Bike

I have, at least, narrowed down which bike I'm looking for: it's a sportster 1200 custom.

Here's a likely candidate I looked at today. Tasty, I think... Felt good sitting on it, moreso than the roadster variant.

gothiness.

So, my father, former RC priest & the lot, has started a blog... more or less... link

So, I spent the day (yesterday, anyway) debating gothiness. What it is, what it be, what it don't be... And I got a ticket for speeding.

Here's the rough breakdown of the day:

Work. Nothing to say there - well, except that it was the last day prior to a longish vacation.

Left at noon, picked up Gamma, drove to the Botanical Gardens in DC... got some good photos. Drove to Arlington, ate lunch at Flat Top Grill - good eats, but ordered way more than I could finish. Note: gothiness had not yet, particularly, come up in conversation.

Headed towards the Odenton skating rink... and decided, relatively spur of the moment to go to Baltimore. Reason? Photograph Edgar Alan Poe's tombstone. At this point, gothiness came up.

I still don't understand what it means, per se. It appears to be a quasi counterculture movement to a degree, or possibly an offshoot of punk, or something else, or a combination thereof... dressing exclusively in black, similar to dressing like a pirate for Pastafarianism, is encouraged but not required... nor is any particular musical taste. Although, oddly from the greater public eye's viewpoint, Marilyn Manson appears to be held with some degree of disdain... and possibly Anne Rice as well. I was rather surprised by this.

And apparently as well, some of my mannerisms have prompted Gamma to declare (possibly ironically? unknown. I'm inept at capturing the nuances of non-vocal communication) "You're so goth" - f'r'instance, my current obsession with checking deviantart incessantly for new comments / deviations / journals etc. This blog, to some degree. My enjoyment of music which...

Well. Hrm. I like Bauhaus. They had a song at one point, "Bela Lugosi's Dead". This song, eventually, became considered the prototypical goth song. I liked (and like) them without this particularly impinging onto my thoughts; it's just music I enjoy. So I don't know if I can attach any relevance there...

Further mannerisms: I like graveyards. I think it's ecause they're generally quiet locations, I can ovoid other people there rather well, and the scenery's usually quite nice. I especially like them on a sunny day - aha! I enjoy, on occassion, the warming emanations of the daystar! Take that, goths! HAHA!

But - getting back on point - taking pictures in a graveyard - ideally with a cameraphone, which I eschewed - is a trait almot peculiarly particular to goths. I'd like to point out: a) not a cameraphone, oh my no; b) I was wearing kahki shorts and a light green t-shirt -and sneakers! Not combat boots. Heck, I don't own combat boots (I may still have a pair of Doc's somewhere in the house) & c) I can't think of a C. Ahh, wait; there were no moros-looking people in black in any of my photos. So there.

Back to Poe. I like Poe. I like Lovecraft. Both authors have been, to some degree (probably the former moreso than the latter) adopted by goth culture. Again, I didn't know this, and dammit, good literature is good literature, who else likes it be damned.

So... we go to Baltimore. On the way, was stopped for speeding by MD state police... fairly mild, 72 in a 55, and thankfully, MD just charges a fine, and doesn't dock points for DC drivers. Quite nice of them.

Onward... we found Poe's gravesite with very little difficulty, and it's quite the picturesque graveyard; sadly, we got there too late in the day for the light to be useful for taking many photographs, but I still managed to get several of Poe's actual tomb... The rest was, quite possibly, even superior; the graveyard surrounds a (smallish) church, Westminster I believe it may be called? (So Gamma recalls) - all available grassy land area surrounding it is used for tombs, some quite old; there are signatories to the constitution buried there, and several veterans of the war of 1812 (does anyone know the particular significance of magnolia leaves regarding this war?). Also, I've seen footstones for the first time - smaller stones, inscribed with the initials of the deceased, placed at the foot of the grave. Also, a small stone inscribed with just "48" or "148" - it may have been a mile marker, but entirely unsure.

An individual who was already at the scene taking photos of Poe's grave fled the scene as we arrived. Given my own circumstances there, I began harbouring suspicions that perhaps goths are a flighty lot.

We removed ourselves, and attempted to leave Baltimore. Far harder than arriving... Baltimore is, as far as I can see, a blighted city. If there's any truth to the slow federal response to Katrina being a plot to gentrify New Orleans, then I suspect Baltimore is theirr next target... the squalor was astounding.... block upon block upon block of boarded up houses; strip malls with boarded up storefronts; police running away; stolen merchandise being sold in the open.... I'm from a not-so-nice part of DC (a few blocks from one of the worst housing projects), and this scared the piss out of me.

