It’s been a dreary day today. I didn’t do much other than mess around with Photoshop and yap on the phone. Very exciting.

Vallejo is playing at Antone’s tonight, but neither of us much feel like going out. The only one of our usual Friday shows that is new is Bill Maher, so there’s not even anything to watch on TV. Looks like it’s going to be a pretty boring night around here, which is fine with me. We have a ton of things to get done this weekend, so a boring Friday night is fine with me.

Lin’s practicing his guitar, and I am already bored out of my head. I think I’ll fix us some cocktails and go listen to him play.

Every day can’t be chock-o-block full of excitement, now can it?

Google Maps has put out the street views for Austin, Texas. It was a disgusting, grey, and dismal day they went down our street and looks to have been sometime in January or late December. It was a Wednesday, and I had been to the grocery store. The mailman hadn’t been by yet, so they probably came through sometime before noon. Funny how I can tell all of that just by “driving” down the street. All neighborhoods have a routine and a rhythm, if you pay attention to the details.

On the one hand, the street views are pretty cool. On the other hand, it is a little spooky. I guess all modern technology is like that.

As I walked back into the house after seeing Lin out to the truck, I hear a calamity occurring in the kitchen. The cats, in the middle of one of their speed-of-light mad dashes around the racetrack better known as our house knocked over not only the tall stool and the short stool but two of the dining room chairs. I wish I had seen how they accomplished that. I am sure it would have been hilarious.

Since they seem to be winding down for a nap now, I think I will join them. My stomach is not feeling right at all this morning. Blech.

We don’t need web cams in every room of the house. We need microphones everywhere constantly recording. We do, indeed.

Anybody want to know how I eat peanuts that have been roasted in their shells? Of course you do!

I pop them in my mouth. Suck on them until any salt that may be on them is removed. Remove them from my mouth. Bite them in half. Peel them with my hands. And then I suck on the peanuts, just in case there is any more salt to be had, and chew them up.

Now you know.

Not that I eat peanuts of any kind all that often. I’m not especially fond of them. But on some rare occasions, when they are there and the conditions are just right, I eat them as them described.

Also, the plans for the new Farrier F-22’s are out, and they are being built at locations around the world. Naturally, this means I am hearing far more intricate detail about boats and the building of boats that I personally ever need to hear. There’s this disembodied voice on the other side of my monitor that won’t shut up about the damn boats already! I love Ian’s boats too, but I have limits of tolerance. They have been surpassed. I do not care about the intricate details of any boat, such as how many whatevers you have to stick together to make the hull … or the negative buoyancy rating of a pontoon. All I need to know is does the boat float, will it continue floating, and how do we stay alive if it stops floating?

Did you know that some of the very best sails are made out of Mylar and taffeta? Neither did I.

Now we know.

I better go make dinner. Perhaps some soup and a sandwich will distract the disembodied voice that has babbled through so many different topics in the last few minutes, I don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore. All I know is he just admitted he’s psycho. Finally. That’s as good a place as any to start dinner.

For future reference, when I ask you very nicely if I can take a photo of your face for my own private use and not to share, please … please I beg of you … do not wait until I click the shutter to make a ridiculous face. Why? Because then all bets are off on how private said photo may remain, especially after I finish “playing” with it.

Behind the cut, someone who unwisely chose to be a butthead and shall now pay the embarrassing price for that.
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OK. Photoshop Elements 6 finally did something that impressed me. I thought it only fair I tell you about it.

PE 6 has what they call a Panorama Photomerge. Using it, you select a bunch of photos with which to create a panorama, and it will do so with as much or as little interaction as you personally desire. I, of course, let it do the first one all by itself to see how well it would do. I stepped out on my front porch, snapped 8 photos (sans tripod — just my legs and waist and arms), created a new file using Panorama Photomerge (completely automated), and ended up with what I will tell you is the most hassle-free and best panorama I have ever put together … and I barely had to do any work myself other than take and load the photos.

Here’s a very small version, but you can click it to see a somewhat larger version, which I suggest you do … not because the view from my front porch is so awesome, but because Photoshop Elements did this all by itself with no input from me.

The original working file is humongous, and it has slowed PE 6 down by a good bit, but not horribly so. Also, I carefully examined the full-sized file, and no seams to be found anywhere. It really is an excellent bit of photographic hodge-podgery.

So, I am impressed with at least one thing PE 6 can do. Not that I need to have instant panoramas every day, but maybe I’ll do more of them in the future, since it’s so easy. In fact, I want to go do another one right now. I think I will!

Is it really going on 4 pm? Where did the day go?! Oh, yeah … mindless surfing of the internet, obsessive solitaire playing, and a little Photoshop goofing off. My how time flies when one isn’t paying attention to time!

Well, I did say I was going to declare it the weekend really early, didn’t I? I wasn’t kidding! I rarely kid about deciding to be lazy. When I say I am going to goof off, I really, really mean it.

A note to any public officials in towns neighboring Austin (or anywhere really) who are old enough to know better but apparently don’t:

The term “wetback” is a racial term, no matter how many times you say it isn’t. When someone hears the term “wetback” there is no doubt that a particular color of skin and a particular ethnic group comes to mind. Grow up and stop using the word altogether, or at least stop using it in public documents (or in public) and acting like you don’t understand why people might get upset about it. Geez.

The results of a huge (and expensive) audit of the Austin Police Department were released the other day. You know that police helicopter that annoys the hell out of me?

A recent audit said keeping the helicopter in the air, isn’t worth the money Austin taxpayers shell out.

On average, it costs about $325 an hour for gas and maintenance. The City of Austin said it costs just over $1,300 an hour including personnel. And the total amount spent this year alone was just under $3 million.

So every hour the damn thing is circling a house in my neighborhood, seemingly doing nothing of any use whatsoever, there’s another $1300 down the drain to the tune of $3 million for this year alone?! I have to assume that number or for last year and a full twelve months, but all the same, I did the math, and that means that stupid helicopter would have to be in the air 40 hours a week at $1300 an hour. What in the freaking hell have they been doing buzzing around that much? Well, in my neighborhood they pick out a random house, circle it with a spotlight for an hour, nothing at all comes of it, and they go merrily on their way. I can only guess, but that’s probably just about all they ever do with it … aside from flying over rush hour traffic looking for wrecks, so yes, it does seem like a waste of money.

And at last there is something I don’t agree with the new police chief about, because he seems to think we need more of these money pits.

For us to have one helicopter for a city of this size is unheard of,” Acevedo said.

In the near future, Acevedo sees a department with numerous helicopters watching over Austin 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But, for now, APD has no intention of grounding their one eye in the sky.

Yuck. I am opposed.