We're all looking for better weather around here.

"127 Hours" was pretty good. It strikes me that if you're going to pursue risky hobbies that can land you in the sort of situation depicted, it probably helps to be totally self-centered. It just may be that thinking that you're more important than anyone, and anything, else in the universe is a great survival tactic. Gotta admire the guy's determination and self-control, that's for sure.

Helped friends move today. Lots of fun, but I suspect there'll be a price to pay tomorrow.

And another thing...what's this fascination with matching one's prints to how they looked on the monitor? As if the monitor is the final judge? What were all those poor printing people doing during the days of film, when there weren't any monitors to match? Oh! Wait! They made test prints and adjusted things until they got a print they liked. Note that last word - "liked". Make some tests, evaluate them, then pick the settings that produced the most pleasing print. How hard is that?

Obviously, making "test prints" on a monitor is a lot cheaper than wasting paper, but, really...does anyone think really that the monitor matches the reality of the scene photographed? Why should it match what the printer puts out? The monitor might help you get close to what you want, but, after that, you're on your own. Get used to it.

We used to get knuckleheads like that all the time at the photo-finishing counter. "That's not the colour that the purdy pink flower was!" Really? Golly, that's a surprise. The purdy pink flower contained one set of light-absorbing pigments, the paper upon which its photograph was printed contained another. And, of course, the light sources hitting each were very, very different. Do ya think they're gonna look different? Not to mention the extreme unreliability of memory.

Gees, am I being cranky enough?

So, why do people care so much about "archival quality" (or, here in the digital age, "archival storage")? This is pretty much totally mystifying to me. After all, I'm not archival. Why would I care about whether or not my photographs are? I've got - give or take - 30 years left to live. Will I be looking up, down, sideways from somewhere after I'm dead, saying, "Golly, I don't look so good, but look at that print!"? I don't think so.

I've never been a fan of Apple and Steve Jobs. First of all, they lie constantly. "Macs just work. They're intuitive!". No, they're not. Neither are PCs, but PC makers have never claimed they were. "They're immune to viruses!". No, they're not. Anyone familiar with disease dynamics can tell you why there are no (few) Mac viruses. Jobs is a control freak who won't let anything past the Apple gateway unless it makes him money (try running a Flash animation). Which brings me to my newest reason to despise Jobs and his company. He'll do anything to get more, even set up a partnership with the most malignant influence in America today, Rupert Murdoch.

"Homage with Tire Tracks".

Meanwhile, it's far too cold here in the Pacific Southwest.

O.K., I'll admit I've been living in denial. Fall. It's been fine (-ish) so far. Never too cold, not really too much rain. It'll just go on like this till May, right? When spring will? Winter? What's that? Well, today I got the reminder. Woke up at some ungodly hour, saw the "snow-glow" of light through the curtains, and realized my mistake. It's interesting, isn't it, that snow on the ground creates an unmistakable glow, even through drawn curtains?

Snow? It's going to snow over the weekend? But, but, but........

Not that I'm not a fan of snow. Really. It's just that I think snow has it's place, and that place is high on multiple mountain tops, not down here on my street.

Just another day on the Wet Coast. Although, not today.

Anybody using Lightroom? Any thoughts on it?

Two weeks to go till freedom's bells ring out. Well, for me, anyway. More or less. The last half of this term has kept me busier than I've been in a long time. I like my job, but it really has a lot in common with stand-up comedy. If you're not writing up your act, you're delivering it. In two-hour blocks, with a ten minute intermission in each, two or three shows a day. Not bad if the audience is with you, but, if they're not? Hell on Earth. And for every five minutes of "act", there's four or five hours of research and writing. And this term, for the second half, I've picked up an extra course. I'm beat, I tell ya.

Stand back!

Went to see "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" today (instead of working on a lecture on Entamoeba histolytica and dysentery - can you believe it?). Heck of a good movie. Heck of a good trilogy, really.

Just killing time while waiting for the bakery to open.

Must be "Botany Week".

Some days it's nice to have a greenhouse to escape to for a few minutes.

Ohhhh, waking up tomorrow morning is going to be very depressing. On the up side, though, once the American dollar hits par with the peso, Hawaiian vacations are going to be crazy cheap.