From pretty colors to b&w in one post

We did a spread on fall colors last week, so I took some photos on my way back from watching the ATF blow stuff up about which I still occasionally giggle joyfully. These were taken along some of the more scenic routes of Northern Alabama, including a winding mountain road up to Nat, Alabama, which I may have simply imagined. _____

And the following were from October 30th at the Delta Sigma Theta headquarters here in Birmingham. They're slated to run in January, but there were a couple that won't make it in, so here they be. Are. Whatever.
I had a helluva time with color correction on the photos I sent to the editors, but I figured I'd brush by the whole thing here with some black and white. In other words, I was lazy about this, shame on me. But come on, wasn't there enough color in the first two?

Walmart doesn't do layaway?

Seems a bit ... wrong, I guess, but Walmart doesn't do layaway anymore. One of the last strongholds of layaway items is Kmart, so I got to go rummage around in the back for a while, looking at all the Christmas toys.There's something about blatant and massive materialism that makes me squirm in a guilty, depressed fashion. I mean, I just felt my heart sink when I was in there, looking at all the toys, thinking about all the little kids who think they really, really, really want Tonka's new Plastic POS Dump Truck. Sigh, just thinking about it right now kind of gets me down. I know -- I'm a terrible American.Since they're one of the last places to do layaway (by the by: it's getting harder and harder to pronounce that word in my head), they do a pretty brisk business. All the department heads get into it. They've got a full upstairs storage facility behind the office filled to the brim, and were having to reorganize their storage loft (first picture) when I got there.
Joy Smith was Christmas shopping for her little girls. And apparently, that game, prominently displayed in her hands, is going to be the "big gift" for her eldest daughter. And that picture, in which Joy and aforementioned game are the focal point, ran on the cover of the Money section last week. And I just ruined a Christmas surprise for a little girl.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch ...

Whilst we wait ...

Waiting for the ever laggy server to load my gallery pages, so I thought I might go ahead and post some more backlogged shtuffs. I got a call from a gentleman last week and ended up at a chess tournament the following Saturday ... soo ... here's some photos ... Chess may be a game of intense concentration and intellect, but sometimes even the intellectual and focused get the desire to draw faces on inanimate objects.

Cheers till later!

Geekdom

On a deviation from my normal kinds of posts, I present clear, solid evidence of how geeky I've gotten in my voluntary exile to Alabama (mostly kidding here): I've taken to map-making in my spare time. Cartography -- just when you thought he couldn't be a bigger geek!

Some issues with the map, but, hey, it's my first ...

And first times are ... uhm ... never mind ...

This makes me happy ... truly, it does ... kick his ass, Gary. We'll burn your character sheets for you.

"Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in - next to soccer."

Quote from "Dogma" that says it all. I haven't played in something like 5, maybe 6 years. Jesus, I'm tired.

Oh, check out Afterworld on myspace or youtube. That's some good stuff.

Whoops.

Damn. That wasn't the right video - I'm still getting used to posting videos. This should be the video.

There are some things you can't beat with a stick

Two things which I -- generally -- always seem to enjoy: science and video games. I like that really weird science, too, the stuff you only find in far-out bad science fiction, like quantum mechanic guns and such. So I giggled like a little schoolgirl (pardon the mental image) when one of my roommates showed me this trailer.



This is a new game from the guys who brought the world Half-life, bless them and their offspring's offspring. Instead of the run-and-gun homogeny that many first-person-shooters seem to have, this is instead a puzzle game. You dash about with a device that opens what equate to something like worm holes (ha - knew I could get a Star Trek reference in there somewhere), solving problems.

For me, the real kick are the physics they're using. Say you're on a platform ten feet from the floor, and you need to get to a platform ten feet above your current position. There's a lip, but no way you could make a ten-foot jump. So you pop an exit portal on the ground next to you, shoot an entry portal on the ground ten feet below you, and jump down through the entry portal. This, of course, sends you through the exit portal, not only with the same momentum, but in reverse to your previous spatial orientation, so you're now essentially flying out the exit portal at 9.8 meters per second squared upside down and backwards.

HAHA! I think I just wet myself with excitement.

Okay, so I'm a geek. This isn't as exciting as I think it is, but it's pretty friggin' awesome.

Go to IGN.com and look it up.