New Poll

Over on the right sidebar, there's a new poll: What's your favorite movie this year (among Wall-E, Mamma Mia!, and The Dark Knight.)? Go over, and vote for your favorite!

Photo of the Week 10

This week's installment of my weekly selection of my favorite photo from my Flickr account comes not from my D60 (I'm working on it!) but, rather, from a trip last year to Maine. This features some of the white pines of Acadia National Park.

Line of the Week 3

This line comes from Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion in reference to the case Bush v. Gore:

"[The majority opinion] can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land … Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

Bureaucracy at Work!

I found a list of SCDMV's various specialty plate. Among the whose-idea-was-that?!?!? plates:

"First in Golf"




"Georgia Tech Foundation" (Yes, GEORGIA Tech).

"NASCAR" (Plus 5 for individual drivers)

"Secular Humanists of the Low Country"

"Shag"

"Sons of the Confederacy"

"Square Dance"

"Working for the Wild Turkey"

There are other stupid plates too... Trust me.

SC Senate: The Pride.

Er, scratch that whole pride idea. This comes to you from SC Senator Kevin Bryant (R - Anderson). This post, as you might imagine, was deleted incredibly quickly. Nice job, Bryant. Nice job.

Photo of the Week 9

This photo is brought to you by my Flickr account. It was taken at an overlook along the Pinnacle Pass Trail at Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area, in the upstate region of SC. Next week, hopefully, I'll have some photos from the D60.

Line of the Week 2

Yesterday (Friday) was my birthday. Since then I've been in a photographic mood, as I now call an amazing Nikon D60 my own. This line comes from Step Across This Line, a collection of short stories, speeches and articles by Salman Rushdie. This particular story, about his being photographed by Avedon, is called "On Being Photographed."

"What the photographer gained, the subject lost; cameras, like fear, ate the soul.
"If you believe the language—and the language never lies, though liars often have the sweetest tongues—then the camera is a weapon: a photograph is a shot, and a session is a shoot, and a portrait may therefore be the trophy the hunter brings home from his shikar. A stuffed head for his wall."

Sanford

I'm so proud of my governor. Yes, he may have vetoed a bill that would require AEDs in all public schools, and, yes, he vetoed an increase in the cigarette tax, which, as it stands today, is one of the lowest in the country. But if there's one thing he CAN do, he can show us that McCain is no different from Bush. Take a look. (Sorry, Mark, you aren't going to be a veep candidate any longer.)

WALL·E

Let briefly summarize WALL·E: Phenomenal. Its plot line is swift enough to keep its target audience interested, but it has an underlying message. This, I think, is the best film Pixar has created yet, easily surpassing even Toy Story itself. Now for that message:

WALL·E must be commended for bringing up the issue of our current lifestyle of excessive capitalism and increasing laziness, while doing so in a subtle way—one that will undoubtedly stick in the minds of its audience. IRONY WARNING! Why, exactly, is Disney, one of the largest corporations in the world, denouncing excessive capitalism?!

Just a little more irony, for your ironic pleasure. This is the "U Command WALL·E." Yes, it's a WALL·E toy that will add to the landfills only to be disposed, perhaps, by WALL·E himself. That, folks, is ironic capitalism straight from your friends at Disney.

Confessions

I'm ashamed. I ate fast food today, after a long 3-4 month (I don't remember how long, exactly) boycott of sorts on it. For what it's worth, it's a local place. Oh, the guilt!

ChaCha!

Over the past few days, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to cobble together the money I need to buy a Canon EOS 400D by July 26... While the goal is all-but-impossible now, I decided I still need some source of income. As a result, my brother and I are sharing a guide account on ChaCha. Today we took all of the tests, and now we have to wait. Gauging by the "Simulator Test," it's a really easy job. We'll see for sure, though, once we get the OK from ChaCha.

Photo of the Week 8

Each week, I pick my favorite picture from my Flickr account. This week's installment comes from Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area in Upstate SC. Pictured here: Lichens!

Line of the Week

I'm not sure if this will be a regular feature on the blog, Nonetheless, I wanted to post this, as it makes some very interesting—and very real—observations on the American political scene, although it's about Communism.

"In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
-George Orwell, 1984

Making a Mountain out of a Molehill

I fail to see why everyone's flipping out over Obama's "move to the center." I see this as a good thing. The majority of Americans are independent and centrist in their political ideologies. Do we not want a president who (*gasp*) represents the people?!?!? People are calling this a "flip-flop." I also fail to see why Americans are so anti-"flip-flop." Why would we want a president who is absolute and would never reconsider his or her views? I see such an unwillingness to change one's mind as a liability instead of an advantage. This is the power of the media and talking heads.

The Power of CNN

CNN's website is way more powerful than I had had previously thought. Above is a picture of CNN's "From the blogs" section, from one of their stories I linked to in a blog post from earlier today. The number of hits I got (compared to a typical day) and the variety in location of these posts was stunning. I hope someone who found the blog through CNN will stick around, but I doubt it (if you did, please comment!). It's also just cool to think that my blog was on CNN...

(Note: I did link to the same story again. We'll see if their algorithm picks this post up.)

Iranian Missile Tests

I'm sure most of you all know about today's Iranian Missile Tests, which have increased Middle Eastern tensions and are threatening that region, including allies such as Israel, and, ultimately, us. To quote an Iranian general, Hossein Salami, "We want to tell the world that those who conduct their foreign policy by using the language of threat against Iran have to know that our finger is always on the trigger and we have hundreds and even thousands of missiles ready to be fired against predetermined targets." I don't want to come off as a fear monger, but as citizens and as a nation, we need to take action. Please, call your senators and your representative and urge them, as a constituent, to consider avoiding the use of militaristic action in favor of diplomatic action. That is, unless you want another war. Very few citizens contact their representatives, and when they do, it makes a world of difference. I just called all three of my reps, Sen. Jim DeMint, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Rep. Joe Wilson; it took me all of four minutes. If you don't know who your senators are or what their phone numbers are, select your state of the drop-down list at the Senate website. If you need the same information for your representative, just type your Zip+4 at the House website (if you don't know what your Zip+4 code is, go here.). Seriously, let's stay away from another war. Spend 5 minutes of your time. Also, you'll notice that I included a "Digg this" button on this post; please consider Digging this, and spread the word.

Photo of the Month (June08)

Every month, I pick 1 photo from the previous month's Photos of the Week.

(Photo of the Week 6)

Photo of the Month (May08)

Here's another (hopefully) regular installment. Each month, I'll pick my favorite photo among the previous month's Photos of the Week. Here's your installment, albeit late, for May, 2008.



(Photo of the Week 1)

Photo of the Week 7

Each week, I pick one photo from my Flickr account. This was taken at a waterfall near Jones Gap State Park.

Sorry for the delay; I was unable to access the internet on Saturday.

200 Days Left!

I'm trying out Blogger's "scheduled posts" feature to post this at exactly midnight to let you know that we only have 200 days left of the Bush presidency! Thanks to my friend who found—and gave to me—a countdown clock from backwardsbush.com.

Interesting Discoveries

I was rummaging around, looking for things to sell on eBay (time is running out if I'm to buy the camera!) when I found a journal I wrote, spanning December 31, 1999 to October 26, 2003. It has 2-3 entries per year, and they're mainly me jotting down the day's happenings. Here, for your reading pleasure, is one of the 15 entries: I'm nine now. I'm on a soccer team, the HFC. I'm getting really good now [WRONG!]. I scored 3 times today! In a week I'll be a forth [sic] grader!"

I also uncovered our old N64. My brother, his girlfriend, and I played a few games of Mario Kart 64 and a bit of 1080º.