We finally managed to leave... And got the skating rink; whee! I'm definitley getting better. Skated for the better part of 2.5 hours, though not the entire amount; I did take roughly 5 minute breaks each roughly half hour. My turns and crossovers are almost feeling natural, now. Still spilled a few times, but a) with less frequency than in sessions prior, & b) well, harder =) Was going significantly faster than previous occassions, with more surety, so the spills seemed to have greater impacts.

Stopped off for coffee and dinner on the way home. Dropped off Gamma.

All in all, a quite good day (heck, I'll even include the ticket in that statement). Sad that the LAN party was cancelled.. but I think we made up for it.

As for my supposed gothiness... I don't know. I'm reticent to identify into any particular group - I've always prided myself on being independent, not following any crowd. But I'm willing to investigate further. I'll try arranging my way into a club, perhaps. I just need to repeat to myself a wee mantra: "Be tolerant of both genders wearing fishnet." Maybe just: "be tolerant".

Feh... Kids.

Due to the host's kids being sickly little cretins, the lan party tomorrow has been postponed until Oct 22nd. Bleagh. Well, more time in which to practice.

Bush == Extra Crispy

Quote from Will Durst at The Progressive:

"Bush says he doesn't want to play the "Blame Game." Makes sense. Never heard of a chicken who wanted to play the "Extra Crispy" game."

So hard to resist

KEH Camera Brokers

Ken Rockwell gives this lens a good review, better than the modern 70-300g ed's... The price isn't prohibitive... but ack, there's the bike downpayment to think about. I have an 80-200 (a better lens than this, but doesn't have the zoom range)... think I'll wait. The true lust object has always been a 200 micro, anyway.

Wacom Graphire4 pen tablets: Digital Photography Review

Wacom Graphire4 pen tablets: Digital Photography Review

Looks tasty at the price. I've tried several tablets over the years, never any this small, and maybe that's been the problem... lack of talent's another option.

Battery-less pen is nice. The mouse, I could live without. I may give this a try - since no one seems to be coming out with the killer tablet pc that I've been looking for (1600+x1050+ resolution, GIMP-capable cpu, onboard optical drive, intelligently placed hard buttons which don't shut the machine down when held at odd angles, intelligently-placed ac-in which doesn't prevent holding in either horizontal or vertical positions. It's that first one that's the killer...)

I N K S C A P E . Draw Freely

I N K S C A P E . Draw Freely

The CVS version has intelligent connectors (think visio)! It's courtesy of Google's Summer Of Code... I've -so- been waiting for a visio replacement.

I've always loved Inkscape - and before it, it's forking father, SodiPodi - this just makes it something useful at work =)

Windows version, Linux version (uses autopackage)

Bikes

I'm taking a course to learn to ride a motorcycle in the beginning of October. Why?

a) High gas mileage
b) Looks like fun
c) People think I'm a biker based on my appearance, why not let 'em be right?
d) Deluded by media into thinking that women find men on motorcycles more attractive
e) All of the above

And the answer would, of course, be (e). I know that they're statistically more dangerous to ride than cars; however, I won't be getting a japanese speed bike; I'm going to get (assuming the learning-to-ride thing goes well) a fairly base-model Harley.

On that note, a link - and I'd like to mention that although I'm worried a bout all 5 items to a degree, I'm the very non-definition of yuppie.

My initial foray into looking at bikes was at Patriot Harley in Fairfax, VA; however, most of what they had seemed quite expensive and customized - even the used bikes. Speaking to a riding friend (who has been trying to convince me to get a bike for - oh, about a decade), I learned that Patriot is known for this - they buy up fairly stock bikes, slap on chrome by the double handful, and mark up the prices accordingly.

I like chrome, in general, but I don't think that's the way I want to go here. Flat grey would be my ideal, flat black a second choice, and anything else, eh, it's ok.

So, on friend's advice, will be spending a good bit of next week (on vacation) traveling to various other suggested dealerships - Fort Washington & Waugh, specifically. I'm looking (apparently) for a 1200cc sportster, either stock new (which should be comparable in price to the highly customized 1000cc used sportster within by budget at Patriot), or reasonably lightly used.

I plan to bring my camera along, and will bet taking photos of potential candidates.

Fuji p1x series update

I've found my next laptop. (found at engadget)

Maybe. If only they offered the p2x series as a tablet... This has lower res (or does it? hard to find hard specs, the older p1x models had lower res than the p2x series), and no optical/ extra battery bay that the p2x's sport....

I'll probably wait. Still, the fact that they're offering it w/ xptablet means they've moved to an rf pen, which is definitley a plus over their older resistive models.

Initial Post

There has to be one, so here it is.