Month: March 2010

How to kick your own ass

So last night I was letting my mind wander while sitting around playing some Cave Story,1 trying to decide whether I should blog the story of how I learned the word “residence” (yes, these are the things you think about when you are me), when I had a funny thought. Yes, a second one.

It went a bit like “Everett, you could share bits like that on your blog, but you do realize that in doing so, you’re cannibalizing content that you could be saving up for the memoir you may one day write, right?”

I chuckled at the thought and concluded that the story of how I learned the word “residence” may not, after all, make for that great a blog post. But in another moment of insight, I took my secondary thought to its logical conclusion: if I were serious about considering writing a memoir (and I wasn’t), perhaps at this point in my life I should worry more about who would even want to read such a book.

That’s not to put down my life and those who have played a role in shaping it, but… sorry you guys, I just don’t think it would make a compelling book. And a life spent sitting around wondering if I should write a book about my life seems even further away from a life worth writing about.

I wondered if maybe this principle (one worrying more about some potential future, at the expense of the present, which could be better used to get one to their desired future) is something that a lot of people do, something that has broader implications than some hypothetical, self-indulgent tome. Consider the example of relatively not-well-off people who oppose that which would be beneficial to them, by, say, having political leanings that do more for those who are much better off than they are. Why would they do this? Do they actually think they’re likely to be in that other class someday? Planning on winning the lottery, much?

It’s one thing to plan for the future. But it’s another to fetishize some outcome that, be real with yourself, is unlikely to happen… and is all the less likely, yet, if you sit around daydreaming about it.

  1. Awesome, awesome game. Free download here for Windows/Mac/Linux/etc. or buy it for $12 on WiiWare.[↩]

“Real artists ship”

I’m by no means an Apple fan, and don’t own any Apple products (though I’ve always wanted to play with a Newton!), but to a geek, it’s pretty hard to ignore the effects that Apple has had on the world around us.

This probably wouldn’t make it to the average list of Apple’s contributions, but my personal favorite is a Steve Jobs saying:

“Real artists ship.”

I take this to mean that you can keep polishing the product until it’s perfect, but it doesn’t matter how great it is unless it makes it out the door while it’s still relevant. (No, it didn’t take a lot of reading deeply into the phrase for me to come up with that, Mr. Hypothetical Snarky Commenter. An alternate meaning could be an explanation for pushing a product out the door when it contains bugs that may give others pause.)

I sometimes find myself spending more time than I should on something, in pursuit of getting it unimpeachably perfect. It’s a flaw of mine. I need to do something about that, but I’m not sure what… and giving up on quality isn’t an option. Consider this bug #1 in my public bug tracker, powered by WordPress. ;-)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to ship this post so I can go ship that e-mail I’ve been crafting so I can finally ship myself some Zs.

http://www.ghostinthepixel.com/?p=24

New Orleans and the graffiticular stylings of Banksy

Now, I’m not here to argue graffiti as a legitimate art form (which it is), or say that its presence is a net positive for society  (which it’s not). I’d rather simply point out that during our recent trip to New Orleans, my sister and I twice stumbled upon works of perhaps the best-known graffiti artist in the world: Banksy.

I remembered reading about Banksy’s pieces in New Orleans, but couldn’t remember at what point, post-Katrina, they appeared. It was nice to know that at least a couple of them are still intact today, even if more (relatively) talentless stuff has gone up nearby in the year-and-a-half since Lincoln. Nice, though, that the new additions respected Abe’s space!

The first time we saw one, we were exiting I-10 at Canal Street, on our way to the Algiers Ferry, when something caught my eye… something from the Internet! I knew right away that I needed a photo of it, but couldn’t find a place to park just then, so we found ourselves stuck in Claiborne Street traffic for a while until we could make it back to Tulane Ave, the first street pointing in the right direction (after two inward-facing one-ways!). We made it back and found a place to park so I could get out and took a few photos.

The second (and sadly, final) Banksy art sighting of our trip happened on our last night in town, on our way to an ill-fated trip to Yo Mama’s. We noticed the girl, missed the turn, and had to loop around a few blocks, but ultimately managed to capture the second piece you see above. It was right across Kerlerec Street from the Rampart Food Store.

Cool art, but what of the rights of the property owners? Yes, there is that… but Banksy can come ‘tag up’ on my car whenever s/he wants!

New Orleans, in food

To say that my sister and I enjoyed the food during our trip to New Orleans would be an understatement. Anticipating a blog post like this (and for posterity), I took photos of nearly everything we ate, and checked in at each restaurant using Foursquare.

Foursquare normally annoys me, but in this case, was very helpful in logging all the places we went, on which days we went, and so on.

(Unless otherwise noted, my meal is in the foreground.)



Tuesday, March 9




Dinner: Parasol’s Restaurant & Bar

Me: Hot Sausage Po Boy. Despite being a lifelong disliker of pickles, I decided to try my sandwich with them anyway, having ordering it “dressed.” While I’m not sure they added much, it was not bad with pickles. Mine was also a little light on meat, at least compared to Allison’s.

Allison: Roast Beef Po Boy.

Wednesday, March 10




Lunch: Gumbo Shop

Me: Red Beans & Rice with Smoked Sausage Gumbo. Gumbo was yumbo.

