A while back I bought this camera at a thrift store:

When I got it, it had a roll of film inside. Guess what I got processed yesterday, along with the Xmas and travel film?

First image, a man with a pipe.

We see him issuing stern warnings to these travelers (or at least saying, “Have a nice trip!”):

Now on the plane, we’re looking out the window:

There are some other exposures that are recognizable as exposures, but don’t seem worth scanning. And these images have been color corrected out the wazoo… They originally had a red cast.

Anyone out there know any of these people?

We had snow here on Christmas eve. Ten inches in Baytown, which is like saying the eye of a hurricane is over Nebraska.

My sister in law sent me a bunch of pix of Galveston blanketed with snow. I have no idea who took them, but here’s one:

That’s the Gulf of Mexico, folks.

Not to be outdone, some of my nephews pieced together this dude at the Christmas eve get-together:

He’s staying alive in the freezer, living a boy-in-the-bubble existence. Meanwhile, temperatures outside the freezer are in the low 70s now. 74 at the airport earlier this afternoon, a 12-year high. Snow one day, and a few days later, a 12-year high. What they say about Houston is true: If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes.

In the file-it-so-I’ll-see-it-again-later department:

Bojidar Dimitrov’s Pentax K-Mount Page

Amidst all the stress and social overload of the holiday thang, I managed to get a sore throat. And if history is a guide, it’ll turn into a sinus infection.

Anyone have any folk remedies?

Update: Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I spent most of today asleep, and I’ve been sucking on zinc lozenges and drinking lots of water. Working through the emotional aspect is what put me into the peril of contagion to begin with; too many people, too much stimulation, and this after four days of driving.

I love being around my family, the whole huge gang of them, but they wear me out. One of my nephews showed up with his boyfriend, which made me happy, and everyone was cool with it, which also made me happy, and then his boyfriend turns out to be a musician who played piano while we sang carols. He made us sound vaguely professional, so we all sang better, and that’s how I stressed my throat.

Another one of my nephews didn’t show up with his boyfriend, but showed up talking about his boyfriend, and how happy he was to have marched in Houston’s pride parade.

We’re a family of queers now. Har!

I’m going to tell you the tale of my camera.

It’s an Olympus C-5050Z. It cost no small chunk of change. I used it to take most of the pictures people seem to like on this ‘blog. And it had a problem: The CCD is freaking out in total darkness (an important fact when you’re taking long exposures), and there’s a line of pixels that show up blue in every shot.

So I was thinking: I should send this thing in for warranty work. I remembered that the warranty would run out at the end of January, so I was going to put it off until after this Xmas trip.

But! Then I looked at the receipt, and I’d have to have it worked on by December 31st! So I sent it off to Olympus (Mons) in order to get the work done. I figured I’d be OK, because either the camera would get back before I left, or I could have them ship the fixed camera to Texas where I could take happy digital pictures of my happy non-digital family. Reasonable plan, right?

Wrong. They fixed it without telling me and shipped it back to me in Seattle, even though I had specified that they contact me before shipping. It was going to get to me two days after I left. In fact, their letter stating that they had fixed it came before the camera got there.

So to solve this dilemma, I enlisted the aid of my aforementioned friend (xprophet) who did me a huge favor and remailed the thing when it got to Seattle.

It came today in the mail, here in Texas. I opened it with glee! Yay! My fixed camera! First things first: Put in a memory card, set the exposure to full manual, crank it to 16 seconds, and take a RAW format image to see if they replaced the CCD… Take the card out, hook it to the laptop, pull it in, view it… THEY DIDN’T FIX SHIT.

That’s not exactly true. They replaced the LCD. Not the CCD, but the LCD. This according to the shipping order. They got my name wrong, too. The LCD! They replaced the LCD! Which wasn’t broken.

Now, I realize it’s Xmastime, so maybe they’re in a hurry or something, but this is gross incompetence. I gave them very detailed instructions in how to reproduce the problem, and they totally blew it off. I bet they didn’t even replace the LCD, and they just remailed it back to me.

Now I have to wait until Monday before I can yell at them. And by then it’ll be the 28th, and I’ll have four days to get the camera to them before they claim the thing’s out of warranty.

Olympus gets zero more business from me.

Everyone’s blogging about Christmas, so I’ll get in on the act.

Having traveled across a goodly chunk of the continent, listening to some AM talk radio here and there, I have to say I’m completely impressed with the incessant whining from religious reactionaries. They complain that Christmas is in danger of being eradicated from American culture. Their evidence? The widespread use of the more generic term ‘Happy Holidays.’

Well, you know what? There are a lot of different holidays being celebrated right now, and saying ‘happy holidays’ is a lot easier than listing them all. It’s a courtesy. It’s a recognition that you might not be celebrating Christmas. But these radio talking mouths and the callers they’ve riled up went on and on about how this is a Christian nation, and how the whole season is completely, 100% about Christmas, and how everyone in the nation should be Christian, and so on and so forth. The most ridiculous part was when they said that businesses should say ‘Merry Christmas’ because… get this… It’s *Christmas* that makes them all their money at this time of the year.

