Still Life with ...

The title of this weblog is in reference to a specific photograph by the Kentucky photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard. That is not the actual title of the photo and Ritchie is actually spelled different. I'm not sure I ever actually explained that. I meant this as an Homage to Meatyard and Richie. You can do a Google search and read everything I know about these two gentlemen so there's no need to expound on that but suffice to say, Meatyard was the photographer and Richie was the one armed man in the photo in question. Meatyard's photos are probably my favorite of all well known photographers and I've always wished I had someone not unlike Mr. Richie that had similar interests as me that I could also use in my photos. I certainly did not know either of these men (Meatyard died the year I was born), but like someone admires a famous movie actor or musician I feel like I could have. Meatyard's work is not for everyone but I have always been drawn to it.

Autumn in Indiana

I'm trying to resurrect my photography. I got out with the Boy and shot a roll yesterday. Let me know what you think. Actual critiques are welcome.

What do you want?

What do you really want for yourself? Not all that world piece PEACE bullshit that makes you look like a saint. What do you want right now, big or small?

See Mike, all you had to do was ask. Now was that so hard?

Little help...

I don't know how all (both) of you get here but surlycamera.com is one way. I paid to register that name a while back and it's going to have to be renewed soon. I want to just own it and perhaps have a real website with that domain. "But how will get all the interesting blog posts Surly?" you might ask. "Your blog is so timely and updated by the hour, I don't want to miss a second.", you may say. To that I would say you must be in my family because no one else on the planet is that damn sarcastic. Seriously, I have some plans and if properly executed, I would like an actual website for commerce and a blog to go with it. Hell, I'll just shoot for executed and we'll see about the properly part. My question to you all is, How do I get out from under my lame Yahoo domain registration and still keep the name and then where do I go to properly register it? Talk amongst yourselves and then get back to me. I'll be waiting, thank you for your continued support.

Dinosaur Jr.

I'm going to see Dinosaur Jr. tonight at the Vic in Chicago. This will be my fourth time seeing them. Sort of. The last time they were technically J. Mascis and the Fog but J is pretty much the band and they played Dino Jr songs anyway. I've never seen any band more than four times. I've seen several bands exactly four times. Odd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQ814K3E7Y&feature=related

Cut and paste that shit. Because I'm running Linux nothing works as it should, but I'm virus free. Ain't life grand? It's sort of having time and no money or money and no time. Fuck it, I'm going to see Dinosaur Jr. again. Yay.

The last time I saw Dinosaur Jr. at the Vic the PA went out so J just turned his monitors around (they were working, apparently). J's voice is crap so most people don't care if he sings anyway. We came for the guitar. You can go to the band's MySpace page and hear a sampling of their music spanning the whole catalog. Don't let the vocals scare you listen to a song until you get to a guitar solo. You'll either walk away confused or become a fan. I bought "You're living all over me" at Hegwisch Records (in Merrillville) when I was roughly a freshman and I was hooked. Play it at 11.
Rock on. http://www.myspace.com/dinosaurjr yeah, cut and paste like it's the 90's man.

Man where the heck have I been?

I was just reading one of my favorite time wasters: Lovely Listing and I saw the H1N1 virus referred to as Hamthrax. Fucking brilliant.

At least one of them works...or how I learned to love the penguin

Thanks to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds I was able to resurrect one of my dear departed numbery boxes taking up space. I have my computer, lets call it Eh and I was given a computer that we will call Bea. Eh is sick, opinions vary as to what the illness is but suffice to say if it goes within one hundred feet of the internet police are called and it gets ugly. Perhaps it's a chemical imbalance or maybe it was dropped as a child, like I said, opinions vary. I decided I would configure Bea to walk and talk like Eh without all the random violence and what have you. I was not aware that you could not do a full system restore with the discs from a numbery box from a different manufacturer. I have zero legacy info on Bea. She was an orphan and had no papers, you see. It turns out that when you put the discs in from Eh and try to restore Bea with them you basically lobotomize the numbery box. Oops, sorry Bea.
Linus to the rescue. On a whim I did a google search for Linux. "Hello, what's this?" I remarked, "Linux is a complete operating system with a suite of software and is totally free, you say?". One of our IT guys at work is a Linux fan (I know, right?) and he literally had a disc lying within arms reach. Presto, I was running Bea and on the interwebs in minutes. I don't even hate Bill Gates and I'm starting to dig the OS. I sort of stumbling around in the dark with it and it won't do everything I want it to without learning another programming langauge but it's really cool learning about new things and for the general purpose checking the email and surfing box I'm sticking with it for a while. Maybe I can make time to actually blog a bit more now that I can do it from home. Insert hysterical ironic laughter here.