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Find more photos like this on Shoot! The Day

If you love reading to children...a new book just came out!

Let me know if you're interested!

It's a good deal!

Don't Tell Me You Need to go to the Betty Ford Cheese Clinic!

I'll be back soon to tell you more about breaking the Craving Cycle!
April 11, 2008 Update:
If you are addicted to cheese and dairy, get the book SKINNY BITCH.

You know it’s much worse than you thought when you realize that Prince is the artist formerly known as Prince…Time for a little fun, no?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 13 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Grey Days Make Everything Equal

Outdoors on a sunny day, shadows give objects dimension and shape. Your eyes can be challenged by shine and glimmer everywhere. First this object wants your attention; then that object wants your attention. A spot of hot light breaks through a dark alley, what has it landed on? Inquiring eyes want to know.
However, take your average overcast day and it seems that Nothing is more important than Anything Else. Actually, it could have a slight calming effect. What do you think?

On another topic, stay tuned for my pictures of "I.B.O.P.'s"

"Honey, Don't Forget to Shut Off the Electric Toothbrush Before You Leave the House!"

Funny, but I did almost walk away from one while it was still vibrating on the sink counter. But maybe that is because of the odd experience just before that.

The Odd Experience
In preparation for shaving my face, I was (wastefully I guess, sorry AL G.)running the water to allow it to get hot. Grabbed the can of shaving cream and gave it a couple of shakes. Placed it back on the counter, yawned and vigorously scratched my very dry head of hair.I then reached down under the tap to test the temperature and...wow...zap!...received an electric shock, spark and all, from the water.
I guess it makes sense, with the dry hair rub and all. I can remember rubbing inflated balloons on my shirt and amazing the uninitiated by having the balloon adhere to a wall.

Okay,so I guess this post is an add-on to an earlier one (see "Static Electricity is Gonna Get You" 11/29/06) about the "car door spark shock".

Talk to you soon.

"He Married a Polish Girl

So There'll be Kilbasi at the Wedding"

So this aquaintance revealed this info to me and I started thinking...

oh, my God!

What if an Italian, for instance, enjoyed Irish food or and Irishman enjoyed Italian food. Would they be disgraced? oR A POLISHMAN ENJOYED aSIAN FOOD AND AN aSIAN ENJOYED kILBASI...OH, MY gOD, EVEN THE UPPER-LOWER CASE IS UPSET!!!

Someone help me here. Is this a possible revolutionary change like the weather?

Why do we think we all must have our ethnicity be our tatoo? Can we drift over into other camps and still be human?

I'm vegetarian...can I dabble into some vegan fair and still be who I am?

Plaid Toaster is Cool

My site was part of a contest on the Plaidtoaster.com website.
Didn't win, but you always enjoy the exposure!
Thanx Plaid Toaster,
Carl

Add-on to 12/19 post

I've been browsing the "World Question Centre" at edge.org, the website for thinking folk with time on their hands. The 2005 Edge question is a good one:
"What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"...

Ian McEwan makes a telling point. "What I believe but cannot prove," he says, "is that no part of my consciousness will survive my death." His enlightened fellow Edge contributors will take this as a given, but they may not appreciate its significance, which is that belief in an afterlife "divides the world crucially, and much damage has been done to thought as well as to persons by those who are certain that there is a life, a better, more important life, elsewhere."

The natural gift of consciousness should be treasured all the more for its transience.

Just Like Rainy Days and Mondays...

I know it is said we need religion to give us moral direction in life.
It sounds like it makes sense. But there seems to be two major things in life that actually cause the opposite effect of what they propose.
One is religion, the other, sports.
Sometimes we need them like a rainy Monday.
People are so "gung ho" regarding sects, regarding teams, that it just seems more devisive than anything else. Is there an alternative?
What do you think? Let me know when you get a chance.
In the meantime, check this out!

Couples and Cameras and CLICK HERE for a Moving Holiday Favorite (wait for the 30 sec ad to finish, then close your eyes and listen)

On another "note"-We need to get out there and standby to assist couples ,with or without their children, who need to all get in "the shot" in front of an outdoor holiday tree.
Why just last night I volunteered to assist two families struggling to all have the same background. Do they know about self-timers? Probably not. That's where we come in.
So bundle up and keep a sharp eye out for those young happy families from out of town who need to show the world and themselves that they posed by the "Tree with 3,000 Lights" in 2006!

Trans Fats and Seatbelts

So I was thinking how odd it is that to protect ourselves from ourselves we made a law to require us to wear seatbelts.
So I was thinking how odd it is that to protect ourselves from ourselves we made a law to require us to smoke outside of buildings.
So I was thinking how odd it is that to protect ourselves from ourselves we made a law to require us to eliminate trans fattys from our restaurants.
So I was thinking what have I forgotten? What is next?
Does anyone out there have a clue?

The Pulse Right Now

As I mentioned yesterday, I present to you today my first 5 findings
as a result of clicking the "Next Blog" link on our eBlogger pages:


Posted: Thurs Nov 30, 2006 on "Sync.sound.cinema"
Wilhelm the Ubiquitous
YouTube insert of the most famous scream in movie sound history.

