100 Things To Live By

1. There are plenty of ways to enter a pool. The stairs is not one of them.

2. Never cancel dinner plans by text message.

3. Don't knock it 'til you try it.

4. If a street performer makes you stop walking, you owe him a buck.

5. Always use 'we' when referring to your home team or your government.

6. When entrusted with a secret, keep it.

7. Don't underestimate free throws in a game of 'horse'.

8. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

9. Don't dumb it down.

10. You only get one chance to notice a new haircut.

11. If you're staying more than one night, unpack.

12. Never park in front of a bar.

13. Expect the seat in front of you to recline. Prepare accordingly.

14. Keep a picture of your first fish, first car, and first boy/girlfriend.

15. Hold your heroes to a high standard.

16. A suntan is earned, not bought.

17. Never lie to your doctor.

18. All guns are loaded.

19. Don't mention sunburns. Believe me, they know.

20. The best way to show thanks is to wear it. Even if it's only once.

21. Take a vacation of your cell phone, internet, and TV once a year.

22. Don't fill up on bread, no matter how good.

23. A handshake beats an autograph.

24. Don't linger in the doorway. In or out.

25. If you choose to go in drag, don't sell yourself short.

26. If you want to know what makes you unique, sit for a caricature.

27. Never get your hair cut the day of a special event.

28. Be mindful of what comes between you and the Earth. Always buy good shoes, tires, and sheets.

29. Never eat lunch at your desk if you can avoid it.

30. When you're with new friends, don't just talk about old friends.

31. Eat lunch with the new kids.

32. When traveling, keep your wits about you.

33. It's never too late for an apology.

34. Don't pose with booze.

35. If you have the right of way, take it.

36. You don't get to choose your own nickname.

37. When you marry someone, remember you marry their entire family.

38. Never push someone off a dock.

39. Under no circumstances should you ask a woman if she's pregnant.

40. It's not enough to be proud of your ancestry; live up to it.

41. Don't make a scene.

42. When giving a thank you speech, short and sweet is best.

43. Know when to ignore the camera.

44. Never gloat.

45. Invest in good luggage.

46. Make time for your mom on your birthday. It's her special day, too.

47. When opening presents, no one likes a good guesser.

48. Sympathy is a crutch, never fake a limp.

49. Give credit. Take blame.

50. Suck it up every now and again.

51. Never be the last one in the pool.

52. Don't stare.

53. Address everyone that carries a firearm professionally.

54. Stand up to bullies. You'll only have to do it once.

55. If you've made your point, stop talking.

56. Admit it when you're wrong.

57. If you offer to help don't quit until the job is done.

58. Look people in the eye when you thank them.

59. Thank the bus driver.

60. Never answer the phone at the dinner table.

61. Forgive yourself for your mistakes.

62. Know at least one good joke.

63. Don't boo. Even the ref is somebody's son.

64. Know how to cook one good meal.

65. Learn to drive a stick shift.

66. Be cool to younger kids. Reputations are built over a lifetime.

67. It's okay to go to the movies by yourself.

68. Dance with your mother/father.

69. Don't lose your cool. Especially at work.

70. Always thank the host.

71. If you don't understand, ask before it's too late.

72. Know the size of your boy/girlfriend's clothes.

73. There is nothing wrong with a plain t-shirt.

74. Be a good listener. Don't just wait for your turn to talk.

75. Keep your word.

76. In college, always sit in the front. You'll stand out immediately.

77. Carry your mother's bags. She carried you for nine months.

78. Be patient with airport security. They're just doing their jobs.

79. Don't be the talker in a movie.

80. The opposite sex likes people who shower.

81. You are what you do, not what you say.

82. Learn to change a tire.

83. Be kind. Everyone has a hard fight ahead of them.

84. An hour with grandparents is time well spent. Ask for advice when you need it.

85. Don't litter.

86. If you have a sister, get to know her boyfriend. Your opinion is important.

87. You won't always be the strongest or the fastest. But you can be the toughest.

88. Never call someone before 9am or after 9pm.

89. Buy the orange properties in Monopoly.

90. Make the little things count.

91. Always wear a bra at work.

92. There is a fine line between looking sultry and slutty. Find it.

93. You're never too old to need your mom.

94. Ladies, if you make the decision to wear heels on the first date, commit to keeping them on and keeping your trap shut about how much your feet are killing you.

95. Know the words to your national anthem.

96. Your dance moves might not be the best, but I promise making a fool of yourself is more fun then sitting on the bench alone.

97. Smile at strangers.

98. Make goals.

99. Being old is not dictated by your bedtime.

100. If you have to fight, punch first and punch hard.

~ A high school teacher's list of 100 wisest words.

A Hot Mess

Many years ago, while out of work and undergoing radiation treatments for my cancer, I finally had enough free time on my hands to start a project I'd been wanting to undertake since the first flatbed scanner came into my life: digitizing the contents of my photo albums.

At the time, I really didn't have a system for organizing the photos, and over the years this has proven to be a huge problem. I had something like ten albums, so I simply named each photo with a sequential number based on which album was being scanned, followed by a short description that included the year. If there were multiple photos of a single event, I'd append an "a" or "b" to the end.

During the years that followed the initial completion of the project, that convention completely fell apart when I stopped printing photos and putting them into albums. Adding to the confusion was the fact that sometime around 2006, I'd purchased a new scanner that could digitize slides. The slide scans (of already scanned photos) were far and away better quality than the corresponding photos, but I made no attempt whatsoever to integrate them into the existing naming sequence, simply naming them scan1, scan2, etc.

