Author: chris

Amusement, education, and procrastination

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Today I had an interlude of giggling at a Wikipedia entry.  It’s not as ridiculous as it may sound.  I was looking up what an “Oxford comma” is (turns out it’s the comma you may, or may not, have been taught to put after the second-last item in a list).  This little research was inspired by the song “Oxford Comma” by Vampire Weekend, which I was listening to just prior.  I need to include a warning with my glowing recommendation: I think it’s a great song, but it does include a lot of repeats of a certain word beginning with F.  Not quite as amusingly as Eric Idle’s FCC song but more cheerily.  The same warning applies to the FCC song but, in addition, this one contains no small political bias, expressed in terms not calculated to avoid giving offence.

So through a quirk of my mp3 player’s random playlist I ended up at my desk laughing out loud at the section on how the inclusion of the Oxford (or Serial, or Harvard) comma can, in some situations, resolve ambiguity in lists, and in others, create ambiguity, and how some lists cannot, tragically, be rendered unambiguous by either its exclusion or its inclusion.  This section happens to kick off with an educational example from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, whose web writings I’ve enjoyed since before I could bring myself to say the word “blog” without putting sarcastic finger-quotes around it or pronouncing it “blaaauuughh.”

I may have been a little giddy from my election hangover.  “Election hangover” is my short form for the fatigue experienced by those who stayed up a bit late last night watching the results and commentary as the votes were being counted.  In our house, at least, there was no alcohol involved.  See how efficient it is to have a dedicated term to express such an idea more concisely?

On my way home tonight I had the FCC song in my head, and after being bullied a few times by impatient car drivers I found myself whistling it the rest of the way home.  I can’t decide if this is likely to have  generated a lot of bad karma or if it actually cast a protective aura about me for the duration of my ride.  I’m inclined to think the latter, as it’s an upbeat tune, my mood improved markedly, and I even think I noticed blackbirds singing along and flying alongside me.  And I made it home in one piece despite everyone else’s election hangover.

No posts today.

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I’m not going to post today.  I worked late, so there’s just no time.  It was almost 9:30pm when I left, and the sky was still reddish in the west!  I somehow missed observing the transition from dark at 6pm to still light at way-too-late-to-be-leaving-work o’clock.  And yet, here we are in May, the month next to the month with the longest days.  And here we are in England, which, I suppose, is important information, because despite being from Canada, I am now significantly further north than I was when I was a child.

I wished I’d had my camera with me, my really good camera, to get a shot of the twilight over the fields, and then the glow of the streetlamps in the blossoming horse-chestnut trees and the periodic illuminated patches on the sidewalk below.

There’s something magical about artificial light on certain evenings.  It’s electric in the rain, but differently energizing on a clear spring evening. I wanted my camera to eat it up, the light passing through exuberant foliage, the shadows on new and old bricks, the almost-darkness and the carefree young people coming back from dinner or going to a party.

In my imagination tonight, of course, those young people are not stressed over exams or roommates or money, and they are not coming from or headed to an assignment crunch session.  They are carefree, I tell you.

But I didn’t have my camera with me so there are no photos, and I find I’m having a tendency to ramble aimlessly, so it’s a good thing I’m not posting anything tonight.

First photo

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This is the first photo I took with my new Nikon D90.  I went straight for the 35mm f1.8 lens I’d bought with it and looked to see what kind of depth-of-field I could get.

I love how the guy’s head is in the dead centre of the frame.  This composition reflects how badly I wanted my first shot with a digital SLR to be in focus, and focused manually, with that manual focus ring I’ve craved for so long.  I made sure enough of the many possible settings were sensible, and made sure the focus was OK, and the subject was one I’ll remember fondly, and pushed the shutter release without recomposing.

There are enough things to get right on this camera that I don’t regret that decision.  There is scope to generate really embarrassingly screwed-up photos, and I have, but none of those are DSC_0001.

The subject, by the way, is one of several toys we bought at Mothercare in a panicked bid to ensure we had some new objects with which to divert the attention of a then-13-month-old G on an eight-hour overnight flight to Toronto.  None of the toys were relevant on that trip, as it turned out (hint: food was much more important).

This car has great, rubbery wheels that spin easily and drive straight.  G takes issue with the fact that it’s so stubborn about going in a straight line, but for me it’s a joy to roll around.  I even went back to buy another one (there were two models) but, alas, the cars were no longer available.

I’m pleased with this as the first frame in my “Camera4” database (“Camera” started in 2002, shots from a 2MP Canon Powershot A40 I thought was the best thing since pain de campagne…OK, I’m back from browsing old cycling-holiday shots…hey, F’s wearing the same cycling jersey right now as that younger guy in this photo from 2002…uh, what was I talking about?).

I was interested to see just how different the D90’s output would be to that of “Camera2”, a Powershot A700 (purchased mid-1996) and “Camera3,” a Panasonic DMC-LX3 (purchased late 2008), so I took a bunch more pictures of this same car.

I’m planning to post some of these, just because I can.  But not tonight.  I’m trying a new routine wherein I go to bed before it’s stupidly late and see if I’ll be more productive if I’m less tired.  Whoops.  Missed it again.