I'm gonna be a Slowski, like those turtles on TV

I went to the doctor's today (you don't even want to KNOW, but rest assured that for the most part everything is OK), and she took me task for my weight.

"I can see that you've lost weight since I last saw you, and that's good. But you need to loose more. Keep going."

Then she told me what my current weight is (I try to avoid scales as they are both evil and depressing), and people, I nearly died. I'm not revealing the actual number here, but suffice to say, it's roughly 5 pounds short of a beached whale.

I felt kind of depressed for a little while (see what scales and numbers do to me?), but then I had a "sack up, ho" conversation with myself. Because you know what? I've been slacking the last couple of weeks, erm... months. I've been going to the gym only once or twice a week at most and I've been really bad about what foods I've eaten (I am sure that the NJ Fair did not help) and I know I've gained weight back.

So OK. Time to get on point again, or whatever. Now that Gary's going to be living with me, I have someone else to eat vegetables with. And by vegetables, I mean things that do not fall in the category of "corn" or "romaine lettuce drenched in Caesar dressing," the only two vegetables I've ever seen Mike eat.

Because at the end of the day, it's not about how I look or what I fit into. It's about being healthy, dammit. And so in that spirit, I'm signing up for this.

It's my first 5K run, ever. I don't know how well I'll do, since the closest I've come to running one is the 3.5 miles I do on the elliptical at the gym, which is quite a different impact. Also, I hate running. I really do. I don't get people who run, for like, pleasure. You people are weird. But running is good exercise, and if it will help divorce me from my relationship with fat rolls of sadness, then so be it. I figure I'll "train" this week, getting back into the swing of things at the gym, working up to some light jogging on the treadmill (ugh) and then come the race I'll just do my best. It's a 5K walk as well, so I won't feel any shame in doing half-and-half.

As of right this second, I've got a motley crew of Stephanie, Angela, Miss T, Jim and Miss J (hee!) joining me. Dare I say? I'm kind of excited.

Royersford seems as far as Cleveland

Last night, Mike moved out of the apartment.







After he made his final sweep of the apartment, picking up stray mail and random items from the bathroom, he came up to my room. "I'm leaving," he told me looking down at his feet and shuffling them slightly.

"Aw, Mike! I'm going to miss you!" It was true. For all the mini drama -- "I'm breaking the lease and moving into a condo! Wait, no I'm not! Hey, I might break the lease and move to North Carolina! Wait, no I'm staying. Buy a couch with me!" -- Mike was pretty rad to live with. Considering that Kelly and I picked him up from Roommates.com and with all of the weirdos we could have ended up with, we got someone nice, easygoing, and normal.

Well, I'm using the term "normal" pretty loosely.









As we hugged goodbye he told me, "No matter what, you and Kelly are my family now. You're my family out here."

Bye, Mike. It was a blast living with you.



Oh god, now I have to live with this guy:



Send booze, please.

Well, now I can breathe easy

All this nonsense in Denver? Puh-Shaw! Pundits? Take a back seat. We have official confirmation that the Weekly World News Alien is supporting Barack Obama.

Note that WWN Alien has correctly predicted every election since 1980.

I'm much cuter in anime

Everyone else on the planet is doing this, so I thought I would too. I wish I lived in an animated world! Also, check out those ta-tas!

Life Changing Events

So I don't want to blog about this too much, because I don't want to steal other people's thunder, but some of my friends have been rocking out with life changes and I want to give them shout outs for being awesome.

First, there's the newest member of the 141 family. Who looks like Al, I think. She's all of a week and two days old, and I am mentally preparing to spoil her rotten. Welcome to Lillian (a.k.a. - Blueberry!) (Yes, I'm calling her that forever.)

Second, just this past weekend, this guy I know got married to a completely bodacious girl. Congrats, Brian and Nazzy! I wish I could have been there to take a million photos and celebrate with you.

