Stuff

I’m well impressed with Seattle. We had a gorgeous day yesterday and it weren’t raining or nuffink, you could see Mt Rainier and there was lots of atmosphere… we’ve been eating out, trying local microbrews and catching up with Liz and Josh. Hope the pictures turn out alright. You can probably safely skip the hidden Seattle underground tour, but everything else was grand. We’re going to grab some breakfast, go up the Space Needle then home (only 3 hrs drive) to relieve Sudarat of her Atticus-looking-after duties.

Even had Starbucks at 7am this morning for the full experience. Saludos!

I wish this thing would go faster.

I can’t stand to watch, but shall have to. It’s a worrying start (4.50pm Pacific)

Sita was looking over her ballot forms last night and realised she had a ‘postal vote’. We tried ringing the council to find out what to do but it was closed. Turns out that everyone in Oregon gets a postal vote, so you can fill out the thing in the comfort of your own home, seal the envelope and drop it in a specially provided box down town. You don’t even have to wait till election day. Seems like a very good way of doing things to me.

I have to wonder if anyone got confused with the Ballet Center half a block away. I was about to head off there when I realised it was ‘et’ not ‘ot’.

Obviously, I hope to any deity listening that McCain-Palin are roundly sent packing and that the Califas Gay Marriage laws aren’t repealed. Shall be watching the Daily Show coverage and CNN this evening with DrSita, DrSudarat and DrMichelle. Here’s a post from 4 years ago. Jesse, as far as I know, is still a Massachusetts resident.

I’m off to watch ‘democracy’ in action with DrSita in a mo…

Just saw this meme in Flash’s blog:

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

One question almost every dog owner asks is, “How do I keep my dog from jumping up on people?”

From Dog Training for Dummies. (page 56 was blank, this was 57)

Shall post more today…

It’s 8pm, I rarely post in the evening, but I’m hiding out in the basement…

Luckily I had the foresight to nip to the supermarket and stock up on skittles, kitkats and starburst (coincidentally, all the sweets I like) a few hours ago… Boba Fett Jr, some Princess or other and Batman are among many others that have been round our house this evening. Atticus was initially apoplectic that so many strangers were wandering the streets after dark and daring to approach the threshold of his realm. He seems more resigned now. I know the feeling.

DrSita’s in Denver at the minute. I’m picking her up from the airport at midnight tonight. I just texted her to say I can’t get the hang of this gringo tradition thing. By the third visit, I realised I was doing it wrong and you don’t say “Good luck” to a five-year-old. You say “Happy Halloween” (no apostrophe, ‘cos we’re in America). And the stress is on the ‘a’… “Hálloween”, not “Hallowéen” (UK)…

Anyroad, have a collage of some of my latest Through the Viewfinder shots of some skellingtons from Mexico. And if you’re feeling particularly masochistic, wade through my latest pix of a walk round Peter Kerr Park down the road. I spent a while thinking up some decent puns for some of the titles.

Just to bump that photo of me ‘below the fold’, have a video from The Onion:

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

And have a through the viewfinder of some pumpkins.

I won’t write too much about the interview, ‘cos there’s a good chance I’ll be googled and they’ll find this post if it went well enough. On Facebook I put in my status that I was wondering what to wear and received sartorial advice ranging from optimal tie patterns to clingfilm with strategically placed Sarah Palin stickers. I then announced I was going to wear my Ghostbusters T-shirt and got these words of encouragement…

Alan: Best of luck, Gwyn.

Stuart F: Who they gonna call?

Joop: Did someone give you the questions?

Paul: dont get slimed

Alina: You gonna be a ghostbuster and all?

Emma: definatley the best choice of attire for, well, any occassion. be sure to mention in the interview that you “aint afraid of no ghost” in your best english accent

Annelise: Good Luck!

Ricardo: Are they going to ask you to take the TOEFL?

Facebook is often a lot of fun…

Other news. DrSita’s in North Carolina right now. Apparently in the airport there’s a mexican restaurant called La Tequileria or somesuch. News of her adventures soon…

Cut and paste: agaveweb.com/tequila to see a site in progress for some mates of mine in Guadalajara and their new language school.

I’m starting a new photoblog just for my Through the Viewfinder photos. I’m at the design stage right now. Because of the number of strange looks I get when I’m wielding my dual camera contraption and the occasional person asking me what it is, I’m thinking it’d be handy to have a business card with the site on it so they can see (buy??) the photos and learn more about the technique. Might take a while though, but I want to get something up because the other day I won 1000 free business cards and I need a domain for it. Any suggestions for a domain name? IsThatAPeriscope.com …

Our friends Gina and Evan had us round for dinner the other night and showed me their dual lens camera. Since they don’t make film for these things any more the idea is you take a picture with another camera Through the Viewfinder (Ttv) of what it sees. You end up with slightly distorted, vignetted, dusty, square images that are really pleasing to the eye. I was inspired and bought the first camera I saw on eBay. It’s been a while since I used eBay and my original bid of 5 dollars was soon outbid and I got caught up in the competitive bidding and finally snapped it up (pun intended) at the last second for 20 bucks and it arrived today. You can probably get them cheaper, but what the hell…

The next step after cleaning the lens and mirror a bit was making it light proof, there’s a tutorial on how to make a perfectly fitting tube, but I couldn’t be arsed with all that… I ripped up the box it came it and went into a sellotaping frenzy… 10 minutes later… behold!

Next step is wandering around seeing things from a waist-high angle for a while and getting used to the mirror image while Drsita and Atticus look on bemusedly.

Here’s the set on Flickr from today and here’s me favourite below:

To make a long story short, I’m very happy with me new toy.

Other news… we’re looking forward to Sally and Martin’s visit in a few days. Had a lovely weekend and met the neighbours properly. And still no major news on the work front.

This is Herman Dune, they were the support band at last night’s Jolie Holland gig. Right now I’m going through the pics from the concert and editing some from our jaunt out to Peter Kerr island this afternoon. Brilliant place, it is. Plenty of colour, the (unrealised) possibility of bald eagle spotting and Atticus even got a wander around off his lead.

No, not for me…

For DrSita: You’ll need our dog’s name again.

The password for link below of DrSita’s latest posters is the name of our dog. No capitals.

Click here

More here…

I applied for 1 job and 2 gigs today… The job is for temping with more localis(z)ation stuff with UK English for which I’m eminently qualified. The gigs are for web design stuff which I’m qualified for but competing with hundreds of other people locally and internationally in the middle of a deepening economic disaster. Fingers crossed one of them’ll bear fruit.

Also picked another radish from the garden and took some pix…

Righty, off to Starbucks for a coffee. I just received my latest $5 from filling in surveys on how much I hate US Cable TV at epoll.com …

Photos on flickr from yesterday’s refreshingly dog-less walk. Gorgeous Autumn weather we’re getting now…

Does anyone know why Flickr has rolled out this page?

My kind of recipe