Hoop Dee
You will please pardon my gross lack of attention to this endeavor lately. It's the whole new job thing; it takes a while to get one's brain back into order once a windfall change in routine has occurred, as I'm sure you know. Then there's the whole home improvement song and dance that hogs the better part of one's weekend and so forth.
Plus there's my new hobby which I probably haven't told you about: geocaching! Yes, it's the latest in extreme dork games! Essentially, you use a GPS receiver to find hidden treasure. My dad recently got a GPS and loaned it to me, and I've been getting a big hoot out of this. There's a geocaching website (http://www.geocaching.com where you can learn about caches in your area. Then you upload the coordinates into your GPS and then you spend hours traipsing around the woods looking for shit. The caches vary from easy (hidden in parks or near trails) to difficult (where you might have to ford a river or do some whiz-bang triangulation).
I've been in search of a new hobby lately and this one is a perfect combination of outdoorsmanship and unrepenant gadget fetishism. And I've never been a huge fan of hiking for its own sake, but this gives me an additional dimension and challenge that was crucial.
And for my token discursive political observation: I was watching a show on the History Channel about the rise of the Nazi party, and it struck me how many similarities there are between that and the philosophies advanced by American right-wingers: paranoia, scapegoating of minorities, obsessive symbol worship, blind nationalism, irrational reverence for an idealized past, so on and so forth. Now, I'm not talking about the real conservatives, like the George Will or Samuel Huntington types, but rather the large sector of doofuses that have hijacked the entire conservative ideology and applied it to their own pathos, i.e. the talk-radio style of conservatism, that all-too-familiar paradigm of righteous blowhardism and that awful "conservative macho" (God/Bush/War/Family) style of thinking that is so common among self-loathing, disaffected, resentful American males.
And here, for your perusal and/or delectation, are fifty photos from the wedding and ensuing honeymoon, plus a few other sundry photos thrown in: http://www.yalestar.com/storage/hmoon/index.htm
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New Pornographers- Electric Version
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Freeware Program of the Year:
WordWeb: Essential tool for brothers and sisters who need to look up definitions and synonyms on the fly, as in "no time to reach for the dictionary, and certainly no time to visit Dictionary.com, I need to come up with a better word for 'enjoyable,' STAT!" And it's totally free, as in "it don't get no freer than this, Buford."
I dig the shit out of it because I like to have something built-in. All's you gotta do if you want to look up a word is just hit CTRL-ALT-W and it pops up. Likewise, if you want a specific word defined, just highlight it onscreen and CTRL-ALT-W. And as if it being free weren't enough, WordWeb is made by limeys, so you are always privy to the finest in bizarre British synonyms, such as these for "fuck": blast, hang, eff, have it away, have it off, hump, jazz, lie with, shtup...
I got to thinking about synonyms after Yale's mention of the alternatives to 'fuck '..."I wonder what word in the english/american language has the most synonyms?" I thought the word fuck had quite a few, but then I looked up 'shit' on wordweb...far more options. Not that anyone could give a tinker's dam about the answer, but the knowledge of that word might come in handy one stormy night during a rousing game of trivial pursuit. Anyone care to submit words that have an accomplished list of synonyms? (by the way, 'shit' has 71 synonyms according to wordweb)
- Curse up a Jepp August 18, 2003 17:0250 pics and not one of the actual wedding~like people dressed up and being ceremonial and all. What gives? But, thoughtful to include you whizzing off the deck :)
- Big Ame August 18, 2003 21:29Not to criticize your photography skills or anything, Yale, but photo #6 has to be about the worst picture ever taken of me. It even surpasses one of me in 7th grade with a really bad bushy poodle perm. This new level of scary photographic representation probably has something to do with the fact that moments before it was taken, I was throwing up in the ladies room.
- Rick's chick August 19, 2003 10:14Anyone care to submit words that have an accomplished list of synonyms?
I believe the world record for synonyms in English goes to "drunk." Some crazy fucker in New Zealand documented something like 2300 different words for that warm fuzzy feeling booze'll give ya.
You think that humankind comes up with so many words for screwin' and gettin' loaded because these are what folks like to do best? I sure do. At least the English-speaking portion of humankind.
- mhaze August 19, 2003 13:36Anyone care to submit words that have an accomplished list of synonyms?
