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I started cutting my own hair this past weekend and did a touch-up today as I realized the spots I missed.  A seasoned autosartorial maintenance wiz told me that doing a blind shave followed by a mirror-assisted second run is what separated the men from the boys.  Next time I’ll try.  For now, I’m collecting the shavings into a cardboard box as I don’t want to muss up my dad’s bathroom floor.  The box is full of magic wrappers from opening stuff for the latest set and is now interspersed with a few strata of clippings.   Normally, I reseal the box but failed to and left it in the master bedroom.

Heard in the Robinson household at about 7:00 PM.

My Dad: Terry, what the hell have you and your friends been doing?

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I started cutting my own hair this past weekend and did a touch-up today as I realized the spots I missed.  A seasoned autosartorial maintenance wiz told me that doing a blind shave followed by a mirror-assisted second run is what separated the men from the boys.  Next time I’ll try.  For now, I’m collecting the shavings into a cardboard box as I don’t want to muss up my dad’s bathroom floor.  The box is full of magic wrappers from opening stuff for the latest set and is now interspersed with a few strata of clippings.   Normally, I reseal the box but failed to and left it in the master bedroom.

Heard in the Robinson household at about 7:00 PM.

My Dad: Terry, what the hell have you and your friends been doing?

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My flavored coffee servings arrived and I was bathed in boxes of Caramel French Vanilla, Winter Mountain Blueberry, and Fairtrade Dark Roasted Hazelnut and took my fare share of jokes for it.  Most people thought I didn’t drink coffee, I don’t as I’m hesitant to put “Dutch Mochachino” in the coffee category.  The calibration guys where in and they’re usually somewhat rough around the edges guy.  One walked by my desk and picked up a “Dutch Chocolate” cup when I interrupted him:

Me: Yes, I actually drink it.
Him: Hm… I always considered you a Swiss Raspberry person.
Me: Dirka?
Him: Yeah, Gloria Jeans makes some wonderful small batch flavored coffees this time of year.

I came back to my desk after lunch and he wrote the sites of two discount coffee vendors that’ll give you a discount if you’re a “business”.  These coffee people are everywhere, I wonder if I can shave another 10% off the price if I learn their secret handshake.

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January 20, 2010-39-Macro

It may look like a piece of foam board but that’s a gem mint Zendikar card pulled from the pack.  I received a macro adapter that’s lens-mount on one side and threaded on the other so I don’t have to man-hand my arrangement.  That’s with a reverse mount 30mm lens at f/16.  The wider the lens the more powerful the macro effect so as the focal distance increases the objects focus further away.  Also:

January 20, 2010-54-Macro

I thought that the bottom was grainy until I zoomed in and saw that it was actually the reflection off of the gorilla pod I was using as a stand for the camera.  I tightened up my light stand, got a light table that someone was throwing out and used it to help even out the illumination.  I still think a mirror may be a better base, I need to try.

The other photos in the set showcase the changes in Magic’s printing pattern.  It’s interesting to see that there are actual areas of true whtle compared to the speckled white of most white cards.  Below the face from A-6th edition Wrath of God.

January 20, 2010-43-Macro

I tried slapping a zoom lens in reverse mount for more control but the zoom effect was much less as one picks a longer lens.  For instance below is a pen at 250mm.

January 23, 2010-6-macro

Much less imposing but with a depth of field thicker than a pubic hair.

Next gratuitous shot type: Coin

January 23, 2010-26-macro

Rest of stuff:

[flickr album=72157623141180019 num=10 size=Thumbnail]

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My firm’s been cleaning house so my lunch breaks have been spent picking through the debris of industry for useful tidbits and today I got a quality paper box to hold my stuff.  While I was picking through things the janitor came by to add to the pile and as I stood there in my coat outside he grabbed my sturdy box and put it in the pile.  I lunged to grab it and prevent him from taking it but failed to properly state my sentiment:

“No, mi caja.”

I was a bit tired and thing I slurred “caja” into “casa”, so instead of saying, “no, my box”, I said “no, my house” which explained the puzzled look I got.

