Watch all the cameras in Houston as the storm approaches. I have to admit it — I’m freaked out.
On Monday I was walking out of the courthouse after inquiring about my defensive driving situation. That would be the situation where I’d rather just pay the fine than take the class. I decided I’d still try to comply after evaluating the costs. There was a guy in camouflage eying my every step as I was crossing Houston Avenue. I adjusted my path but he countered with by adjusting his. Foiled! When our paths crossed we both stopped and he looked me square in the eye and said, ”Have you thought about giving some time to your country?” I felt like telling him that I was too busy giving them tax money. Instead, I told him I was 36 years old and I’d done terrible on the AZVAB test. That’s some free test they trick you into taking when you’re a high school senior. I wish I’d realized this test was designed so that any moron could pass it before I spent the time to take it. It was like sending out an invitation for the armed forces to harass me all summer long before I started college. For some reason they thought I’d be attracted to the idea of joining the Army band for whatever reason. The band? Are you kidding? I wanted to join The Black Ops and kill people with a sniper rifle while hiding in abandoned houses. YEAH!!!!!1 I never managed to share that bit of information. Instead, I began answering my phone pretending to be an old lady named Phyllis. They eventually stopped calling.
On the train listening to Bill Hicks and the next stop is 11th Street Station (also called Market East). We just stopped at Temple University and a few of the beautiful babies just stepped about. This one girl to my right, for example, has a copy of Little Women on her lap. She’s really glad that she did something. I can’t hear that much. Crap, my stop is next. Gotta pack up.
Now it’s Thursday morning and I’m on the R5 heading to Ft. Washington while listening to Chemical Brothers. My laptop is plugged into an outlet on the train! It took me awhile to discover them since there are only two outlets on each car near the middle under seats that have no window. You get to see the back of everyone’s head from this vantage point. It’s hard to pick out the beautiful babies when you can only see their ponytail. Is anyone getting my Swingers reference when I use the term The Beautiful Babies? Perhaps I should throw in a ”Vegas, baby!” and a ”You’re so money!” for good measure.
When I got home yesterday I cleaned my dog’s ears as the vet had found something irritated when Chew was there last weekend. I then mulled over going out to Nocturne night club. I’ve been very lazy about going out with no wing man since it seems to be twice as hard to meet people that way (for me). Instead, I worked on a redesign of MarkShields.com and updated all of my phpBB boards to the latest version of the software. I have to decide if I need more moderators for my Real World Key West site which has spawned off the Real World Austin site. My Real World Philly site, in contrast, is completely dead. My RW Austin people are so dedicated — it’s awesome.
I’ve been getting into the habit of always having my Canon Digital Rebel with me so I can take photos whenever necessary. I always shoot in Manual mode and, since I don’t carry my light meter with me, I tend to use the Automatic mode only so I can get an idea of where I should be setting the f-stop and exposure time. You can shoot images in RAW format which saves all image data thus allowing you to adjust everything with software later on. I need to carry a white balance card with me. You take a picture of this card before you start shooting so you can correctly adjust the white balance in the editor later on. In other words, the card has a square that IS white, and you can use that to adjust everything else so that the colors adjust to account for what is white. It sounds racist, but I swear it’s not.