When I first got into doing websites, I was thinking of dedicating a whole website to synonyms for penis, breasts, masturbation, farting, etc, but lots of people beat me to it. Too obvious, I guess. But my favorite penis euphemism of all-time has to be...... chowder pump. Flesh scepter being a distant second.
not one of the actual wedding~like people dressed up and being ceremonial
These are just the ones taken with my little digicam. I'd post some actual wedding shots, but I've decreed not to look at them until five years after the wedding.
moments before it was taken, I was throwing up in the ladies room
What caused the vomitousness? The burgers or the 'tater salad?
- Yackerby August 19, 2003 14:57What caused the vomitousness? The burgers or the 'tater salad?
Probably just a combination of a long day, a bit too much excitement, unfamiliar high altitude, a crash-course in the great sport of folfing, and petting strange horses.
...or maybe it was the marmots.
Either way, your food was quite good and not the least bit tainted.
- Rick's chick August 19, 2003 17:51Anyone care to submit words that have an accomplished list of synonyms?
Hmm. thowing up, vomitousness, protein spill, toss cookies, spew, barf, hurl....
Sounds like another for the synonym list.
- ... August 19, 2003 17:58Why Yale, have you decreed a 5 year moratorium on viewing said wedding photos?
- stets August 20, 2003 11:30Glad you asked! For about ten years now, I've had a strong aversion to seeing recent photos of myself. Freaks me out. Plus the photographer lady had us doing the dorkiest poses you can imagine. This lady was a total maniac psycho; she fucking traumatized me, I'm telling you. So I can't help but think that a little (or a lot of) distance from that memory will be good.
- Ardmore Kaul August 20, 2003 14:21Now I REALLY want to see those wedding pictures!! :)
- Amers August 20, 2003 18:10Your photographer lady scared me. The way she was barking orders at the bride like a drill sargent as she was trying to walk down the isle! She was literally blocking Glenda's path in the church and audibly growling at her "Slow down! Slow down!" in front of all the gathered guests. She reminded me of some kind of militant paparazzi. Photographers are just supposed to record the moment, not jump in and take it over.
- Rick's chick August 21, 2003 17:09Did you see what she did as Glenda and I were exiting the chapel? She totally body slammed this lady standing in the doorway just so she could set up her shot. It was really uncalled for. That lady was a total nightmare. I wouldn't recommend her to my worst enemy.
On second thought, she'd be a a great thing to recommend to an enemy.
- Yapps August 21, 2003 17:26I know the woman is, well, a photographer. But I think it is strange that some people think that capturing the moment on film is more important than actually having fun in the moment. My mom constantly asks me to hold a pose that had occurred naturally for another unnatural extra minute while she fiddles with her camera. I go from happy to pissed off.
- Karlita August 22, 2003 09:53Karlita, I agree with you wholly. If anything a wedding photographer should be a fly on the wall for the most part. This lady was really into forcing spontaneity, especially before the ceremony. She would say stuff like, "tilt your head back like you're laughing really hard." She also seemed to need a lot of attention, like everybody should be watching the master at work. She was also extremely Type A in disposition, which is always a drag.
- Yark August 22, 2003 10:23To prove Karlita's point...
There was a story on NPR the other day about a mother of a 4 yo who is an obsessive "scrapbooker" and she has 17 huge scrapbooks of her daughter (so far). The woman said that she quit her job and spends all day doing this shit and has taken over the whole house with her scrapbooking supplies. She said that she feels "a little guilty" when her little girl asks for her mom to read her a book and her mom says, "not now, honey, I have to finish this!" How fucked up is that?
- Amy August 22, 2003 10:53Hey.
Yeah, part of the reason I've always avoided getting a video camera.
"Here's a great monent in my life and what was I doing? I was videotaping it!"
Did someone recommend that particular photographer? And are they beat-down-able? We ended up with a good one. Unobtrusive during the important bits, but a lot of great pictures. He shot color for the formal and the ceremony and had an assistant shooting black & white for informal shots. And good fucking luck on the 5 year wedding photo moratorium. Are they sealed in a bank-vault? Buried in a salt mine? Or has a complicated system of signals/procedures/safety regs been set up to keep you at a cautious distance?
From Wedding Photos Safety Manual, Sec. 1, page 2, paragraph D:
Before Wedding Photos are removed from the lead lined box (see appendix A) in the backyard subterranean depository (see appendix B, D, F1), the red flag (see appendix GA, sec. 7) must be raised from the rooftop, the civil defense siren sounded for 30 seconds and all potential Yale hiding places in a 200 meter radius thoroughly searched by two separate parties, including a specially trained K-9 unit (see appendix K9).
Nice Album Of The Week, by the way. I've been digging it myself lately, especially now that there's been a unilateral ban on Japanese noise bands in the car.
Dave
- David Roughs August 22, 2003 11:55