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A coworker of mine seemed very agitated about something so I asked if something was amiss.  He said he had a colonoscopy the next day and he was worried.  Normally, I’d be fine with this response, except that this person has spent days interviewing people with questions like “so, how about your feces?” and “have you found any changes in rectal tenderness.”  He’s had his hand so far into animal colons that he nearly lost jewelry and I’m pretty sure he can identify the ilium, jejunum and duodenum by texture.  I saw him air his trepidation a few times and snapped:

Me: Really?  You know enough about the inner workings of the human colon that you could probably do the procedure yourself and probably design the tools to do it too.  It’ll be 1/10th as painful and there’s an anesthesiologist present who could probably down a bull elephant in 10 seconds.  You’ll be fine.  Man up and take it in the pooper.

“

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My mother purchased a new computer and having setup a pile of new computers I laid down some ground rules to do the setup:

  1. She’d need to put all her documents in one folder.
  2. She’d need to state ahead of time if there were any odd applications to move.
  3. She’d need to provide dinner as it’d take an hour to remove crapware and install Office.

I unboxed the new PC after moving her My Documents folder to a thumb drive, and my mother popped a pizza in the oven.  I connected the new computer and booted, went through the initial setup and arrived at the desktop… which was pristine.  I occupied myself by removing the Lenovo backup agent and installed Office but was otherwise done in 10 minutes or so.  With the expectation that I’d be there for another hour I needed to do something that generated some computery noises so in installed Snood and reminded myself of how uncoordinated I’ve become.  Between that and Spider Solitaire I killed enough time to justify the Red Baron pepperoni followed by victory cocktail weenies wrapped in croissant roles.  My mother’s very happy with the speed and moreso with the fact that power button is on top.

If these are the benefits of IBM’s PC division being in Chinese hands, I really hope Dell and Westinghouse go overseas soon.

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The Boy Scouts of America along with DK books are running an IP land grab photo competition.  I’m skeptical of photo competitions as many are just IP grabs as this one is in that all participants give the BSA a powerful license to do anything with the entries.  I found this while checking the terms and conditions and also found this on how the rating of the photos will go:

Click to Bigify

Click to Bigify

I may submit something, and when I ask what my score was, point out that they didn’t rank my photo based on the full 125% of the contest.  The Supply Division person I contacted found this quite funny and in that I called 20 minutes before they closed, we just chit-chatted about her visits to Philadelphia.  I’m skeptical of the supply divisions math skills, but they employ polite people.

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My failures with Spanish are well documented.  Today I had a spectacular burst of competence and was able to convey an idea clearly:

Me: Señor, hay un problema.
Housekeeping: ¿Qué es?
Me: Creo que hay un problema con el orinal.
Housekeeping: Hm… ¿Puede ser más específico?
Me: Sí, hay agua en el suelo. Creo que el drenaje se rompió.

Translated into English:
Me: There is a problem.
Housekeeping: What is it?
Me: I believe there’s  a problem with the urinal.
Housekeeping: Can you be more specific?
Me: Yes, there’s water on the floor.  I think the drain’s broke.

Order food? Nope.  Describe my vacation? Nope.  Talk about pop culture? Nope. Describe  in what matter a toilet fixture is broken?  Hell yes.

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One of my coworkers also has the same type of coffee machine as myself and informed me that he’s a member of a group that retrofits single-use cups to be… not as single use.  Apparently by buying a certain size brass mesh and doing some creative home welding one can reuse the cups from three to the near mythic level of one gifted modder who claims to have hit 10,000 uses.  This despite the fact that 10k uses would be seven cups a day for four years.  This method also ignores the fact that grounds can be used only so many times and re-filling the grounds would be functionally identical to simply buying an air or French press.

But, as my firing approaches, this economy is appealing.  I’ve filled my own ink cartridges, performed my own dentistry, purchased near over-ripe fruit, and made my own dextrose from corn starch.  I also take pride that in each generation there are those that throw off the shackles of oppressive consumerism for a slightly different form of DIY oppressive consumerism.  I consider both the American way.