12/29/01

Been a while since I wrote anything, but as nothing is really 'new' I haven't felt the urge to. I am sure this will change. In days to come there is the exciting possibility of me spilling my guts on a huge array of diverse and interesting subjects. That's only a possibility mind you. I am, however, looking forward to 'archiving' this section and perhaps finding a new picture to put at the top when January 2002 arrives.

12/25/01

12/22/01

Talk about saving the best for last... the latest three movies i've seen this year, all in December, have been the best of the year - The Man Who Wasn't There, Ocean's Eleven, and now, probably greatest of all, The Royal Tenenbaums. Damn it's good. It's one of those films that I didn't even feel the urge to analyze and discuss when I came out of the theater, as it works so completely well as a piece of filmmaking, it doesn't need dissecting. Suffice to say, it's funny, entertaining, poignant, and beautifully acted and filmed. Very special indeed.

12/19/01

So what happened to the 18th? Good question. What did happen to it? My site is still on the Daily Bikini list, so it must be a weekly picks thing. But it seems the page views are starting to become more manageable now, and I may not have to buy some extra bandwidth like I first feared. Still, a heck of a lot more people are getting the chance to be singularly unimpressed by my photographic exploits these days... which is nice.

Today I drove in really heavy rain from San Francisco along Highway 280. Sometimes living here scares me. But at least when it rains in this country I don't have to get wet. Talking of scary things, this link still cracks me up weeks after seeing it for the first time.

12/17/01

What the fuck? This page made me a pick of the day and directed an absurd amount of traffic to my humble photos.

My page views catapulted to a totally unfeasible 15000, and for those who missed it, I captured a screen grab for posterity. Well, it's something to show the grandchildren isn't it?

To all the users who came here from the Bikini Page and were expecting to see something a little more risqué, here's a picture of a pair of great tits.

12/16/01

See the new lomowall!

12/15/01

So I got my photos back from Walgreens. They coped fairly well with the C41 black & white thing, but seemed to have scratched up the negatives a bit... or my XA4 could be full of dust. Not too much to write home about photo-wise, but it was just a test roll, so I wasn't exactly expecting masterpieces... at least that's my excuse. Thanks to Allan we know the XA4 does indeed focus as close as 12". Cheers mate! And when it comes to money, just look at how serious yours truly can be. I might put this one on the home page.

Do I like shooting with black & white? I dunno really... too early to tell. but I like the cheapness and lack of hassle with color, it's more in my spirit of shooting everything and shooting often, cheap to process, fun to look at. Black & white seems ever so pretentious and arty. I'm joking of course.

*

Being the terribly cynical person I am, I never expect people to say nice things to or about me, especially not strangers. but occasionally, my cynicism is thwarted (at least for a few minutes). Today I got an email from someone in Mexico complimenting me on my photos, particularly the Lomo ones, and praising my composition and color. That was such a nice thing to do. So thank you.

I am not a prisoner. I am not a free man either. I am not Number 6. But I still have to 'take it easy' this weekend even though I want to go out and do more stuff. I must heal. I must remain calm. I only ventured out to the supermarket today (took some candid shots, natch) and I'm eager to see the results from this Kodak T400CN film, so I've been rattling off shots using the XA4 just for the sake of it. Wild eh? I'm such a rebel...

12/14/01

I posted four new photos today including a nice night time one of Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, a local Vietnamese restaurant, some techie place, and Paddy and Karen waiting for a train. I got this film processed at a local indie photo store that uses Konica instead of Kodak machines. Frankly, I couldn't tell the difference, until they charged me about five bucks more than Walgreens does.

I bit the bullet again and bought myself a used (uh oh) Lomo off eBay. It's coming direct from Ukraine, hopefully not full of radioactive dust from Chernobyl. I already miss my old one. Life has lost its color without it.

12/13/01

I was overjoyed today to discover that the soundtrack from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is still available. The theme from this movie has to be one of the greatest ever, it's funky, jazzy, and oh so Seventies. I watched it again tonight on video.

I'm still kind of sore. My chest is still bruised and I feel a little uncomfortable sometimes at work. Or perhaps that's just work. I really should be taking things slower than I am, but I just feel if life gets any more snail-like, it'll sprout a shell and slither onto a wet sidewalk before being squished by a kid on a skateboard.

