Japan photos are up on Flickr. These are all non-doll but there are some random ones with my tiny in them. I would like to think that I'll still get to writing some kind of report, for myself at least, but I'm not sure if I will. I did add fairly thorough comments to the photos so you know what they're of. I wish that I had taken more photos - the heat and the fatigue . . . well, if I had, I'd still be working on them.

As for photos with the new camera . . . The Nikon processing software is driving me up the walls but my previous "digital workflow" sucked hardcore so . . . hmm. Adobe Lightroom seems like the way to go except it can't handle the video files, and I have so little hard drive space to store original versions . . . don't know how to do it at all. :< If I choose "open in..." and send to CS3, the file loses the EXIF data. Probably have to make Lightroom work for me somehow because Nikon's ViewNX is not cutting it for organization, processing, or export. Don't know what res to use for Flickr, either . . . ergh. But to prove I've been taking photos with the D90 . . .
( one 1040x704 dragon. )

Had an intense day yesterday . . . only made the train going in because of someone in a wheelchair + running, had to do rush tickets for the second movie and couldn't get dinner, only made the train back out by three minutes (running again). It's very inconvenient living in the suburbs. But at least I got to see the two movies I most wanted to . . .

Definitely did get (much more mild) version of whatever my mom had but I'm pretty much past that now and still about to die of exhaustion for no apparent reason. Bonus batch of nasty vertigo tonight. Harass doctors more tomorrow I guess. :|

Too bad that all the doctors were out today due to Yom Kippur (sic?), since I have had an exciting turn - I may have gotten Lyme disease. :P I have a lovely (though small) bullseye rash on my knee, and the symptoms match quite well. Probably not but has to be checked anyway.

For some reason I decided to try and understand who won Nobel prizes and why, so I read about subatomic physics tonight. My problem with physics tends to be that as soon as it starts to involve mathematic equations, I stop understanding it. Admittedly I can't say that one course on quantum physics and some idle reading gave me anything more than a profoundly fragile grasp on the ideas. :P It does, however, involve some really cool diagrams. I think that if I could wrap my head around it well enough, things like catastrophe theory would be incredibly useful concepts in general . . .

I think that someone told me a zip file I sent them was corrupted, but now I can't remember who it would have been, or if I *dreamed it*. Maybe I should not have given up being an astronomer; I might be well suited to sitting around on my own thinking about strange things and being totally out of touch. :<

Put up photos from the Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia, where we stopped on the way between Louisville, KY and Bowling Green where my cousin's wedding was. Had a 10¢ Cherry Coke and got taken back to the private room to see the 1893 marble soda fountain. I wanted to go to other places but I didn't have the energy. :( I had to leave my cousin's wedding early (well it wasn't that EARLY). Admittedly I've been to most of the caves in the Mammoth area but I did want to go to Dinosaur World . . . did wind up going to Flea Land (KY's largest indoor flea market!). It was mostly newer stuff, an actual flea market + fried foods (like the Troll Market in Hellboy II but with rural Kentuckians instead). Cultural experience ahoy . . .

Also put up videos on YouTube for the first time. o_O Needed an easy place to put the two Japan videos since my father wanted to send them to the family - also put up three short clips from the Dragon*Con parade. I got lucky with the Halo solider and the kids, too bad I can't zoom while filming.

So iMovie can't import .mpg video files; I try and convert in QuickTime Pro. Can't figure out why I have no audio no matter what format I use. Turns out, QT can play fine, but it can't extract the audio from MPEG-1 for export - can't handle any MUXed audio. That's STUPID. Luckily, there is a freeware program that CAN do this called Squared5. Posting this in case it comes up for anyone else. :P

( thoughts on the American Life on Mars )
Whether you watch the American one or not . . . seriously, do yourself a favor, and watch the BBC Life on Mars. I watch a lot of TV because I think it's fun or entertaining; but this show was really exceptional work no matter how you evaluate it.