Saturday, July 2, 2011

If this is formatted wrong, it's because I hate trackpads

The post! The post! The merry old post! The Saturday post is here!

Sorry for last week's hiatus. I spent last weekend doing things like attending an engagement party, and photographing a wedding. It was a fantastic ceremony, and quite enjoyable, considering I was technically working. I shot the wedding with a friend, and she's got a lovely image from that day over at her blog. I'll post a couple after we've given the shots back to the bride and groom. As long as we're on the subject, here's a little piece of advice to any future brides, grooms, and people who might have a say in a wedding: please, please, PLEASE make sure your locations are well-lit. The better lit the area, the better your photos will be. It helps, anyway.

Now wouldn't you know, I have another wedding to go to today. Not a moment to lose, then, have we? To the post!!!

(And if you like this silly image, click for more Judgemental Bookseller Ostrich.)

-   Canada turned 144 yesterday. Lucky for us, we had some hoity-toity British royals here to mark the occasion. By all accounts (ok, the ones I've seen) Wills and Kate aren't doing so bad. And did you see Kate's hat? It looked kind of reasonable. Someone on the royal staff is going to have to do something about that. If the hat isn't drawing enough attention, something is wrong. We're looking at you, Beatrice, to step up and show the Duchess what's what.

-   Do you feel like a nice dose of nostalgia? Find some old photographs, and find the location that was originally photographed. Once you're ready, take a picture with the old photo positioned where the original would have been taken. Don't get it? Check out Dear Photograph instead. (Side note: I miss my old house.)

-   Google+ debuted this week. Snore. The best it got was this little comic from xkcd.

-   Next time you want to dis someone, or call them a sissy, take a cue from some famous authors and really let the other person have it. The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History. Some samples:

28. Friedrich Nietzsche on Dante Alighieri
“A hyena that wrote poetry on tombs.”

21. Lord Byron on John Keats (1820)
“Here are Johnny Keats’ piss-a-bed poetry, and three novels by God knows whom… No more Keats, I entreat: flay him alive; if some of you don’t I must skin him myself: there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin.”

3. Virginia Woolf on James Joyce
“[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”

Be more constructive with your feedback.

-   Movie news: The Three Musketeers gets a new trailer. Start planning your Halloween costumes accordingly.


I originally thought Logan Lerman was an insipid casting choice for D'Artagnan. Something about him just screams douche nozzle. The trailer hasn't convinced me otherwise. This is going to make me look back fondly on Chris O'Donnell's turn as the fourth musketeer, and I never thought that would happen. Otherwise... It can't be more of a mess than Transformers, right? (Whoa... 38% for Transformers 3? that's way better than I expected.)

Also, there are airships. Steampunk swashbuckling? Sure, I'll check it out.

-   I idolized REM and Nirvana when I was growing up. As a teen or a university student (I got to rock music kinda late), I felt a weird sense of pride at reading about how Nirvana killed hair metal, or about REM conquering the world, as if I had anything to do about it. But these were some of my musical heroes, and it meant something to me that the ones I admired were apparently lauded by others, instead of being lumped in with the group of perfectly listenable but otherwise unremarkable artists. I've since broadened my musical tastes, but these guys are among the touchstones.

-   Can you recognize famous film posters if they're reduced to blocks and circles? Iconic posters get deconstructed at Film the Blanks.

-   The Oxford Comma (aka the serial comma) has been dropped by the University of Oxford. I cannot, will not, and shall not comply.

-   This is cool if you've ever wanted to read faster. It seems that most of us read at a rate of 200 words per minute, because that's as fast as we can read a passage out loud. When we read to ourselves, we use an inner voice that goes at the same speed. Well, we can read faster than that. All we have to do is suppress that inner voice. That's where Spreeder comes in. It makes words flash on screen one at a time at rates that double or triple your normal speed. Try it out for yourself, and adjust the settings after you've pressed "Spreed." How does 300 wpm feel? What about 1000?

-   Song of the Week:
This is also a really cool performance, live on the Letterman show, in black and white, sort of reminiscent of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, but... heavier. And with a bit more hair. And facial hair. Foo Fighters (remember them from their ridiculous riders?), performing their latest single, Walk.



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That's all for this week. I'm off to that wedding I mentioned, only this time I'll be a guest. It should be fun. Have a great weekend!

1 comment:

mel said...

haha nice plea. outdoor weddings for all!
thanks for the link too, and have fun at the wedding today.

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