12/12/01

At last! An appalling Cockney accent to rival that of Dick van Dyke's in Mary Poppins: a new champion to the throne of badly done english accents emerges in the form of Don Cheadle in Ocean's Eleven. It really is a stinker, the accent that is, not the movie. The movie itself is fun from beginning to end - not particularly cerebral, completely inplausible, aware of just how cool it is - very 'Hollywood' indeed. The cast do their stuff well without really having to try, the style of the film and its high entertainment factor just kind of carries you along for the ride. It's well filmed, looks great, and is nicely scripted... it's completely vacuous, and all the better for it. Go see it, it's pure escapism, and we all need that sometimes don't we?

12/11/01

Am I supposed to write something every day?

Today I was told by someone that writing a daily journal on the web is a really sad thing to do, just another loser scrawling meaningless babble that no-one will ever read, and that those who do will be bored shitless. All the more reason to do it in that case. To all the naysayers out there, this section is for you. Perhaps I'll write tomorrow's spiel in the style of a depressed 15-year-old Goth...

I remember spending my whole adolescence pretty much 'justifying' what I got up to, who I was, what I liked... it's something you do. You're always so damn conscious as a teenager how you appear - whether how you dress is 'cool', whether what you like is 'in'. As I've got older, I know one thing has changed for sure - I don't have to justify what I do or say to anyone anymore. But people sometimes still have that kind of attitude, and it's a little tedious.

I used to spend a lot more time writing you know. It's true I tell you! When I got out of university, I wrote and produced a stage play, had some stuff on the radio... thought I was going to make a living that way until reality hit in. Nowadays I write far less, but even doing this in the past few days has been somehow cathartic and also helps 'keep my eye in' as it were. Perhaps from it, something better will spawn.

OK, I confess - I still spend a lot of time justifying what I do or say... but there's a crucial difference these days - I only have to justify it to myself.

12/10/01

So I got the 'all clear' from Dr Tabak at the hospital today - apparently my chest X-ray 'looks good' and I'm allowed to go back to work which I'll do tomorrow.

I bought some black & white film for a change, even though I usually shoot with color. this stuff is by Kodak and it's called T400CN. It's meant to be pretty good, and most importantly it can be processed using the C41 color process at any lab, as it's a bugger paying a huge amount for specialist black & white printing these days. One day I'll set up my own darkroom. One day pigs will fly.

I wanted to go out and shoot today a bit more, but I got a bastard behind the eyes and had to lay down in a darkened room sipping water and feeling sorry for myself all afternoon and evening. I found out later it was because I had no caffeine today. D'oh.

12/09/01

I think my Lomo's broken for good this time. I've tried numerous times dropping it on the floor (which usually cures the sticky shutter), but this time round it refuses to fix and seems jammed like a mofo. Damn. And I wanted to take pictures of our lovely new christmas tree with its pretty red lights and baubles. Oh well, yet another $90 will have to be dispatched to the mysterious Lomo Joe for a new one, providing he still has 'em.

*

Woohoo! All the pictures are up and so are all the pages!

It dawned on me this morning as I woke up how most people start this kind of journal shit when they're 15 or 16 right? Not when they're 28. Oh well, I've always been late to things. I started dressing like a 15-year-old when I was in my early 20s, discovered punk when it had already happened, and still lie about being a Macintosh enthusiast when i've only had this iMac a year. Perhaps I'll discover The Beatles now that George Harrison has snuffed it.

*

This HTML web page building malarkey takes a long time doesn't it? Jeez, I've been working on this thing all yesterday and into this morning and it still feels like I've got eons more to 'code'.

OK it's 1.52am and I should really go to bed. I stayed up late deliberately because I keep waking up way too early. Maybe tomorrow I'll venture out. Ha. I said that yesterday.

12/08/01

I neglected to watch State and Main in favor of continuing this epic work of HTML coding. What's my fucking problem? I have seen State and Main before, it contains one of my favorite movie lines ever: "It's not a lie - it's a gift for fiction", certainly one of Mamet's best, apart from everything in Glengarry Glen Ross of course. You fucking child. You company man.

Really, I should've gone out today. I haven't been anywhere in almost a week what with the surgery and that. Still, I'm fearful about what will happen when I return to normal life again - will contact with direct sunlight make my hair fall out and skin melt? Probably. Amazing really, most people would jump at the chance to be completely and utterly lazy for an entire week, instead I feel a little caged-in. My wounds still hurt, my lung feels stronger though. I'm getting up to 3000 on the special breathing equipment thingy they gave me.