As for me? I got cleared to register for my thesis. PEOPLE. I will be done in December. I will be a MASTER. Of, you know, ACADEMIC STUFF. To me, that's crazy. Who saw fit to allow me to be into grad school? I kind of can't process it all.

Fair! Fair! Fair!

Oh friends. It's that time again. You know the time.

NEW JERSEY SUSSEX COUNTY STATE FAIR TIME.

Also known as FAT KID WEEKEND.

Also known as, LOOK STOP JUDGING ME, IF I WANT TO EAT DEEP FRIED CANDY BARS ON A STICK THEN IT'S MY DAMN RIGHT AS AMERICAN.

Also known as, I CAN'T BELIEVE I ATE ALL OF THAT, SWEET JESUS, MY FAT ROLLS OF SADNESS WILL NOT BE CONTAINED.

Ahem. That last one may have just been me on Monday morning when I looked in the mirror. Shut up.


This year we brought along Phil and Krista to partake in the carnage. More importantly, we brought my camera to document the gluttony.



We started off with our traditional first stop: Corn. Since the first year when it was just Kelly and I, corn has always been the first food of the day. We were raving about it to Krista and Phil, who I don't think quite got it until they took their first bites. This corn is AMAZING. It is the best corn on the planet. This is the corn the Native Americans gave the first settlers, who tasted it and responded "That's it. We were going to leave because we were all frostbitten and failing at life, but now that we know this place grows this delicious stuff we're staying for good. Here, have some smallpox."

It is seriously the sweetest, most fresh corn I've ever tasted. It's roasted in the husk and then dunked in a vat a butter before being served to you. I could live off of this stuff.



We moved on then to the "Church Spuds," also known as the "Baked Potatoes of the Lord." Looking at that picture, I am sure you can see that they are holy and delicious.



Kelly does her part by partaking in a caramel apple.





Mike, being a true MVP, houses a London Broil Sandwich.



Christopher decides that two corn dogs are better than one.



I pitch in with some bratwurst.



That, my friends, is a deep fried brownie. I can say with some authority that it's not as good as the deep fried Oreo or the deep fried Snickers. But it still gets the job done.



Phil tries to dominate a Chicken-in-a-Pita.

So what else can I say? It was all delicious. Every last bite. And I regret nothing!

Full list of foods:

• Corn
  
  
• Church Spuds
  
  
• Watermelon
  
  
• Potato Soup
  
  
• Ice Cream
  
  
• Water Ice
  
  
• Caramel Apple
  
  
• Bratwurst
  
  
• London Broil Sandwich
  
  
• Corn Dog
  
  
• Pizza
  
  
• Zeppole
  
  
• Chili Dog
  
  
• Fried Brownie
  
  
• Chicken-in-a-Pita
  
  
• Giant Soft Pretzel
  
  
• Gyro
  
  
• Waffle Ice Cream
  
  
• Fudge
  
  
• Kettle Corn

Yes, we ate all of that. We also saw swimming pigs, crazy huge sand sculptures, a giant donkey made of straw, the most heroic and stupendous rat tail in existence, and many many ill-advised fashions.

Next year the fair is July 31 through August 9. MARK YOUR CALENDARS.

Champeeeens!

So this softball team I know? THEY TOTALLY JUST WON THE DIVISION PLAYOFFS.

I believe the words "Aww" and "Yeah" just made it into your vocabulary.

After the game tonight, we all gathered in the parking lot to slap each other on the back and drink beers together. There was good-natured ribbing and excited verbal replays of the game, little kids weaving in and out of our legs and all the Yuengling we could put down. As the sun was setting, Curt (the coach/manager/pitcher extraordinaire) turned to our CFO and gestured to all of us mingling and said, "That's your company right there."

I'm glad he said that, and I know exactly what he meant by it. So many other teams in our league hire "ringers" to play on their teams. Ours is one of the few teams made up almost entirely of employees. There's only one person on our team who isn't a current employee -- he's a former employee who's related to two current employees, though. So this win, in my mind represents a lot and it says so much about my coworkers.

