In Chips I Trust

I have been pretty busy lately... about a month until I'll be homeless, and I have a lot to do to try to make the transition a smooth one. It's amazing how much energy it takes just to get out of Switzerland.

But that's not what I want to write about today; my hard drive crashed. My external one, that had my iTunes files on it (thankfully, so did my iPod), and a whole bunch of my pictures.

Before you say anything, yes, I learned my lesson, and I now have an online backup/archive plan, and more or less the entire contents of my computer is being uploaded as we speak. Or, I guess, as I write and you read, unless you read this in March 2009 or something.

Anyways, I'm hoping that it can be recovered, that it's just the power for the disk, and that perhaps if I buy another one the same and swap out the disks, I'll get my data back. The problem is, when it comes to technology, I am a complete and hopeless optimist. This shouldn't be a huge surprise - that's more or less what I'm like about other things (like people), too. And I love being an optimist, being trusting. The problem is, it doesn't always pan out.

I bought this external drive from a friend, and when it went down, I asked him where he got it, so I could see if they could help me with it. He was pretty concerned... "did I give you the receipt?". I wasn't sure, but I had a pretty good hunch (knowing him) that he did and that I (knowing me) threw it away.

Why would I throw it away? Because I somehow believe that nothing will ever go wrong with any piece of electronic equipment I buy.

Of course, I say this as I type on a PC that's been through more than one hard drive, took about 3 weeks to accept a firewire card, writing on a monitor that often shows little streaks beside text as though it had been smeared across the screen. Never with pictures - only with text. Beside me sits a mixer which used to have 2 firewire ports (hence the need for the card) but now only has one that works. Behind it is a keyboard which is currently willing to produce about 15 of it's purported 800 or so sounds. And the iPod that saved all my music is one that had died twice within 9 months of buying it - and the last time, they couldn't even fix it.

Yet I throw out every receipt for everything electronic that I ever buy. Strange, eh?

I'm not sure why it works that way. Part of it, now, may be to keep me from ever having to deal with aggressive, suddenly-no-one-in-the-store-speaks-English "customer service" people, a real treat in Geneva. Part of it may be some misguided idea that the object of my trust can be made reliable simply by me placing enough trust in it. THAT's a tough one to learn, I'll tell you.

But I think that mostly, it's just this: I'm surrounded by the stuff. I make my living with it, pursue most of my recreational activities with it, and even use it to keep the little chick acquainted with her grandparents. If it doesn't work, where does that leave me?

Frankly, I'd rather think about the move...

Faces

More pictures... some of my favorite faces from Rome.

I like these ones. Yes, that's partly because I took them, but I like to think that even had I not been the one to pull the trigger, I'd still dig them. I got some new filters for editing, and tried them out on some of these shots... and I'm pretty happy with the results. Let me know what you think.

You can see more here - enjoy.

Body Language

More from Rome... these people just stood out to me for how they moved, how they were standing... something about their physical presence. I hope you enjoy them.

You can see the rest here.

I Like Him

I saw a one-legged bike courier riding in front of my place. He caught my eye as he was going by and gave me a nod and a look that said very distinctly, "yeah, you better believe it".

Now THERE is a guy who's up for a challenge. Very nice.

Brommie

I remember the first time I heard a brommie (Birmingham) accent - it was on the radio (BBC 18 or some such creatively-named station, in true British form), and I was sure it was a joke. I couldn't believe that anyone would actually talk quite like that, and I found it absolutely fascinating. The program ended far too quickly, and I was disappointed to get back to a regular old BBC voice.

Well, the novelty has worn off.

There is a TV channel here called EuroNews. Clearly, they talk quite a bit about Europe, which is fine with me - somebody probably should. But the guy who does a lot of the voice-overs for them has, I believe, a brommie accent. And so there is one word for which he has a rather distinct pronunciation.

Unfortunately, it's "Europe".

When he says it, it comes out as "YOUR-op". This wouldn't be a big deal if it was "chesnuts" or "didactic" or some other word which didn't come up quite as frequently, but since YOUR-op can fall several times within the same sentence, I do find myself wondering exactly how he got the job. Knows the owner, maybe?

In other news, I've been sick, but there are more pictures on the way...

Flowers And Stuff

I called it scenery, just because I wasn't sure what other label would work. Turns out, though, that it's primarily architecture... sorry if you were hoping for anything else. In any case, here are some of the pictures:

The Colosseum and somebody's arch.




The Trevi Fountain. If you plan to use a tripod there, try not to let the police see it. Whoops.




The Forum.

You can see the other ones here. It's probably worth saying, though, that the pictures aren't all up yet - more are loading as I speak...

Devil Is In

Here are some things I noticed while I was in Rome. No particular theme running through them beyond that, but I hope you enjoy them.

You can see the rest here.

Fast Food

I was trying to remember who had the slogan, "Have it your way!". At first I thought Burger King, but I think theirs is something about being made fresh. Dairy Queen, maybe? I know that, if I'm writing this, I'm connected to the internet and could look it up, but that somehow feels like cheating, so I won't.

Anyways, I've been organizing my pictures, and here's how the categories break down so far:

• Details - textures, colors, shapes that I happened to notice
• People - uh, that one's mostly people
• Scenery - a lot of buildings, but some other scenery-ish stuff, too
• Art - mostly sculpture
  

I have quite a few in some of the categories, though (scenery and people), and started to try to work through my people ones to pick out the keepers. Here are the categories I've got as I've been narrowing them down:

• Body language - I noticed them because of how they were sitting, standing, or moving
• Children - wee ones
• My favorite faces - we all have one
• Style - people I noticed because of something about their personal style... good, bad, or otherwise
• Italians - people who just really, really looked Italian to me, and kind of captured the feeling of the city
• Lost - people looking at maps. It's better than it sounds.
  
• Phone - Italians looooooove to talk on the phone, and here's proof
• Pictures - yeah, I know: they're all pictures. But these are pictures of people in pictures, but no pictures of people in pictures of pictures, which would clearly be just too much.
  
• Setting - it wasn't so much who was there, it's was just where they were
• Tourists - see them coming from a mile off

Anyways, I was trying to decide which ones to edit and post next, and I thought I'd try something a little different. If you have a preference, just tell me in a comment and when I get enough votes/a vote (depending on how things go), I'll edit and post those ones.

Your way... kind of like Burger King. Or maybe Dairy Queen, except without ice cream. And not quite like Subway, because I won't make you stand there and tell me how to edit them before I post them. It's like the very best of the fast-food world, and how can we go wrong with that?

So, polls close when I get enough votes to form a consensus, get a vote from Erin, or get tired of waiting, whichever comes first. And since I don't really like visiting facebook, any facebook comments will be warmly appreciated but disregarded in the whole voting thing. I'm sure you understand.

Rome Pictures - Couples

Well, I'm back, and the parents and I both survived our Roman adventure. I'll write more in the coming days, but just wanted to get a first set of pictures up for you. It's such a beautiful, romantic city, and so one of the things that I noticed a lot of were couples interacting. I have quite a few pictures that I'll be getting up over the next few weeks, but this will at least get you started...

If you squint just right, their faces almost go together to form one single (though slightly cubist) face. I like that.






No, it's not fair, but that's just the way it goes.

You can see the rest here. Enjoy!