Posted: Fri Dec 1, 2006 on "The Malaysian"
Remove Racists from the Education Department
Concerning the Malaysian Education ministry's policy of inculcating integration in national schools.

Posted: Thurs Nov 30, 2006 on "Mimi Writes......."
Christmas Song Meme, Cuddles and other Such Nonsense
Mimi lists her top 5 favorite Christmas songs.

Posted: Thurs Nov 30, 2006 on "Postcards from the Edge" (lost the link, sorry)
Barking Seals in Finland
Language is awkward for an English speaking woman visiting Helsinki, Finland and an imaginary group of Finnish speaking people can sound like the barking seal noise.

Posted: Thurs Nov 30, 2006 on "Random and Odd"
Stuff Portrait Fridays
Kristine Stone's Friday Photography challenge to capture 3 topics:
1. Something that makes you go "hmmmm"
2. Something sweet
3. Something retro

Okay, it's been pretty mild up to now.

So what topic would you like to rip open?
Dare I offer suggestions?
Dare I not? with such an invitation?
Okay, I tell you what, all of you bloglovers. I will go peruse a few blogsites for topicality and get back to you with what I feel is the pulse right now.
Stand(sit)by,as I am about to click the "Next Blog" link in the upper right hand corner!
Later...

Static Electricity is Gonna Get You

Yelping every time you exit a car? With the dryness of winter comes tha static electricity assaults. Here is some advise on how to combat even the peskiest of those shocking surprises.

Just Back From Alaska Counting Wolverines with my Uncle

This isn't my uncle...it is me.

I'm having trouble placing the image into my profile so I'm testing it here.
As for the wolverines, I spotted 2.
It is a pretty sad state of affairs when the only person you are left to
speak with is a Napoleon Dynamite doll when you push his red button.
Him and his uncle actually were shooting the wolverines. I was only counting.

Hybrid Cars are like Fat Free Milk...We're Still Using the Milk!

Hydrogen can show us the way out.
Click here to read more and find out how.

"Today, alternative fuel vehicles are ready, or fast becoming ready, to roll out en masse. If fleet managers adopted a Green Fleet Initiative that put the purchase of hydrogen cars first, fully electric cars second and natural gas cars third, the race would be on among truck and heavy-vehicle manufacturers to be the first to fulfill those orders. Volume purchasing would multiply and accelerate the technology, bring down costs and migrate such vehicles swiftly from commercial fleets to average consumers."


Edwin Black spoke at Carnegie Mellon University and Hill House yesterday about his book, "Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives," published by St. Martins Press icinquiry@edwinblack.com

Lest We Forget

Just about every resource to aid in understanding the reasons why we in America should never forget about the liberty we have in this country

sparklers

I Once Knew a Sparkledrop

It probably would never happen for someone else as it happened

for me, just then.

The car I was in was speeding at about seventy.

The night had already begun.

The view from the windows revealed mostly open fields.

Small cold-like clouds slept stubbornly only yards above the earth.

The black from the night part of night was not black yet,

but a mellowing deep, far off blue.

And then I, and I believe, I alone, saw this small child

run a few steps in a field, and stop

to throw a lighted sparkler into the blackening

blueness of the sky.

It glowered happily, and yet desparately;

and yet desparately,

for it would never return to the earth as the same

bright stick of joyousness as it is now.

The last gleeful sparkledrops painted the child's

attentive face with a friendly, but departing,

orange goodbye.

The image of the streak from the child's

run and throw now was taken in by the nearest mother cloud.

I remember it now-

still as if those seconds are still occurring as a full length movie.

The child smiling up, along with the sparkler;

the fading contrail evolving from white to a soft blue and slowly

melting into the air.

And then I could see no more.

A one act performance.

So fast. So very, very long.

Aug. '69

Test Your Cultural Literacy

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Better Together - Nick & Nora

See one Thin Man and you'll be back for more!

The Thin Man (1934)

We meet the notorious Nick and Nora,
martini swilling sleuths!

Just for Fun

Quote-o-matic

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus and, Written by Carl J. Santoro #9

Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter>Deep Blue>Density 100%
I waited all day.
my apologies still
fresh in my mind.
I know your machine
heard them,
I pressed to hear
them myself.
I waited all day.
maybe you would've
listened to them.
I asked you to
call my cell
as I was on
the road and moving.
The silence lasted
all day.
The silence spoke
loudly of the end
of a relationship
happy with love.
The day now at end
I throw my cell
on my bureau
and see it is off.

Make Your Own FURL

You Can Make Your Own

I did!

Be a Picture Maker Not a Picture Taker

Explore the World
Be a picture MAKER:
Start with an idea in mind and work toward making that come alive.
In contrast, a mere picture TAKER, is thinking only about recording what is in front of them.
DISCOVERY
Like Charles Darwin's sketchbooks or the electronic images transmitted back to us from the Voyager space probe, the images we make are part of our voyages of discovery.