As frustrated and as annoyed as I get sometimes, and a much as I know I am destined to move on, someday this will be something I will really miss. This camaraderie, this spirit.

Next up: The League Playoffs!

Sometimes I need to remind myself this is really happening

...And remind myself to get to work already. Because:


REGISTRATION IS OPEN.


Yeah.


Yeeeeaaaah.

I think Rosemont should pay my registration fees. What do you think?

Vakien Behind the Walls

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph my friends Shanna, Dave, and Mike's band Vakien. We did the photo shoot in a place I have always wanted to photograph: Eastern State Penitentiary.





So, Shanna, Dave, Mike, and Jimmy are all good looking and fun to shoot. And the location couldn't have been more perfect -- dark, tragic, and beautiful.































That final photo was taken in Death Row. Which, YES, was insanely creepy, thanks for asking.

All told though, there was only one place where I felt A Presence, if you will. In the early part of the shoot on Cellblock 12, we crammed into this cell at the end of the block. The early, 6am light looked incredible and I wanted to capture it in my shots. However. Nothing worked for me in that cell. Everything went wonky -- my auto focus, my white balance stopped working properly, my flash, and even my manual focus. Don't ask me how my manual focus effs up, as I was controlling it. But there you have it.



Um, yeah. This is one of my shots from that cell. Now, logically, I know that Dave probably moved or my camera shook or something. But then there's the part of me that Wants to Believe that screams that it doesn't particularly look like the shape of Dave's head and that it's SOMEONE ELSE.

Whatever. At any rate, I felt uncomfortable in that cell, and we left it as soon as possible.

Vakien plays tomorrow night (Saturday) at the Coffee Club in Media at 8pm. Sadly I can't be there because I will be in Jersey with Kelly and Mike for Fat Kid Weekend (a.k.a. - NJ State Fair '08!), but you should totally check them out because they're going to be great.

Shaking hands with a hurricane

Bloc Party @ Webster Hall. NYC.
Originally uploaded by Guy Eppel

I'm a few days late posting on this, but: Holy christ, you guys. Bloc Party at the TLA was tremendous.

I got to attend the concert with my rad cousin, Meghan, who in a week will be starting her freshman year in college. I know. I remember when that girl was born.

Anyway, I am so glad I got to share this concert with Meghan. She was the one who got us the tickets, as they had been sold out because I was too stupid to buy them the second they were on sale. And I could not have chosen a more incredible concert to go to with her.

Simply put, Bloc Party (and Does it Offend You, Yeah?) riled us up. It created this amazing interaction where our excitement fed back to them on stage and then they got rowdy and fed it right back to us. I almost think Bloc Party were surprised about how excited and energetic we were. "I thought this was supposed to be Killadelphia?" Kele asked us. "But you're not so bad, yeah?"

Despite suffering from a nasty chest infection, Kele still "brought the rock," as he put it. And man oh man, they did. Meghan and I were in the second row, kind of, right up against the stage. Rarely have I been a part of a show like that, with that kind of energy. We sang every song back to them, cheered them till our throats were hoarse.

Here's a good indication of how amazing this show was: Because I'm a nerd, I had gone online earlier in the day on Tuesday to see what their set lists for their shows were like. Going into the show, I pretty much knew exactly what they were going to play. And aside from re-arranging some things, they played what I thought they would, including for their encore.

After their encore, we were all still so jazzed, we kept cheering and chanting for one more song. But then the house lights came up, and techies started filing onto the stage to break stuff down. The entire crowd let out a resounding, "Awwwwwwwwwww."

But then, the band meandered their way back on stage with sheepish grins, causing the techies to scramble and quickly put back together what they had just torn down. "Fuck it," Kele said once his mic was turned back on. "It's not that often we play a gig this good." And so they launched into "Pioneers," which I hadn't heard anyone on the message boards talking about -- making me think they played it special just for us.

