's, and a few other devices starting with the letter "c" have in common is that they should never knock. No, snowflakes, cars, computers, and the like should never knock, crack, creek, crackle, or make any kind of odd noises at all. Nope, not allowed. We're not having any. Don't you dare. Speaking as a former world dictator, now living in my own little world, I have declared that such devices, should they happen to make any kind of noise at all, shall make only happy "zoom zoom" noises. Absolutely no knocking of any kind is permitted. Maybe, just maybe, if you ask really nicely, we'll permit something like a "vroom vroom" noise but only on a Friday and only when I'm in a good mood (actually, come to think of it, when am I not in a good mood on Friday?) Nevermind that, I have declared, when I come to power, my computer will immediately stop making that horrible, yet expensive, knocking noise and, so help me, I'll kill it if it even thinks about spreading it to the car.
So, there I sat, all helpless, convinced that the hard drive, the main hard drive on my main computer-the "brains" behind Carol's Little World, if you will-was about to blow. Not only was it about to blow, it was going to go down and take about 200 gigabytes of photos with it-all of New Orleans, all the field trips, all of Italy-it was all about to blow. Vaporize into the great "Carol Blue Yonder" a place previously reserved only for bad Christmas photos, tons of shots of Chase out-of-focus, a close up of my nose from when I was too drunk to point the camera 'round the right way, and the like.
At this point, instead of writing my blog post, with the sound of my unhappy hard drive grinding in the background, I started frantically backing up my data.
I'm happy (or maybe not) to say that I think I got most (if not all) of it to "higher ground" as it were. But now I'm stuck with the horrible hard drive, literally grinding away, wondering what the heck to do with it. I mean, come on, what could my hard drive possibly have against Italy and how, praytell, am I going to get out of this one?
I've taken to calling it a Mussolini drive and wondering what to do about it. I had been thinking about getting a new computer but, like most folks, was going to fend this thought off until either I could afford it or I absolutely couldn't live without one. And now, I'm unhappy to say, it looks like "plan b" is staring me in the face.
Oh the humanity! If I don't blog for a while, well, hate to say it, but it's probably because I can't, not for lack of trying. Wish me luck fending off the iphone mobs breaking into the Apple store.
Until next, maybe long, time...
I hope that everybody had a happy and safe 4th of July/holiday weekend, ate more than their fair share of BBQ, and had a cold beer over this long weekend. For my non-US friends, this weekend was the 4th of July holiday weekend in the US and it allowed most (if not all) of us to enjoy Friday away from work. The 4th is a summer holiday where we celebrate our independence, light fireworks, enjoy summer music, relax, unwind, and all of that. I got to do a little kicking back, as well as a lot of sleeping which was much needed, believe me. For the first time in quite a while, I don't feel "tired" or under the grind. I'm actually a bit more relaxed than usual, but not for lack of exciting current events.
For starters, KathyV returned from Kansas this week (Thursday, I think it was) and emailed me to inform me that, in some royal "screw up" at the film factory (yes, I said FILM factory!) Polaroid "mysteriously found" 4000 boxes of completely manipulatable Time Zero/SX70 film. If you act now, and I do mean NOW snowflakes (NOW as it, quit reading this and head over the Freestyle already, NOW, not "now" as in when you get a round to it now) you too can order some fresh manipulatable Time Zero film. But, in the spirit of all things fleeting, you must GO and I mean GO NOW, since they are down to about 600 boxes left, about 15 less since I spoke with them last actually. For those mathematically challenged readers out there (and you know who you are) yes, that does mean that I have ordered and will hopefully be receiving 15 boxes of manipulatable Polaroid Time Zero film. If I weren't so well-rested (and knew how to dance, actually,) I'd jump up and do some kind of a jig.
In other, perhaps slightly less (but only slightly less!) exciting news, this image was accepted into a national juried exhibition to be held in New Orleans at the end of the month. In seriously "crazy but hey, it's me so you should come to expect all of that and nothing less" news, I'm actually thinking about going to one of my gallery shows and spending a long weekend in NOLA to celebrate, visit the gallery, enjoy the booze at the opening, and all of that goodness and light. Yes, you read it here first, I'm seriously thinking about going all NOLA on you.
