It's not that I don't have anything to write about, it's just that I'm feeling unfocused. You know?

I spent Saturday at the movies with my sweetie. We saw The Hours, which was good, but not without its faults. It's a little too earnest to ever be considered entertainment. We also saw Chicago a second time. Kris has been singing bits and pieces from it ever since ("He had it coming!" -- should I be worried?), and last night she ordered the soundtrack from Amazon.

Of the four Best Picture nominees I've seen so far, Chicago is probably my favorite. The Hours is a worthy candidate, though too obvious in spots. I'm not sure why Peter Jackson's Helms Deep is nominated -- it's not a bad movie, but neither is it Best Picture material. Then again, Gangs of New York is up for Best Picture, too. Kris and I both agree: if Gangs of New York wins, the Oscars will have become irrelevant to us. (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Gangs of New York? A trifecta of mediocre pictures.)

On the way home from our film-going bonanza, we stopped at Michael's so that Kris could get some crafty stuff. I found a good photography book, John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide, which I've just finished reading. It's an outstanding book, with practical tips and straightforward information. There's not a lot of fluff in there, and Shaw's sample photos not only serve his text well, they're also exquisite images on their own.

I ought to be reading Master and Commander, but now I've been side-tracked by Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, a little-known out-of-print novel by the author of The Hundred and One Dalmations (itself an underrated book). (Wait -- it's not out of print anymore, though it was several years ago when I had to buy my copy off eBay.)

I Capture the Castle is a strange and charming book. It begins: I write this sitting in the kitchen sink, which sets the tone for the entire book. I can't decide what the target audience for this book might be, and perhaps that is why it's not better known. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression. In some ways, it reminds of me of a Roald Dahl book.

On Sunday morning, I rose early to make photographs with Mac and the rest of the class. My goal was to concentrate more on composition, and, to an extent, I succeeded. My compositions from Sunday are better, I suppose, but they're still not as good as I'd like. Kris and Pam think that Mac and I need to work more on taking interesting photographs, on giving the viewer a point of interest. They're probably right.

Here's Sue, who produces the best photos in the class. She's been taking classes from Warren for about a year.

We spent Sunday evening playing games with Mac and Pam. I had a good time; it was the best game-playing session we've had in about a year, actually. (Last year at this time, we were holed up at Mac and Pam's, watching the Olympics. It was also about this time that we played the best hearts game ever.)

On Monday afternoon, Mac and I cruised the Willamette Valley, scouting locations for photographs. I saw a couple interesting locations, though I'm not sure if Mac found what he wanted.

That evening, Jeremy and Jennifer and the kids came over for Potato Cheddar Soup and focaccia bread. (Kris: "Potatoes were on sale, cheese was on sale, and we had celery sitting in the fridge, so I made some soup.") We went to their house for dessert: a delicious apple pie. After an initial bout of hooliganism, Harrison was rather precocious. He's growing quickly; before you know it, he'll be a teenager.

I spotted this ad in the paper over the weekend.

First of all: how many people, especially in Portland, do you think actually bought an emergency preparedness kit?

Second: do you realize how little these items actually cost the company selling them? Less than five bucks. Probably less than three bucks. That's opportunism at it's finest.

Lastly: the sad thing is, we know this company. It's one of Custom Box Service's largest customers, a company that we like and respect. They're good people. Who the hell came up with this idea then?

Maybe I don't want to know…

I've been trying to get the beta-version of Textpattern operational on my still-empty bibliophilic.org site, so that it might not be empty any longer. Unfortunately, Textpattern makes some assumptions about site layout that don't apply to my hosting environment. It doesn't' work. Dean thinks he might have the problem fixed for the next version, but he hasn't said when that next version will be available.

I've also been trying to write on a sonnet from the point of view of Frankenstein's monster. "We shall be monsters, cut off from all the world." -- I love that line, and want to build a poem around it, though the line doesn't scan, nor are there many words that rhyme with 'world' (and a sonnet, of all poetical forms, must have rhyme). I haven't written a poem in years.

Worth noting for Movable Type users: if you eliminate (and delete) all unused archive types, you can save a ton of disk space. I had less than a meg remaining on my hosting account, but by discontinuing the archives which I do not use, and then deleting the already-generated files, I was able to free up about six megabytes of space. Cool beans!

Ugh. Computer Resources only lost $293.00 last year.

Why ugh?

The IRS requires that a business make money in two out of five years (or maybe three out of five years), otherwise the business is considered a hobby. For this purpose, a loss of $1 is the same as a loss of $2000, but if you lose $2000 you get a much bigger tax break. If I'd known the business had only lost $293.00, I would have done something (sold something to myself maybe) in order to generate a small profit for the year. Instead, this year counts against me in the hobby vs. business column, yet generates a tiny tax break. Ah well -- because I intentionally have my taxes over-withheld, we'll be receiving a huge refund.

I like huge refunds.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — The Rules of Catfight Club   The first rule of Catfight Club is, you do not talk about Catfight Club.

2004 — Automatic Withdrawal   U.S. Bank just raised the monthly fee on my checking account from $5 to $7. You might think that it's silly to quibble over 6-1/2 cents a day, but that's the final straw. I'm outta there.

2002 — Making Prints From Digital Photos   Digital photos are convenient for web-related tasks. They're less convenient when you want a physical print of the photograph.