By the end of it, poor Kele and the rest of the band looked just knackered. Part of me wanted to pull a Maggie* and hang out and wait for them by their tour bus or something, but the larger, more responsible me knew how early I had to get up and was aware of how tired Meghan seemed.

But trust me, if you ever get the opportunity to see them live, you should. I can't wait to see them again.

Photo respectfully borrowed from Guy Eppel. Sadly, I was unable to find any photos from Tuesday's show, and I didn't take any because I wanted to enjoy the concert for the music, not be thinking about composition, aperture, and shutter speeds.

*No lie, my friend Maggie has spent her summer following Wilco and the Nels Cline Singers. She and Nels are totally BFFs now, for serious.

40 Sentences

I don't usually go for this sort of thing, but I've been seeing it crop up on other blogs and the answers are fascinating.

1. My uncle once: hitchhiked across America. It was the sixties.

2. Never in my life: have I cheated on a significant other.

3. When I was five: I wanted to marry Michael J. Fox.

4. High school was: retarded. With the exception of band (shut up) and school plays (shut up!), it kind of sucked. Aside from a small circle of friends, people really didn't get me.

5. I will never forget: the words to "Canticle of Zachariah," thanks to the fact that we had to sing it at every single First Friday Adoration at aforementioned high school.

6. Once I met: David Sedaris. I promptly made an ass out of myself. See also: Michael Palin, Michael Showalter.

7. There’s this boy I know: and I totally have a crush on him. But he already has a girlfriend.

8. Once, at a bar: a guy told me that my hair smelled amazing and proceeded to sniff my head.

9. By noon, I’m usually: hungry.

10. Last night: I worked late, attended a softball game, made risotto, half-heartedly tried to do school work, went to bed.

11. If only I had: more confidence in myself.

12. Next time I go to church: it will be for a family function of some sort.

13. What worries me most: is money. Or rather my complete lack thereof.

14. When I turn my head left I see: my reading chair.

15. When I turn my head right I see: a wall with a collage hanging on it.

16. You know I’m lying when: I get the prickles, the blurts and the headlaugh.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: dressing up with Erin and dancing to Madonna.

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: someone blinded by love, who is then tragically doomed, like Desdemona.

19. By this time next year: I hope to be getting ready to move to either New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, or London -- somewhere I can be a moderately fabulous publishing goddess.

20. A better name for me would be: Girl With Lots of Insecurities Blithely Trying to Cover it Up With Dorky Behavior. It's my Indian Name, actually.

21. I have a hard time understanding: Republicans.

22. If I ever go back to school, I'll: be one day closer to completing my Master's.

23. You know I like you if: I play with my hair a lot. I completely suck at flirting, so that's the only help you'll get.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: my parents. They've been wildly supportive of me and my goals.

25. Take my advice, never: try to take photos in your stocking feet while standing on a leather swivel chair. You will fall.

26. My ideal breakfast is: two eggs over easy with wheat toast and coffee.

27. A song I love but do not have is: "Cha Cha Heels" as sung by Chiwetel Ejiofor in Kinky Boots. Why iTunes, WHY do you not have it?

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: prepare to be bored.

29. Why won’t people: be nice to each other?

30. If you spend a night at my house: you will have your toes tickled/eaten by Dill in the middle of the night.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: an emergency.

32. The world could do without: pollution.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: vote for McCain.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: Daniel Craig.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: gum.

36. If I do anything well it’s: procrastination.

37. I can’t help but: be down on myself a lot of the time.

38. I usually cry: at sappy nonsense. I might be turning into my mother.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: relax, be yourself and have fun.

40. And by the way: I should be kissed, and often. By someone who knows how.

I effing hate Comic Sans

But otherwise, this video is hysterical:

ETA: I tried embedding it, but it makes everything all wonky. Go here instead.

Upsides

Upsides to Digital Photography: AMAZING Photoshoots with plenty of time for experimentation.

This morning I was privileged to take photos in an incredible location.

Eastern State Penitentiary.

