Sunday, June 30, 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Today's Face


CURSES!  FOILED AGAIN...!

A Well-Timed Shot



The Ugly Omelet

The other day I made a 3-egg omelet for dinner.  My favorite kind of omelet is ham-mushroom-and-cheese (got used to 'em while living in the dorms at USC all those years ago), but as it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, I didn't have any ham or mushroom on hand.  I was, however, able to make do with Canadian bacon, onion and tomato, with a dash of hot sauce.

When making an omelet I like to use a big skillet so I can spread the egg extra thin, and I also prefer it a little underdone so it's still runny-to-sticky inside.  This method results in an omelet that's delicate, soft and with the egg meeting the melted cheese halfway so that they kind of blend together into a rich lava of flavor.  As far as I'm concerned this is the best way to appreciate an omelet -- however, it also means I have to be very careful when plating it, since it's less sturdy than an omelet that's thick and well cooked through.  Sometimes the omelet just breaks apart as it's coming off the skillet, and the result is this:


That was rather disappointing, but the important thing is, it was DELICIOUS.  If eggs didn't have cholesterol I'd eat these every day.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Useful Misread

Neither here nor there, but just now I was perusing the news digest in my e-mail, and just for a moment, I thought I had noticed a headline about the author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  On looking more closely, I realized it was actually "Supreme Court Guts Voting Rights Act".

My brain visually and syllabically reversed the order of '...Guts Voting...' and also invoked the sonic equivalence of C and K in order to arrive at 'Kurt Vonnegut', processing this on the basis of a casual glance so brief that the actual words didn't even register.  So the visual association works way faster than linguistic comprehension.

Maybe the next time I e-mail someone or write a letter with the intention of persuading the reader, I should take this into consideration and consciously choose my words.  It would be much more subtle than obvious tricks like using buzzwords.  Strategically seed the contents, not (just)with words, but with letters that cumulatively suggest the conclusion I favor.  Is this underhanded?  I don't know, but I'll bet anything there are letter-writing guidebooks that recommend it as a trick of the trade.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Latest Hummingbird Photo

Actually it's 12 days old, but it's prettier and in better focus than the more recent one.


Monday, June 17, 2013

Yet Another UFO

Just that -- an unknown thingy, flying or floating in the sky.  For all I can tell, it's a bunch of tied-together balloons.  But anyway, here is my disclaimer:  I do not believe in little grey aliens with big black slanty eyes (or the old-time ones that looked like handsome Scandinavian people in silver jumpsuits^);  I do not believe space folk are coming here in spaceships to abduct people, perform creepy experiments on them and breed with humans;  I do not believe extraterrestrial creatures, if we ever come across any, would look anything like us anyway;  and I think people who believe the things I just listed are, well, not very critical in their thinking.  Anyway, in one of the shots I took today during my midday walk there was this V-shaped whatsis, near the very top of the photo.




While I am interested in the UFO phenomenon -- as I am in: #1. all unusual things seen in the sky;  and #2. odd and mysterious things in general -- I am not one of those avid UFO 'hunters'/space watchers by any means (you could probably tell that from the above run-on paragraph).  Since this is the fourth or fifth or sixth time I just happened to photograph one -- and mostly just around the office -- since I started blogging in 2010, I must conclude that, either the skies over Downey, California are particularly rich in unusual aerial objects, or what is more likely, there are a heck of a lot of strange objects flitting about overhead that we simply don't notice, just because we are not paying attention.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

I'd Like To Be Where They Are

Not sure where that is, but it looks like a place that's beyond my current place.  And that's enough for me.




Thursday, June 13, 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

New One Made Today



Tomorrow I'll make one that's not so similar to the last several faces I made.  Family resemblance is fine, but they're beginning to look a little inbred.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Yesterday's Hummingbird Photos




Synchronistic Event #23

This afternoon I was thumbing through this book, and just as I came upon the word 'add' in large bold letters, I heard my co-worker on the other side of the office partition say "add" to someone on the phone.

Is it time to wonder whether the number of these verbal spacetime convergences clocked within the duration of this blog (3 years) are within the norm for 'pure' coincidence or above or below the norm?  Are there any studies?  I'm curious.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Holed Cloud

Tradition has it that if you find a stone with a hole naturally worn in it and look through the hole, you'll be able to see fairies (or is it ghosts?).

What if you could look through a hole in a cloud -- what would you see, I wonder?

Or is someone looking through a hole at us right now -- what would that make us?


Sunday's Sunbow

Just a cool picture of the 'bow from yesterday. Actually I took a bunch of shots, but I was not able to properly compose them as at the time I was driving down busy Wilshire Boulevard.  I just stuck my arm out the side window, pointed the camera more or less by feel and pressed the shutter button.  This is the best one of the lot.