After my dad passed, I got hold of his family photo albums and scanned all those photos into the mix. His albums were roughly organized by year, so in the interest of simply getting it done, I took advantage of that rough organization and threw the newly-scanned images into yearly folders. Unfortunately I made no attempt to properly name any of them, opting instead of a generic album name 001, 002, etc. At some point thereafter, I went back and moved all my photos into those yearly folders as well, since there was no reason to keep them separate.

The other day I was trying to locate a particular photo I knew existed in the collection, but after spending the better part of an hour coming up empty handed no matter what search parameters I put in, I knew the time had come that something had to be done about the hot mess that this photo collection had become.

I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize how bad it was. There were exact duplicates in the same folders with different names. There were duplicates with different names and years in different folders. There were the hundreds of scanxx photos, and I soon realized this was probably going to be a weeks-long (if not months-long) project getting this disaster organized.

Add to that I've been sitting on a dozen or so of my mom's family albums that are waiting to be scanned. My sister keeps asking if I've gotten around to doing it, and I keep putting her off, not wanting to wade into that without first organizing the mess I already had.

So the other day I created monthly folders in each yearly folder and started moving those items I had either previously named with a month, or knew with relative certainty happened at a particular time.

This time, my naming convention is year-month-numerical sequence-short description (where needed). In other words, 1989-06-0046-kevin ohm at sf pride.jpg. Fortunately Adobe Bridge has a batch rename function that allows me to do everything except the description automatically.

Even with that automation tool (and PhotoSweeper to weed out duplicates), at approximately 32,000 photos, this isn't going to happen overnight, but it is forcing me to rediscover a lot of photos I'd completely forgotten about.

 

 

It

We finally saw It this past weekend.  I really liked it. I was expecting the worst, being such a fan of the original 90's miniseries, but when the credits finally rolled, I felt it was money very well spent. I've never read the original novel, so I had only the miniseries to go off of, but I loved the character development and the bits of backstory that were missing from the miniseries. As I'm sure others have written, it's the adults in the film who are as equally as monstrous as Pennywise. Looking forward to Chapter 2 now!

Wait…Wasn't The World Supposed to End (Again) Today?

According to Christian numerologist David Meade, verses in Luke 21:25 to 26 are the sign that recent events, such as the solar eclipse and Hurricane Harvey, are signs of the apocalypse.

Conspiracy theories about a rogue planet impacting the Earth and bringing about armageddon have been circulating online for more than two decades, with the latest dubious prophecy predicting the apocalypse happens today—September 23, 2017.

And since it's now September 24th in Australia and Asia, well…

Evil Bitch That I Am…

Just once on one of these house flipping shows, instead of announcing termite infestation or rotten wiring, I'd like the bad news the contractor inevitably delivers to the charming, photogenic couple halfway through construction to be, "I've got the clap. You and your wife both need to get checked out."

I'm Not a Witch…

…but I do approve of this message!

I curse Donald Trump and I curse his ideas.  I invoke the Hex of Obsolescence.

May he be devoured by his own shadow, may his name stick in every throat, may the favoring of him bind to the earth every roving foot until the nail of hatred is pulled, may his ideas twist to lance any hand which will not renounce its greed, may the churned mud of lies clot every closed heart with weakness and fear, may he and his works fall and be devoured by the teeming creatures that feast on rot and putrescence, may his ugliness be sunk into emptiness and ruin, may his name and his word turn to dust and be driven like ash before a fiery wind, never to find rest in any fertile field, nor nourish any fruit.

Shower Thoughts

In this "Age of Information," you'd think there'd be a lot less stupid people. But it seems access to the Internet and humanity's amassed knowledge is just allowing them to broadcast their stupidity from the rooftops.

All The Signs Were There…

From 2012!

https://twitter.com/voenixrising/status/263302113524867072

https://twitter.com/holytaco/status/266038965528821760

https://twitter.com/AIntercessor/status/264053170802659328

And from 2013

And to be filed under Some Things Never Change…

https://twitter.com/keirshiels/status/279874487351119872

Our Technology is Haunted By Cheating, Trans-Human Lifeforms

From Demon Haunted World (an excellent article that you should take the time to read in full):

From Dieselgate to Wannacry to HP's sleazy printer ink chicanery, we are increasingly colonized by demon-haunted things controlled by nonhuman life-forms (corporations) that try to trick, coerce or scare us into acting against our own best interests. These devices go to great length to hide their workings from us, making them the ideal host organisms for opportunistic malware infections. Worst of all, the law puts its thumb on the scales in favor of demons, and against exorcists.

Alchemists—like all humans—are mediocre lab-technicians. Without peer reviewers around to point out the flaws in their experiments, alchemists compounded their human frailty with bad experi­mental design. As a result, an alchemist might find that the same experiment would produce a ''differ­ent outcome'' every time.

In reality, the experiments lacked sufficient con­trols. But again, in the absence of a peer reviewer, alchemists were doomed to think up their own explanations for this mysterious variability in the natural world, and doomed again to have the self-serving logic of hubris infect these explanations.

That's how alchemists came to believe that the world was haunted, that God, or the Devil, didn't want them to understand the world. That the world actually rearranged itself when they weren't looking to hide its workings from them. Angels punished them for trying to fly to the Sun. Devils tricked them when they tried to know the glory of God—indeed, Marcelo Rinesi from The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies called modern computer science ''applied demonology.''

In the 21st century, we have come full circle. Non-human life forms—limited liability corpo­rations—are infecting the underpinnings of our ''smart'' homes and cities with devices that obey a different physics depending on who is using them and what they believe to be true about their surroundings.