I have wanted to take pictures in ESP for the longest time. Getting in there to take photos, however, is expensive. OK, it's expensive to me. To Dave, however, it's worth it. So this morning, bright and early at 5:30a.m.*, I met up with Dave, Shanna, Mike, and Jimmy (otherwise known as Vakien) and for 4 hours we had the prison all to ourselves.

You guys, it was so rad. I want to tell you more, but I'll save it for the actual photo post. Mainly, I want to get across that thanks to the magic of digital I was able to take a photo, look at it, figure out what worked/didn't and fix it right away. I feel that when I start editing the photos tomorrow, I'm going to have more quality shots to work with.

All told, this was probably the best photo shoots I've ever had. This is thanks to the band, the location, and my fabulous digital camera.

Upsides to Digital Photography: You can take lots and lots and lots of photos.

I am not lying to you people, I took 513 frames in 4 hours. Obviously that's not counting the 35mm shots I also took. Hot damn, y'all.

*Yes Virginia, this means I had to wake up at 4:30a.m. I'm pooped, I'm going to bed.

Downsides

The Downside to Digital Photography: Losing photos through your own stupidity.

A few weeks ago I attended a Phoenixville Block Party and took lots of photos in the hopes that I would be able to sell them to Chester County Living Magazine -- I knew CCLM had planned on doing a story on the Friday Block Parties, and through a contact I hoped I would be able to pitch them my shots before they assigned a photographer to the job. Long story short, they scrapped the story altogether due to timing and space constrictions, but that's neither here nor there.

After the block party, I headed home to Malvern. As I was pulling onto my street, I remembered that the Malvern Fair was in it's final night. Since I had a lot of space left on my cards, I decided to head down there and take some shots just for fun. I didn't capture anything earth-shattering or important, just some towny shots of a carnival. I was experimenting with exposures and enjoying the effects of the lights. It was a lot of fun, and I was excited to see what the photos looked like on a full screen, as opposed to my wee camera viewscreen. Towards the end of the night, I ran into Mike and Mel and we got ice cream together and watched the fireworks -- which I also took photos of.

Because I was so focused on the job of the Phoenixville Block Party -- editing them, making sure they were uploaded in a timely fashion, and sending links to the appropriate people -- I set the media cards containing photos from the carnival aside.

And because I'm a retard, I forgot about those photos until two days ago.

And then I realized that I had reformatted all of my media cards, meaning the photos had all been deleted.

Thankfully, the photos were nothing important, but still. I am so disappointed, mostly with myself. Gah.

The Downside of Digital Photography: Technology Randomly Being a Beeotch

This afternoon I was taking some headshots for my Uncle Tamin and cousin Alex, both of whom are fledgling actors and getting work in local plays, commercials, and student films. This was a difficult job, seeing as my uncle, God love him, is particular about what he wants. As for Alex, bless, it's damn near impossible to get him to smile naturally, or at least in a way that doesn't look forced, cheesy, or like he just stepped out of a commercial for gum circa 1958. Exacerbating the situation, I only had a media card with the capacity for 16 shots. It was taking forever, but finally I got some genuine pictures and moved on to use my 35mm for a bit and take some shots of my uncle. But when I went to pick my digital camera up again, the card read as full -- even though I knew I still had six shots left. When I went to view to photos, it read as "No Image." WTF?

This has only ever happened to me once before, when I was taking photos of Gary's art for his portfolio. That time, I knew something was off before I even looked through the viewfinder. A bit of static electricity had come up from the carpet and shocked me when I touched the camera. It was such a strong, powerful shock and I knew it was bad news. It fried my media card and it had to be reformatted.

This time, I couldn't figure out what had happened. We were outdoors, so there was no chance for static electricity, and I had set the camera down for less than 10 minutes. It was so frustrating. We had to call Alex back, the poor kid had been playing and was sweaty and not in the mood for going through the whole, "Smile! No, not like that, smile normal" thing again.

All in all, good reasons to remember why 35mm is classic and can be quite hassle-free.