If I'd have been feeling stronger and fitter, I probably would've gone to my company's end of year party in the city, but sadly I'm still not well enough just yet. I think it would've been lovely to celebrate the year in which 600 or so employees got laid off. oh well, I'm just very grateful to have a job at all, but miss the warm and fluffy company of old.

12/07/01

Today I watched Mission to Mars. Please feel free to leave this web site immediately in utter disgust, snorting with contempt under your breath.

12/06/01

So I got to take a proper shower today and shave. I don't feel like the fucking Yeti anymore. I also got to take off some bandages to reveal my weeping surgery wounds. My back and sides are still bloody and gross, but it's way worse than it looks. No, I haven't taken any fucking photos of them. Yes my lungs still hurt a bit.

12/05/01

Today I was released back into the world from Kaiser Permanente, Redwood City, after my videothoracoscopic (yes, it's a real word) surgery on my pneumothorax (collapsed lung). What a fucking ordeal. I've never stayed in hospital overnight before (let alone two-and-a-half days), never had any surgery as major as this that required a general anaesthetic, etc. When I got home I thought I must write this down, and I thought about redesigning my photo web site. Kill two birds with one stone... I can write this shit down and publish it online, see if someone has the time to read it apart from me.

So I turn up at the hospital 10am on Monday 3rd December. This is also just two days on from my one year anniversary of being in the USA... happy fucking anniversary huh? The woman who put my IV in had to do it twice, so that was a nice start. I'm out for about two hours I believe, and all has gone well, they pump me full of morphine, and I start having crazy dreams in crazy colors (all that Lomo photography has worn off on me), but the morphine is good, makes you very tingly and warm - you should try it one day.

When I get to my room (private one thankfully) I discover I've also got a bloody great tube sticking out of me which is draining blood out of my chest. Gross. The pain is horrible but I'm dealing with it... Seinfeld's on TV, Allan and Shannon from work turn up and surprise me, the Asian nurse who's keeping watch on me is cute but stern.

The night is bad though. See, the IV keeps making me want to pee, and I have to go in what they call a "urinal" - hold a plastic bottle to my todger and piss into it they mean. So every hour during the night I'm pinging the nurses to come and help me stand up as it's the only way I can pee properly, and more frustratingly, for some reason I just can't seem to squeeze it all out. Man, I'm really trying here but as much as I strain, there's always more left in the tank, and I know in just another 30 minutes, I have to call the nurse again to help me stand up so I can attempt to drain the weasel. It's fucking humiliating, but what can you do? I can't go to the bathroom because of the bloody tube and IV, so I've got no choice but to piss in the bottle. But I can't stay in bed and lean over and just let it flow, because my chest is hurting like a mutha and my brain knows that's just not the way. So I have to stand, or semi-stand, and it hurts, and it doesn't quite finish, and in between more painkilling injections, morphine, checking of my 'vital signs', it's the longest night of my life, and frankly, it's fucking horrible.

So I probably sleep a little, dream some morphine-induced technicolor nightmares, wake up feeling sorry for myself... I'm 28 and I'm in a hospital bed... Jesus. But today the pain sucks more than it did before, and I keep thinking to myself if I feel like this now, how the hell do they expect me to get out by tomorrow morning? The solution is just around the corner and goes by the name of Dr Tabak, the woman who performed the surgery on me. See, what's causing all the discomfort is the chest tube, but I don't know that, do I? Tabak does. "Looks like we'll have to get that tube out I think," she says. So straight away I'm thinking how the hell is she going to do that? It's right inside me. But Tabak knows best. She flips me onto my side and rips off the bandages on my back and sides, removing what hair I do have there and what feels like a layer of skin. "I'm just going to cut this stitch," she remarks. How nice. Ouch! That fucking hurt, but not as much as the next bit. Oh boy. This is gross, you don't have to read it but you know you want to. She tells me to take a deep breath in (like I can do that when my lung has just been operated on) and then let it out long and slow, and she yanks the tube right out of my chest and I can completely feel it coming out as she tugs it. Yes, my eyes water. Yes, I scream (internally). Yes, blood spills over my hospital vest thing and onto the floor, as Tabak does a patch up job on my wounds with 25 feet of sticky tape and bandages. Oh my.

But would you believe it. Literally two minutes after all that excitement, I feel so much better, normal even. See, the tube can only stay in for so long before the body rejects it - once it was out they had me up and walking, the IV came out, and they even let me eat some solid food instead of the liquid monstrosities they'd been feeding me earlier. I got out a day later.

So the whole experience was perfectly routine.

as George Tabb would say in Maximumrocknroll, "Take my life, please".