Ugly Honesty + Too Many Photos = Tedium Infinitum

Every time I boot up, it says there's an Adobe Reader update, or a Java update, or a Windows Security Update, or a HP Printer Driver update.... mildly annoying at best. I try to look at it positively.... if it weren't for software updates, I'd have no dates at all!

OK, so what was with yesterday's sad little post? No clue. It was just the mood I was in, my apologies. It was true, what I said, and yes, a bit unnerving, but I should have just kept it to myself. And no, I shouldn't blame it on the beard.

Funny thing about the beard (which is now truly epic)... I've tried having pictures taken, but I feel like such a moron... "Hey, lemme post my picture on my blog!" I don't know... it just feels so stupid. Like, good grief, how old am I again? Still in Junior High? Maybe it ties in with what I said yesterday... I don't recognize myself, in a real, weird way... so I don't want to post a picture of an impostor or something.

"Whew! That was close!

So Youngest had her birthday costume party yesterday. Seemed to be a success. I dressed up as exactly nothing, yet again. I wish I'd seen this photo sooner...

I would have painted a white bucket with a Storm Trooper face, big time... How funny is that?

I just yelled at my computers. I am embarrassed. Sure, I could have said nothing, and you would never know... But I always have tech problems, when it comes to importing a video file into an editor. I have an hour-long video that my sister needs two clips pulled from and sent to her. Easy, right? Should take minutes, right? WRONG. It always is a traumatizing, exquisitely frustrating and time-consuming experience... and I never remember that fact until I go to do it again. Then the memories all flood back. And I just lost it. Here I am, home, alone, trying to get a quick video edit job done... and I blew up. I just launched a minutes-long screaming invective-filled diatribe at my iMac and powerbook laptop...

Kinda wish I'd video taped it. Probably would have gone viral.

Man, this is ugly, brutal truth day, eh?

Finished reading The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney. I wanted to like it, really. But honestly, it was pretty dull. There were some good battle descriptions, but I really didn't care a whit for any of the characters. There are two more books in the series, and I was going to stop here... but I read reviews of the other two in the series, and apparently, the second volume is light-years better than both volume 1 and 3... so I *may* try the second book, if the price is right. Anyway, I give The Ten Thousand a score of 3 out of 5.

Trying (and close to abandoning) another book called The Kinshield Legacy (K.C. May) at the moment. It started off well, but it's quickly devolving into insipidity. Shame. I'd read good things about it. But come on... there's a female warrior character named "Brawna".... LOL, are you kidding me? Brawna? Really? OMG, I can't stop laughing. I thought I was bad at coming up with character names, lol....

Brawna. lol

Nice. I'd live in it. Maybe.

Or maybe I'd live here instead...

OK, that's cool. Even the Union Jack comforter is cool. Are those walls concrete?

That's a great job of colorizing and cleaning up an old photo. Click it and look at it big. That's skill, right there. I've done stuff like that before, so I know of which I speak.

In fact, lemme grab an example that I've done, just to show off a bit.

A couple years ago, the pastor of my church sent me a photo of a dog he used to own, a dog he loved muchly. It was the only good photo of the dog he had left... but there was a chainlink fence in front of him...

So I scanned it and removed the fence...

Now, as helpful and powerful as computers have made things, there's still no shortcut for doing this. I had to go in really tight, and carefully use the cloning tool in photoshop to remove the fence from the whole thing. I must say, I was proud of the results. I even got the ultimate compliment from another member of our church (Mark O.) who said he went in close to find the evidence of photo manipulation, but couldn't see it, even zoomed way in. And he has an eye for those things. He was impressed.

Anyway, Pastor was very pleased with the results as well.

So, on another note, we're moving forward with the play. Only 7 weeks until Christmas... I'm excited and terrified at the same time. We still have two roles not filled yet! AAAAAAHHHHH!!! OK, I won't panic...[takes deep breaths]. All will be well. It always is.

Dang... I guess this is the Ugly Honesty and Too Many Photos Post....

I think I'll end it here.

Hope your week is a good one.

Dave the Meanderer