Allison: Chicken Andouille Gumbo.




Dinner: Port of Call

Both: Burgers (mine with cheese, hers with mushrooms) with baked potato. While I was a little surprised at the lack of fries as an option, I didn’t mind at all. The baked potato was amazing. Also, I wasn’t going to break out the flash, but yeah, the lighting was a little on the low side.

Thursday, March 11




Brunch: Slim Goodies Diner

Me: Robert Johnson Burger

Allison: Havana Omelet. Came with tortillas!




Snack: Creole Creamery

Me: Black & Gold Crunch Ice Cream

Allison: Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream

Dinner: Verti Marte

Verti Marte, a convenience store with sandwich counter in the back, had no seating, so we ate this meal in the car. Sorry, no photo; we were hungry.

Me: Muffaletta, something I had never tried. My reaction was along the lines of: “I’m pretty sure I’d list half of the ingredients on my do-not-like list, but boy are they good together!” Quite possibly my food highlight of the trip.

Allison: BBQ Po Boy

Friday, March 12




Lunch: Willie Mae’s Scotch House

Me: Chicken Fried Pork Chop. Mine was good, but I was jealous of her chicken.

Allison: Fried chicken. Quite possibly the best I’ve ever tried.




Dinner: Slice

Allison: (From left) Bacon, Basil, and Garlic; Pineapple; Fresh



Me: (From left) Jalapeño and Andouille Sausage; Greek; Fresh




New Orleans: A++++ Would nom again~~~

…but my new camera sucks a little too much

[If you’re just joining us, see part one.]

I recently felt like I needed a new crappy camera in my life. I found myself in a drugstore yesterday, where I purchased one of those miniature ones, a Vivitar Clipshot (née Sakar 11693). At $10, the price was right but it’s a little too cheap to have a screen built-in, and the “viewfinder” is a laughably inaccurate hole in the body. Even more exciting, I thought! It’ll be like taking photos with film and waiting to see what develops!

I couldn’t find reference to the camera working in Ubuntu with a quick Web search, but the specs on the package claimed that it works in OS X without drivers. This seemed to imply that it was a standard USB Mass Storage device, the kind you plug in and have just work, as it appears to the computer as a removable drive.

So I expected quick and easy access to my photos. I was wrong.

The OS detects the device, but not as a normal camera device, nor a Mass Storage device. This is what lsusb had to say about it:

Bus 007 Device 008: ID 0979:0371 Jeilin Technology Corp., Ltd

Searching for that lead me to a number of blog and forum posts where people discussed ways to possibly get the camera working, but to no avail. This post received a number of replies, with this reply being the most helpful: (emphasis mine)

Professor Theodore Kilgore from Alabama has been working on a driver for this camera. As of about 6 months ago, the Professor had me download his driver for the camera, and the driver lets download files from the camera. But since the pictures are stored in an encrypted format on the storage media of the camera, there is still work to be done to decrypt the picture files into a viewable format (this is the last I heard anyway).

The photos are stored encrypted on the camera, so you have to use the included Windows software to download them. Glad to know they’re being protected… from me. This crappy camera is a little too crappy for me. I haven’t tried it on a Mac yet, but I can’t imagine how this could possibly work without drivers.

There will be more crappy digital cameras in my life, but one can only hope that the next one sucks in the way it should.

Breaking news: This piece of garbage does not work in OS X either.

Lo-fi cameras are awesome…

I loves me some crappy digital cameras.

Ten years on, my first is still my favorite, my Game Boy Camera. Thank you Diego, for perhaps the greatest birthday gift ever. Sure, I had crappy film cameras before, but that didn’t stop me from loving my GBC like anyone does their first. Using film meant that I couldn’t go wild and experiment, take tons of pictures of stupid stuff like any kid with a camera does, and any self-respecting adult with one continues to do.

That wouldn’t exactly work with my Game Boy Camera, which only held 30 snapshots and didn’t come with any way to, you know, transfer them to a computer.

Details. To make do, I would delete all but my absolute favorites, the true ‘keepers.’ That awkward red cartridge still has photos from walking home on the day in 2000 I got the camera, of good high school friends, of a duck from Kendale Lakes, and self-portraits taken every few months as I grew my hair to a respectable shoulder length in college.

Last year, realizing that I was far from done taking tiny, grainy, black-and-white photos, I bought a second Game Boy Camera, and a couple of Mad Catz PC link cables, so I could finally transfer the photos. They’re cheap and plentiful on Amazon and eBay these days (the cameras, at least; the link cables are hard to find).

There was a time when mobile phones could be counted on to take photos of this sort. Sure it might be frustrating when you actually wanted to take a good photo, but think of the washed-out colors! The poor lighting! The blurry faces! Alright, maybe it wasn’t so great if that was the only camera you had at a memorable event, but if that’s the sort of camera you go out of your way to use for artsy, leisurely photography, I respect that.

My first mobile phone with a camera was a Sidekick, and its photos are by far my favorite:

I could add these effects with software, but what fun is that?

Then came my Treo, which was, unfortunately, a little bit better at taking photos:

I won’t even mention my G1, which takes practically perfect photos. How sad.

I’m glad I’ve been able to shoot with so many crappy cameras, because I know one I won’t be using anytime soon. Sigh.

To be continued…