Polaroid film, manipulations, NOLA, God, it's like 2005 pre-Katrina around here. If it weren't for the White Sands photos and the complete lack of songs by The Killers on the radio, I'd completely swear I was stuck in some kind of a happy time warp and it was still middle of the decade or something. (Nice to meet you, Mr. Brightside!)
Until next time...
In the days after the end of the war, HalBot grew so despondent he contemplated suicide. He would wander around the grounds of the formerly top secret missile launch site aimlessly, closing himself off from the rest of the world, remaining tightly sealed. He never opened his top to enjoy the fresh summer air anymore, ignoring completely the idle chatter from random satellites that would fly overhead. He grew increasingly depressed and on the verge of suicide when he discovered that our budget had been cut yet again. We actually once caught him trying to roll off a cliff.
The catchy phrase, "Don't jump! Don't jump!" became our new battlecry, until one of our former nuclear scientists pointed out that HalBot did not, in fact, have legs and actually had wheels, which we had previously (and very cleverly) substituted for feet. Wheels instead of feet dictated that it was, in fact, impossible for him to jump off of anything at all, let alone a cliff.
Accepting our newfound circumstance, our motto became, "Don't roll! Don't roll!"
Alas, we don't know for certain what is to become of our once loyal HalBot, but we can say for sure that, unable to roll any closer to his impending doom, he's been left to rust in a parking lot of the outskirts of town.
Such is the way of the bombmaker....
There's this song that's been playing on the radio a lot, and I do mean a lot lately. It's called "Apologize" and I absolutely love it. I love the song, I love the band who recorded the song (they are called "One Republic" for the curious) and I absolutely can't get enough of the whole entire package. Now, most of you who have heard that song probably loathe it due to the fact that it became extremely popular and subsequently overplayed on popular radio stations across the country. I get that, I really do. It seems like nowadays, nobody wants to admit to liking the popular. Anything that becomes popular, instantly recognizable in fact, risks being labeled a "sell out" and we all hate sell outs. Or, even worse, if it's a popular song, it gets played to death on conventional radio stations. It's like we get beat about the head with the popular so often we've all grown to collectively hate it so much. Everybody wants the cult, the clan, the inside joke, nobody wants to be mainstream anymore.
There's something about the popular, everybody's always trying to be slightly different, everybody wants to be unique. We've become a culture, a socity of the "not me, I'm slightly off" for better or worse, and that leaves the popular, the pedestrian, the normal out in the lurch. Nobody knows what to do with it anymore. It's like a giant pig on the front lawn and we don't even have enough lipstick for it anymore (to use a "popular" analogy.)
Ok, so shoot me. I sometimes like things that are popular. I love that One Republic song, I get excited every time it comes on the radio (still) and I listen to it like it's going out of style (it is, actually.) I wear "normal" jeans a lot and I've seen Cats. I liked Die Hard and I prefer pasta to polenta. I sometimes take expected photography. I've seen The Stones in concert. I enjoy paintings and plays that everybody else does. What's so wrong about that? I mean, it had to get popular somehow, right? Why can't I contribute too? Do we have to start hating things just because everybody else started liking them?
In the spirit of all things popular, this is perhaps one of the most photographed statues in Santa Fe. Why is it so photographed? It's not that it's anything special (well, actually, I do like it. It's pretty. And, pretty isn't always all bad, is it?) It's just that, well, something you might not notice from the start is how convenient it is. This figure is actually located in the dorm rooms at the Santa Fe Phootographer's Workshops, and that, more than anything else, makes it very, very, very popular to photograph. (Very popular, I tell you.) Take a million photographers, all with gear, sitting waiting on a cab, and the law of averages dictates that they will turn their cameras to anything in the immediate vicinity that's even slightly photogenic. And that, more than anything else, makes this figure very, very popular. Does that make her bad somehow? Do we not like her anymore, simply because she was there? Is it suddenly uncool to even appreciate her, just because so many photographers have had a go at her? I can't say that for sure, but I can say I did photograph her when I had the chance-she was there and I thought she was pretty with the afternoon light on her, so I did it too. It's a great statue and I'm not sorry i took a photograph of it too. In fact, I rather like mine, I'm fond of the pretty light and I'm glad that statue was there for me to photograph. It's a beautiful statue actually. If it moved, I tell you, she'd be suddenly hip once again.
Until next time...