So if I’m hearing them right (and I am), the commercialization of Christmas is acceptable, and even desirable in that it justifies their whining with cold hard cash, while religious tolerance isn’t acceptable. They’re complaining about secularization, but what they’re really complaining about is other religions’ claims to the sanctity of solistice time.

And it would be laughably funny if these jerks didn’t just win an election by creating a wedge issue out of gays’ civil rights.

So no, Christmas is not in danger. The fact that this discussion is happening means it isn’t. What’s in danger is religious tolerance, one of the foundational principles of this nation.

There has always been a winter solstice, at least in human terms. And as long as people have been keeping track of the seasons, there has been a recognition of the winter solstice. And as long as there has been religion, that recognition of winter solstice has taken on religious overtones. Christ is not the reason for the season. However, he’s the reason many Christians celebrate the season.

So happy Sol Invictus, you whining Christians out there! It’s time for you to celebrate the end of the darkness, the return of the sun, the lengthening of days, even if you do it in the context of the story of Jesus Christ. I’m glad you have your religious beliefs, even if you’d begrudge me mine.

I’ve been traveling hard. There was sun through Oregon and Idaho, and in Colorado I saw a bald eagle and stayed in a motel where the ski bums were waiting for the slopes to open in Steamboat.

Then, as I crossed the border between Colorado and Kansas, I realized this was the last I’d see of the sun. The dense overcast and foreshadowing of snow would be with me all the way to the gulf coast. South into Oklahoma and the snow started for real. At least they know how to deal with that kind of weather in Oklahoma… Driving over the thin layer of ice that covered Dallas was like riding the bumper cars with teenagers who think they’re immortal. I had the experience of a tanker truck next to me in the left lane tailgating a car. It’s spitting up the gravel placed on the ice in futile hopes of making traction happen. I glance over at it, and see the diamond marker on the tank, the one with an icon that looks like something burning. A typical moment from the Dallas interstate, and from life: People think the rules of physics don’t apply to them, and that makes it OK to put everyone in danger.

After that, a relatively easy drive down through the piney woods. No more ice. No traffic to speak of in Houston at 11pm. Park in front of my parents’ house, wander in, and spend a bunch of time trying to hold a conversation and stay conscious at the same time.

So I made it to Houston. I’ve got some things to ‘blog about, but I’ll do that later. Just a heads-up to anyone who might be worried.

Also, go give some props to xprophet, who’s an excellent friend.

As in childbirth, the last few pushes are the hardest. Which is why I’m sitting here avoiding making the last few fone calls and doing the last few things that need to be done before I step out the door and into the car and off toward the eastern horizon.

My days and nights are mostly reversed, so it’s frustrating to say you’re going to leave on Saturday, but then leave Saturday night, which is actually Saturday morning for me. I’m going to end up driving all night, maybe as far as Pendleton, OR, or up into the Blue Mountains. This will end up being an excercise called ‘Western States By Night, or Why The #&@% Aren’t There Any 24-Hour Gas Stations In This Town?’

In other news, I sent my digital camera in for warranty work, because the warranty expires on Dec. 31. I told them over the phone, and in the paperwork, to return the camera to Texas, where I’d be. But naturally they’re shipping it to WA. It’s en route right now. My camera is in Redmond at the moment, a mere half-hour drive from here, but where I can’t possibly get to it.

This illustrates one of the problems of being hyper-literal. On the form, where it says ‘Address,’ that should mean the address of the owner of the camera. Shouldn’t it? If it’s the shipping address, it should say ‘Shipping Address.’ Right? Anybody with me on this?

I HATE ANIMATED BANNER ADS

I will not click on the mosquito. I will not shoot the guy shooting me. I will not pop Santa’s zit (who the hell came up with that one?). I do not want a free iPod.

I can understand why Xanga would do this, but it’s unacceptable.

I am autistic. I am completely distracted by animated banner ads, especially ones with erratic unpredictable motion like the ones we’ve had here on Xanga recently. I completely lose my train of thought. I’ve complained in the long-ago past (before Xanga was carrying these ads) because the same company had an ad that said, ‘Shoot the terrorist, get an iPod,’ featuring a guy in fatigues and a little mouse-controlled crosshair. In fact, here it is:

So not only are these banner ads distracting, they’re offensive. I haven’t seen the ‘shoot a terrorist one’ lately, but that doesn’t mean it won’t pop up again. And it also doesn’t mean a more offensive one won’t be produced later. I have seen one where some guy’s shooting at me, and I have to shoot him for my prize. I don’t want to be connected to anything that promotes itself by handing out prizes for shooting people, and I don’t want to be connected with animated banner ads.

I have a paid-up membership. I shouldn’t be seeing ads anyway, and neither should my readers.