What I Have Been Doing

So, the Summer of Dre drags on. And on. And on. In fact, if there's much more dragging, I'm going to have a very serious rug burn. But no matter. I shall continue in the next paragraph.

Ah, here we are. I'll now discuss some things that I have been up to this summer.

I. Being In Britain. I actually still need to post the transcript of my travel journal. I'll get that up tomorrow.

II. Not Being In Britain. As I expected, upon my return from the Isles, things went back to normal, and the good times ceased to roll, as it were. AND IT GOT REALLY, REALLY HOT. But, it's cool, I began the summer with a bang, and one cannot expect to have such excitement(or 60° weather) on a day-to-day basis. Woooooo.

III. Photography. I've been playing around with my F5 a lot. I really love that camera. Sad thing is, I can't find a photolab that does a really good job. Walgreens and CVS do all right, but their negative scans are at low resolution and cost way too much. Regardless, I'm improving my skills, and I've found a C-41 film that I really like, so it's all good.

IV. Watching Fresh Prince Late At Night With The Lad.

V. Writing. I've been working on some material for a church history study I'll be doing next semester. It's been good so far. I've still got a lot left to do, but I'm off to a good start. I'll probably talk about this more as things progress.

VI. Doing pushups. 100 per day. Wooo.

VI. Sleeping.

VII. Listening To Morrissey. I do this a lot. Whenever I get into my car, I usually pick either Morrissey or Say Hi, so it's a good bet that in the course of a typical day, I've listened to Morrissey at least once. Anyways, I really like Morrissey. Yep. It's good.

VIII. Making Espresso. Apparently, my cappuccinos aren't as terrible as I thought. Meh, who knew?

IX. Cooking Breakfast. I've gotten rather good at eggs. They're tasty, and they've got loads of protein. Yessssss.

X. Not Smoking My Pipe. It's too freaking hot. Unless I want to go outside to smoke at 2 AM. Which I have done. BUT STILL. TOO HOT.

So that's pretty much what I've been doing. The Summer of Dre drags on.

The British need to get out more.

So, apparently the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 has gotten up to 184. According to the BBC, this makes Afghanistan the bloodiest conflict since the Falklands. 184? In almost nine years? That's a miracle, really. Of course, I understand that no one wants to see their countrymen die in war, but nonetheless, those numbers are on the modest side.

This is unreal.

The last 20 seconds are very sad indeed.

A Well-Respected Man About Town

I've found a most excellent website, The Chap Magazine, one which promote most excellent things, such as quality tailoring, pipe-smoking, and moustache-growing. The protest recounted here has got to be the best thing ever. I'm only sorry that I wasn't there to witness it.

Fallout from the Age of the 10,000 Commandments

Apparently saltires are racist. This is one of those completely ridiculous instances of political correctness. The saltire is the Scottish flag. It's a rather simple symbol, actually, just the cross of St. Andrew backed by a field of blue. But apparently it might be offensive to non-Scots? What? At the National Library of Scotland, no less. Now, I don't think that this is anything to get worked up over, but it is one of those dumb little situations that arises because of the faux egalitarian world that we live in.

"Spring-heeled Jim winks an eye..."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be..."

Ok, I have a problem, here. Where has my attention span gone? When I was 12, I could sit and read a book for an hour or two and be perfectly fine. Now, I feel like I'm having trouble focusing on things, whether it's reading, writing, or anything more engaging than reading a quick news story on my RSS reader. I'm not quite sure why this is. Maybe it's just a lack of personal discipline or something, or perhaps it's some sort of side effect of internet consumption.

On a different note, here's an interesting phenomenon. A lot of times, you'll hear(or read) something like, "Well, Shakespeare once said..." Blahdeblah, insert Shakespeare quote here. But, in pretty much all of those instances, the quote will be taken out of context. And, not only that, but the quote is attributed to Shakespeare, not Shakespeare's character, for Shakespeare always speaks in character, and never as himself. There's a difference, I think. You can't take something from one of his plays and then declare it wisdom and deep, profound truth simply because it's from a Shakespeare production. What if the particular bit of prose is said by a villain or an idiot? Perhaps then it is not so wise. Oh well. Another pet peeve of mine.

In Which Andrew Discusses How He Dislikes Camera Store Salespeople

Ok. So, today, I went out to buy a replacement for my broken 50mm lens. No big deal. I go to my local Wolf Camera first, in an attempt to save myself a trip downtown to the "real" camera store. I walk in, stand in front of the lens case, and look confused. I wasn't confused in the least, but that's the only way to get attention from salespeople. HONESTLY, WHY IS THAT? Anyways, I look confused, and, as I expected, a salesman who had just walked in the door a few minutes ago comes over, drinking a soda. Well, look who showed up for work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I ask him if they have the lens I'm looking for. He quickly tells me that they're sold out. In fact, according to this gentleman, every place in town is sold out of this lens. Aha! I call your bluff, sir! I left the store and drove down to the "real" camera store downtown. Now, my problem with this place is that they've never got enough salespeople. I always have to stand around for 15 minutes while the staff work on selling retirees expensive cameras. I'll go on a tangent, here. [new paragraph]

Ahem. There are a lot of things people don't get about digital photography. Here's a big one: There are a lot of things that you really don't need. With digital photography comes a lot of jargon, and with jargon comes confused consumers who don't know what they're talking about and who can be easily talked into things by salespeople. A prime target is megapixels. Anyone who is doing normal, family reunion, annual ski vacation to Colorado-type photography doesn't need 12 megapixels. Megapixels only matter if you're going to make huge prints. I made a 20x30 print with a 10 megapixel camera, and it turned out fine. You can get almost that big with 6 megapixels, and you'll be all right. But just the same, people think that more megapixels = better camera. Not true. The guy in the store today sold an elderly couple a Nikon D60 rather than a D40 because "the benefits outweigh the cost." That's nonsense! Perhaps I'm being too picky, but every single time I am in that store, I see some older person buying an expensive digital camera with a telephoto lens that they really don't need! I have nothing against the older people buying the stuff, I just don't like how the salespeople use the obvious lack of knowledge on the part of their customer to pile onto the pricetag. For hundreds less, you could get a perfectly good camera and lens and be able to make great pictures. But I digress.

Point is, I have to wander around the store until the retirees have gotten all their questions answered, have had their money taken, and are out the door. Then, I can ask for the one little lens that I need and get the heck out. So, back to our story. I ask for the lens, and LO AND BEHOLD! It is in stock. Mr. Soda-drinking-camera-store-salesman, you misled me so that I wouldn't go to your competitor! You didn't even ask me if you could order one for me, or email me when you had the lens in stock. It was obvious you just didn't care about my business. So I had to go all the way downtown, stand in line for 15 minutes, and then drive all the way back home, just to get this stupid lens. Thank you, sir. I shall not frequent your store from now on. Good day.

I was pulling for Barnabas, personally.

"As it were that one would crucify Paul in order to redeem Peter." - 12th Century Latin Saying

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw

"Blame me for robbing Peter, but don't you blame Paul." - Jack White

Look To The Right

Greetings, one and all, I only have eight minutes to write this, so I'll make it brief. (My internet card only has so much time on it, you see.) We've been in Oxford for the past two days, we took the walking tour this morning, which took us by all the various colleges, libraries, and other university buildings. We had lunch at the Eagle and Child, which was quite good. Tomorrow is Stratford and a performance of Julius Caesar. Once I get my hands on some postage stamps, postcards will be mailed. Cheers, all!

Dre