Coming Back to Haunt

It's funny (not funny-haha, though). It's hard for me to put things behind me, but on occasion, I really do try. But somehow it keeps coming back to haunt me. And this time, it's ganged up with other parts of my past, armed with yet other parts, and tag teamed me. Sometimes I'm not sure how to deal with this stuff, even though I should have known it would come sooner or later.

Note to self: need to find a large rock to crawl under, hide out.

Please Hold

So you're standing at a sight to behold, and you want a picture with you in it. Aside from doing the arm's length self-portrait technique -- which invariably results in a picture of half your heads or shows your arm telescoping in 2/3 of the picture -- what to do? Why, silly, you look around for someone to take the photo for you: an innocent passerby or some other unassuming tourist. But be careful: here's a true story.

My friend visited SF, and she had a Sony DSC-P5 digital camera. She had someone take a picture for her and a friend out by Fisherman's Wharf, and the guy dropped it on the sidewalk. Ouch. The zoom lens wouldn't retract, so pictures were perpetually zoomed in and off-center, and the camera wouldn't close.

So I think you'll agree, there's the innate fear of making sure we pick the right people to be our momentary photographers. And when I ask a stranger, I always look to see if I can find a "responsible" person -- you know, not a crack addict lying on the sidewalk. Even so, I worry every time I hand my camera to someone. Every time. So let's discuss the proper approach to finding the right person(s) to take a picture for you:

- Wrist strap. Okay, you say you almost always use the strap when you have your camera, but that doesn't mean he/she will. How do you make them? When I hand my camera over, I always hold the strap open as a clear and easy indicator they should "insert wrist here". It's easier than being all,

"Oh, could you please put the strap on? Your Parkinson's makes me nervous that you might drop it. I'm not paranoid, I'm just -- well, really, I mean ..."

- Speed kills. Hey, we live in a rough world! People are always trying to get something for nothing; I just hope it's not my something they're trying to get. So I try to make sure I find someone I think I can outrun, in case they try to take off with my camera. (What. Could happen.)

- Age gap. I try to pick someone in my generation, because chances are a little better they know how to use a digital camera. That is, at least they will use the LCD, instead of still trying to use the tiny little optical viewfinder.

- Common ground. If they're tourists, or avid amateur photographers, they probably have their camera out. If they have the same camera as you -- or the same series, or even just the same brand -- then bingo! They're a leg up on anyone else, because they at least know where the zoom is and how to use it (kind of).

None of this guarantees anything, but it puts me a little more at ease than randomly selecting my next loser. We talk more about this later. Let me know what factors into your photographer picks!

To The Bone

You know what sucks? It sucks scootering in the rain with your rain jacket on, and still getting soaked completely through your shorts, right through to your underwear. And your shoes. And your hair, because your helmet was left hanging from your scooter out in the rain last night. And still having another 40 minutes on the road before you can get home. I wish I had a car.

Here, Fishy Fishy

This past weekend, I really wanted to steam a fish dish, but I couldn't find Chilean sea bass at the local market. I could only find some frozen filets, but I wanted fresh. And I didn't know if this was because (a) they didn't have any, (b) I was looking in the wrong supermarket, or (c) I had no idea how to say/read "Chilean sea bass" in Chinese. (I have since learned that it's "智利鱸魚" in Chinese.)

A little research turned up that the Chilean sea bass' proper name is "patagonian toothfish" (dissostichus eleginoides) and in fact isn't really a sea bass at all. And because it's a deep sea fish, there's pretty much no way to get this fish fresh; they're frozen upon catching them.

"There’s a 90 percent chance that the fish was frozen first. Most of the Chilean sea bass that is caught these days is landed in some of the most remote waters of the planet and frozen aboard the boats. The quality of most of this fish is excellent, as is the quality of most of the refreshed fillets that are sold to buyers who think they are getting fresh."

I'm one of the people who was buying "refreshed" fish from Ranch 99, thinking it was fresh. I couldn't tell, and I have to agree that the quality of fish was quite good. Anyway, I learned that the WWF and other organizations are warning about severe overfishing making the species quickly threatened: illegal catch is ten times the legal catch! It almost makes me not want to have any. Yeah, almost.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium -- I love that place -- has a long "Seafood Watch" paper about this, and says, "Striped bass, Pacific halibut and white seabass are your best choices." The National Environmental Trust (NET) also has this PDF report called "Black Market for White Gold", and offers that "The closest alternatives to Chilean Sea Bass in terms of taste and texture are cod and Alaskan halibut."

Maybe I'll give those a try sometime, but -- believe it or not -- I couldn't find black bean sauce anywhere around here. Means I'll have to figure out a new sauce to make, like a red and yellow pepper coulis or something. Huh.

Scrubbing Songs

Cleaning ID3 tags is a huge pain in the ass, and extremely time-consuming. But not cleaning them and allowing my iTunes to have messy song lists and missing album covers is a bigger pain in the ass. So I'm stuck cleaning them.

What's the Capital of the State of Disarray?

Something I learned this weekend: I'm only really motivated to clean my apartment up when I have guests coming over. (Though it should be noted that this is not so much cleaning up as it is cramming all my junk into hidden cabinets.)

I mean, almost all of us have somewhat messy houses; it just depends on your tolerance for such things (and such things building up). I notice that, like a frog in gradually heating water, I have pretty high tolerance for messiness accumulating in my apartment.

And here's what I figured out happens (to me and others). When there's one thing that should be moved / put away, your brain sees it and registers, but no action is taken. Then after some time of actually being there (each time triggering your brain again as a little flag), your eyes tend to "overlook" it and your brain tends to ignore it. Like when a pressed nerve starts to numb out, and your body acclimatizes to the existing stimuli. Or like banner ads.

And then more stuff gets ignored, and so on and so on.

Look around. What's around you that you've been "meaning to" clean up or put away or file or whatever, and you haven't? And over time, it's just become part of that room's "decor"?

I'll start.

At my work desk, it's this plastic bag sitting behind my aloe vera plant.
And this pile of publication PR forms for if my company wants to place an ad in the local industry magazine.
And these 5 business cards from local restaurants that I enjoyed.
And this blue Post-It Note that has outdated testcase figures on it, stuck just to the right and behind my laptop.
And the two foot odor removal insoles that came from the hotel room in Tokyo, which I thought would be neat to keep at home for future use. (Yes, it's actually on the desk.)

If I were blogging about this at home, the immediate list would be tons longer. Now you.

ymsn?

ICQ was the sh!t. And then AIM caught on. And all of a sudden (for me), Yahoo IM was the bomb. Now, most of my friends are on MSN. Many of them are on other networks, but MSN seems to be the dominant one. At least, for now.

Thing is, I don't know why MSN is popular. The software is messy, ads all over, and doesn't seem to have much in the way of user friendliness. MSN doesn't have the store-and-forward feature -- meaning you can send a message to someone who's offline, the server/system will hold onto it (store), and send it along to them (forward) when they log on next. YIM and ICQ do it; MSN and AOL don't.

And yet, most of my (online) friends are resident on MSN as their primary instant messaging address. So. Why MSN? Just because everyone else is?