just wondering

Just wondering how many of you, after reading that last post tried to google yourselves...
Or me for that matter.
Oh, and (mynamehere).com isn't me. There must to a few of us out here...

welcome stranger, come here often?

So the other day a friend of mine wrote me a quick email voicing her shock at the fact that someone who she had never heard of, an anonymous housewife from Nebraska (or some such place) had posted a comment on her blog, saying how much she had enjoyed the family photos that my friend had posted a link to. My friend was a little concerned that this stranger had been reading her blog, her journal, her personal thoughts.
Now, aside from the question of why my friend would post things on the internet that she didn't actually want anyone to read, it seemed to illustrate very well the strange nature of the internet. This ability to interact very intimately with complete strangers anonymously. Sort of.
There are what? A billion people online? And there are countless ways for those people to contribute to this online world. Weblogs (like this one), Photo blogs, personal websites, company websites, joining discussion groups, even selling their attic-dwelling refuse on ebay. So how would anything that you do ever be noticed in the sea of digitus out there? But that's the thing, everything I write here, or post of my photo blog, or anytime my photos are posted somewhere else, there's a record just a google away.
Or forget google, post your opinion somewhere where the lonely and internet obsessed (that would be me) will see it and suddenly 1,000,000 people will drop in and visit and listen to what you have to say, reveal how stupid/brilliant/boring/cool you are, and then promptly forget about you. Only to track you down again 6 months later to follow up on your brilliance/stupidity/coolness/lameness. And it's all only a google away.
I just read an interesting little piece in Wired where a journalist tracked down the guy who originally made up the "hi I'm Bill Gates and I'll pay you $1,000 to forward this email to 1,000 people" email. Some guy, at a university computer lab in 1997 jots down a few lines as a joke for a friend and unleashes an internet typhoon that is still going today. And, of course, it's pretty easy to track him down, and call him up, and ask him: "what the hell were you thinking?"
So I guess we should all be careful what we put up there. Or decide how anonymous you really want to be.

CBC Radio 3 | Music and Modern Media

Got an email from a friend of mine just a moment ago. She's a photojournalist and she's now back in Iraq to cover the transfer of power back to the Iraqis in the coming weeks. There is a story about her and her experience in Iraq here. Just click on "Farah's War". She's an amazing photographer and her work has a wonderful intimacy about it. Very moving stuff, in a very simple way. Enjoy.
You can also find her website (and more beautiful photos) here. Just mind the non-intuitive flash navigation, it gets a little annoying...

My writing, rated for evilness.

So, I may not have written much lately, but I have sent my past few posts here to have them rated on the "germatriculator", a truly creepy site where you can have text analyzed and rated on a "good/evil" scale. The Bible, apparently, rates a perfect 100% good. My post from May 5th rates a respectable 95%. What that tells you, I have no idea.

potatoes from heaven

So forget photos, I just remembered something better.
Today as I was strolling up to work, hoping that there was food left for me, I looked down and saw a potato. Just sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Not really sure what to make of a lone potato sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, I continued on my way, watching out for more orphan produce. And sure enough, a few steps further on, I found another one. Wanting to make sure I wasn't about to be featured on some sort of Israeli hidden camera show, I looked around to try and find the source of the alien spuds.
Up ahead of me I noticed a woman walking quickly up the street pulling a small shopping basket behind her. Dragging behind the basket was a bag of potatoes, and in the bag of potatoes was a large hole, thorough which many potatoes were escaping. I grabbed the potato off the sidewalk in front of me and ran after the woman, snatching up the fleeing vegetables as I went. By the time I caught up with her I had four potatoes, an onion and, strangely, a bag of frozen chicken. She had stopped in front of an apartment building and had just noticed the gaping hole in her shopping bag when I walked up, her dinner in hand.
I imagined that I would be welcomed as a hero, dashing grocery rescuer that I was. But she seeming quite flustered, looking only at the food that I held in my hands. I could see now that she was carrying a baby in a sling over her shoulder and while the child smiled warmly at me, she merely thanked me twice ("toda....toda raba.") as I dropped the food into her basket before she turned and disappeared inside, never lifting her eyes from the groceries.
Was rather odd really.

the new look

Oh yes. Well, you see there were these fancy new themes that the fancy new blogger was offering and I just couldn't resist a little colour change. I'm not sure if it is well liked yet, but give it time, it may grow on us. Or it may get changed...
So I was all excited to write something new tonight, but now I fee like I can't be bothered. And it's late. And I'm tired. And I just barely made it up for lunch today as I slept till 12:30. And I also just found out that the footage that we spent all of yesterday trying to shoot looks kind of...crappy, and will have to be re-shot. Yahoo.
On the upside, I continue to meet crazy and cool media fiends who are all into teaming up on fantabulous projects in the future. So that's fun. Er, I think I'll go to bed now. If I may. And perhaps pen a little something tomorrow. Something about photos maybe.

3:57am

After reading this one I almost died. If you don't find any of these funny, umm....maybe it's just because it's almost 4am. And all kinds of things are funny at 4am that aren't normally funny. like this. for instance.

Things I do at 3:45am instead or working.

I find things like this and laugh until I can't breathe. Or this. Or especially this.

back to the night shift

So I'm back to working the night shift. Which means I stumble out of bed just in time for a sprint thought the shower and bleary-eyed walk up to work before they stop serving lunch. But it's nice. I get more done during the night when no one is around to distract me and as a bonus people think I'm tough when I leave the office at 4:30am. I have no idea how that works, but somehow people believe it.
And when you walk home just as the sky is starting to brighten, you get to see a whole different side of your neighbourhood. Like the guy I saw the other day who ran past me shirtless and shoeless in those awesome 1980's look-at-me-I'm-running-a-marathon shorts while holding onto the leash of a giant collie-shaped toupee that was dragging him down the hill.
I caught up with him again just before I got to my house. He was standing in the middle of the smelly cat alley, arms outstretched, in the middle of some serious aerobics.
The dog, on the other hand, was sitting in the middle of the smelly cat alley staring at his aerobisizing owner with the end of his leash looped over his ear.
I slept well that morning.