2008: Year in Photos
1. The man. The legend., 2. In front of the American flag, 3. The best capture of the former president, 4. Get your campaign T-shirts here., 5. At the waterfall, 6. Father and son, 7. Brunch at Day 2, 8. The Virgins at Webster Hall, New York 10/01/08, 9. Talk/Party at the New York Film Festival, 10. Talk/Party at the New York Film Festival, 11. My new toy, 12. Sphere Within Sphere, 13. “Balloon Dog” by Jeff Koons, 14. Contact sheet for Esquire cover, 15. Raphael Saadiq at SOB’s, New York City, 10/06/08, 16. Fields Laundromat
I plan to add more end-of-year items here before 2008 edges out.
permalink | Comment | observations | 12/27/2008
Breaking the habit
It has been nearly a month since I have blogged on this site. I’ve more on Twitter and Facebook than here, and those tools are free. It’s not that I don’t like posting; it’s just that I have added so many changes in my life that I haven’t figured out how to include it in this new routine. In the meantime, the following happened:
- I turned 29: That was probably the funniest birthdays I’ve had in a long time. That’s because for the second year in a row, when I order carry-out at a casual dining establishment, they gave my order to someone else. This was at a different place from the last one, but this place was more apologetic and gave me a free dessert. The first place made me wait 30 minutes and didn’t say sorry.
- I’m the cause for infertility: Since leaving Virginia last year, three-fourths of my friends have had babies. So, if you become my friend but want to have a child, tell me to move to another state.
- I was broke for two days: I’m better at managing my money, but I don’t like to be in debt. So, I usually don’t carry over balances and try to pay off everything in one month. This last month, I was overly aggressive at a bad time, and I had to deep into savings. However, I paid it back, so I’m on good footing now.
- It takes 40 minutes to buy sneakers but two-and-a-half hours to buy slippers: That was me last week when I purchased two pairs for myself and had to try on 216 pairs to find two $10 Isotoners.
permalink | Comment | observations | 12/11/2008
If you're just joining us
Since I haven’t posted anything in nine days, I figure I would give an update to what I have been doing. Actually, this part started exactly two weeks ago. I am on a diet. Before, I would just lose weight by accident. Somehow, I would manage to drop a few pounds here and there. In the last year, that totaled up between 20 and 30 pounds. I don’t know how I did it, but I do know that I ate a little less than what I had done in the past.
But now, due to reasons that I will not explain here just yet, I really have to start trying. If you have been following my Tweets, I have a habit of updating whether I have exercised that day. Right now, I take 30 minutes a day, six days a week, to play Dance, Dance Revolution Universe. For me, this works best because I don’t have to pay for a dance class and I can use all those years of ballet, tap, jazz and African dance skills I picked up. Nevertheless, all the techno music and Japanese animation are a bit too much, but I get over it knowing the benefits of exercise.
In addition to that, I purchased a scale. It’s probably the first time in six years I have lived in a place with one. However, it was broken right out the box. So, I have to ship it the manufacturer, but I’m probably better off buying a new one.
permalink | Comment [1] | observations | 11/14/2008
Em dash
By no means do I consider myself an expert on grammar. In fact, if you look at any of my post, you would be surprised that I am a newspaper copy editor. I consider myself more of a designer and butcher than a copy editor, but nevertheless that’s no excuse to be as bad as I am. However, this post is not about my skills.
People magazine has a great love for the em dash. In today’s top headlines, two out of the five have a form of punctuation I detest: the em dash. Here’s a screenshot of the magazine’s usage as displayed by iGoogle:
In these two examples, the em dash is used to create drama where it is not needed. Is is really shocking that Paris Hilton and Ryan Seacrest are doing a TV show together? The em dash makes it seem that way. After all, E! and Fox have given these two millions of dollars to dumb down America. Why is this so much of a surprise.
According to The Blue Book, this is the proper use of an em dash:
Use an em dash sparingly in formal writing. Don’t use it just because you are uncertain about correct punctuation. In informal writing, em dashes may replace commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses to indicate added emphasis, an interruption, or an abrupt change of thought.
In these headlines, there’s no change of thought, a break or drama. Instead, it’s created to catch someone’s attention needlessly — just like it did to me, but not in the way it was intended to be.
In a way, I could just be writing this to gain my own attention and write a few em dash headlines of my own:*
Lindsay Lohan is in love — with a sandwich
Obama, Biden choose — ties for campaign appearances
*By no means are these headlines real.
permalink | Comment | observations | 09/12/2008
The timing of things
The week of September 7 (just a few days from now) will probably be the most stressful yet most awesome week for me because I will have to make and perform some difficult tasks that will shape the rest of the year. The stressful part of it is anticipation and production of good results. Some of it is work-related, and that alone would be stressful, but the rest of it will be more “me”-related. Here’s the rundown.
1. I’m going to New York in October. It’s my first return to the city of my birth since 1991, and I only plan to be there for two days. Which days those are I don’t know, but I do know that I have really planned the two days already. It involves lots of walking and hunting, so I also have to be in shape to undertake the trip. Google Maps is a godsend because I have each of the two days with stops, directions and phone numbers all done. I just won’t know what days or what I’d do on those days until the morning of September 8.
2. On said NYC trip, I’m buying an iPod. I’m retiring the junky Sansa and hope that the September 9 iPod announcement includes price cuts for the iPod Classic. If not, I’d settle for the revamped Nano with reservations. I wonder what the wait time is at the Apple Store.
3. Two weeks ago, I finally bought a dSLR. You’d think that a person like myself who has been in photography since age 6 would already have one of these, but I’m just a poor girl who has waited for the price to drop within reach. Since the purchase, I have ordered and purchased countless amounts of accessories, including this lense which will arrive sometime near September 8. I test-drove the camera already, and it’s funny how much about shooting with an SLR I’ve forgotten, like how to use a viewfinder, since I have exclusively using my Sony Cybershot for nearly four years. The photo at top was taken at an ice cream parlor which opened two blocks from my house this summer.
