Digital Arcana

Ok.  Those of you who know me know I almost never talk politics.  First of all, I tend to find valid points of view in both parties.  I also find positions that I cannot support in nearly equal measure.  I even like to classify myself as a “Republicrat”.  I don’t like sitting on the fence, but I can’t bring myself to agree 100% with either party.

That said, I am also a long time lover of Dungeons & Dragons and I continue to play in the dining room of my middle-class home to this day.  I have never played “in my mom’s basement”, in fact.  This week, Mr. Michael Goldfarb absolutely blew my mind.  Pathetic lightning-fast apology notwithstanding, why on Earth would the McCain campaign continue to disparage large groups of generally intelligent voters who have done nothing to the Republican party that I am aware of?

The presidential election is too important for my vote to hinge on the comments of an incompetent campaign staffer with foot-in-mouth disease, but I continue to worry about the GOP’s tendency to ignore real issues in favor of attacks on fellow Americans.  I’m not personally a fan of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, but it should be said that they have probably both done more to stimulate our current economy than the Republican Party, if only in tabloid sales.

August 20th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (5)

Lumber for the patio

Ok, there’s something about that much construction potential sitting in one’s driveway. Pam took a picture with her cell phone yesterday… isn’t it beautiful? Wait until you see it assembled.

Hopefully you won’t have to wait long. Right now, I’ve got a pounding sinus headache that started yesterday afternoon. Hope I can kick that ASAP.

August 20th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (1)

I have always been fond of Hanlon’s Razor, particularly because I can use it to curb my temper when I feel like someone is screwing with me. (For example, “sidezoomers” as in my “I absolutely love this strip!” post.) So, I was very excited to see this reference to Hanlon’s Razor as well as many of my other favorite “Sci-Fi” laws. They obviously got all of Asimov’s Three Laws, as well as Clarke’s Three laws! They also linked to a Wikipedia article listing a whole pile of eponymous laws that’s worth a read. Fun!

It also reminded me of a great website (where I first discovered Hanlon’s Razor) called WordSpy. They refer to the site as being devoted to “lexpionage” (did I spell that right?!), or the sleuthing of new words and phrases. Among my old favorites that have long-since rolled off of the front page: Dog Watching TV, Drink the Kool-Aid, Time Porn and Wife Acceptance Factor as well as a new favorite: Mullet Strategy . Check them out for a good chuckle and a little insight into our culture as a side benefit.

August 16th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (2)

I was tagged by Lizzie and I have now gotten around to doing my civic duty, assuming there is such a thing in the “blogosphere”. (Points for those of you playing geek buzzword bingo.)

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who “tagged” you. (Done!)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (Doing that now!)
3. Write six random things about yourself:

• I’m exactly 6ft tall.
• I only have two phobias: heights and death.
• I work in IT, but I believe that people rely too much on technology.
• Fall is, by far, my favorite season.
• I believe it is equally important to be a good winner and a good loser, but the most telling measure of a person’s character is how they behave when they think they have an insurmountable advantage. (Inspired in part by watching the Olympics.)
• My favorite type of photography is macro photography. There is a beautiful world all around us that we never look close enough to see.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post. (I’m going to break this rule for now, given that I’m new to this. Hopefully that won’t mess with my blogging Karma. I honestly think I already know more than six random things about anyone I’d feel comfortable tagging.)
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. (See #4, above.)
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up. (Just as soon as I’ve posted.)

August 15th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (3)

This particular strip hit home for me, and I thought I’d share for anyone who drives a car:

Ctrl-Alt-Del strip for drivers

August 13th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (6)

The Team

Originally uploaded by kfn_shots

In the spirit of actually POSTING to my blog - here is “The Machine That Goes Ping!” - the trivia team that Pam and I love to hang out with. (That’s Pam on the left, “Carrie-ing” one of our teammates… Sorry, it’s late.)

Working further from left to right, after Carrie and Pam are Heather, Irene, Jaime, David and Alex. Wish us luck at finals on Sunday!

August 12th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (4)

I’m officially resurrecting the blog. My biggest problem is having the free time to both do something interesting enough to blog about and also take the time to actually blog about it. I’m going to make a concerted effort to do both.

I would also like to make this blog more of a personal blog than strictly limiting it to posts about my photography, which I haven’t been pursuing as much recently. (However, I hope to change that too since I do have a little more free time now that I have moved to a new position at the contract I’m currently working.)

Right now, I’m actively engaged in a weekly trivia contest with a team of good friends (and we’re going to finals next week - woo hoo!). I’m picking up Halo 3 for the XBox for the first time (yeah - I know… I’m a little late to the party). I’m actually planning on picking up the camera again for a few shoots that I’ve had running through my head and I’m actually considering trying to draw a regular webcomic with a really good friend of mine. Stay tuned on the webcomic - I’ll probably host it here on Digital Arcana if it gets off the ground.

The brilliant part of this plan is that I’m more likely to do all of these things if I’ve publicly written about them in a blog, even if nobody actually reads it. (Yeah, right!) Either way, this is at least one post, which is one more than the ZERO I’ve written lately.

Here’s hoping!

Kris

August 12th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (4)

Tigerseye sphere, originally uploaded by Digital Arcana.

This shot is the product of a single-strobe studio lighting experiment. Here, there was a large, rectangular softbox positioned just a few inches above the surface of the table.

Unfortunately, while the light was very soft and even, this method also created a large rectangular highlight that was unpleasantly harsh. This shot was composed to avoid placing the highlight in the shot.

More images:

January 27th, 2008 | Category: Photos | Comments (1)