Paris Hilton - Jealousy

Thanks Christian. You found the only one I would have wanted!

Hello Christian...this one's for you!

This One's 4U!

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus and, Written by Carl J. Santoro #8

Window>Paths
I am a human hyperlink.
Touch me and
I can take you
to another place.

Niceness is a Skill Set!...click this link

Sarah Brightman - A Question Of Honour (Live - Harem tour)

Once she's up there...she surprises us even more!

He Coined the Term-"Reverence for Life"

I thought it would be interesting to introduce you to a fine human
being who once journeyed with us through the trials of life-
About Albert Schweitzer

Here is an excerpt from one of his books titled
From Civilization and Ethics

"You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much. Whatever more than others you have received in health, natural gifts, working capacity, success, a beautiful childhood, harmonious family circumstances, you must not accept as being a matter of course. You must pay a price for them. You must show more than average devotion of life to life.

Open your eyes and look for a human being, or some work devoted to human welfare, which needs from someone a little time or friendliness, a little sympathy, or sociability or labour. There may be a solitary or embittered man, an invalid or an inefficient person to whom you can be something. Perhaps it is an old person or a child. Who can enumerate the many ways in which that costly piece of working capital, a human being, can be employed. Search, then, for some investment for your humanity, and do not be frightened away if you have to wait , or to be taken on trial. And be prepared for disappointments. But in any case,do not be without some secondary work in which you give yourself as a man to men. It is marked out for you, if you only truly will have it."

More Yellow Observations

The Astoria Street Fair was rampant with yellows!

Got YouTube?

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Down by the River

A wonderful vintage CSNY clip, which must be from

David Steinberg's show Music Scene

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#7

Window>Workspace>Save Workspace

It was a perfect blend of ice cream truck music and leafblower humming
that found its way from the neighborhood street into the church
during Maria's wedding ceremony.
Everyone moved uncomfortably in the pews, fanning themselves
with the newlywed's freshly-printed program.
Father Larry knew he needed to speak louder as the guests continually
searched the cathedral ceiling for signs of any kind of a fan which might be
swirling air down to relieve them of their "heat of sin."
All was lost as the videographer's tripod- on-wheels ran over the bride's
grandmother's left foot and caused the camera to fall forward,
rendering the flower girl unconscious.

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#6

Edit>Purge>All
Layer>New Layer>Dissolve
Windows>Arrange>Cascade

entry: Nov 1983
time: 10 a.m.ish
place: kitchen

Karen is cleaning my ears with a rubber syringe.
She has just finished the left ear, leaving it wet and drippy.
She begins the right ear, squirting warm water forcefully.
Jeanette (age 3) enters and says, "Uh-Oh, mommy,
it's coming out the other side!"

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#5

Window>Animation

On a bike
you can feel
the sand tickling
your bare feet
as it is kicked up
by the wheels.
And the sensation
is as though
you are bike-riding
over a glass of ginger ale,
just slightly
above the surface.

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#4

Layer>New>Layer

The heaviness of a cold, pewter-colored sky challenged him

as he struggled to get up from a fall on the slate steps.

It was as if he were the entertainment section of

a sandwich, lying there between gray slate and graying sky,

waiting for teeth to tear through him.

Technorati Profile

Technorati Profile

More From:

Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation>Edit>Yellows

(Click link above to understand how this all got started)

Fred Volume begins his Monday September 4, 2006

"yellow experience", at the 30th Avenue Astoria

Business Association Street Fair. Astoria is amazing!

More images to follow shortly...

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#3

File>Browse

"Can I help you?" the voice pleasantly inquired before I could actually see her. She walked towards me smiling with red freckles and redder hair. A short woman, very thin in a tight black and white leotardy thing, I know I felt her bright green eyes focus on me as I turned to respond.

She could have been either a helpful clerk or actually the store owner. I never did find out.

"No thank you. I'm just browsing. I know if I walk around, I usually see something that I realize I need."

Her voice gently faded as she glided past me, "Well then, walk on...walk on," and her feet could be heard shuffling like fine sandpaper over these old story-ridden wooden floor boards.

This is a triumphant moment, at least for me, as it strengthens the illusion of limitless, unfettered browsing with the possibility of questions of assistance never to be offered again until perhaps when I place an item on the counter at the check out.

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#2

Healing Brush Tool

I laughed but

I felt hurt

as I raced up the steps.

For there was little

1 1/2 yr. old Jeanette

crying in shock

from an accident that just happened.

It seems a statue of St. Francis of Assisi

fell and his head

came off.

She trembled as she handed me

the head.

Only seconds ago

she had been kissing it gently.

Adobe Photoshop Short Stories-Inspired by the Menus andWritten by Carl J. Santoro#1

Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation>Edit>Yellows

As Fred Volume stared down at his orange juice, while chewing on an almost stale corn muffin, he followed a fallen crumb floating clockwise on the juice surface.

It was at this moment that he realized that orange juice is really more a yellow than an orange.

As pleasant and as startling as this discovery may be, it was only a minor addition to the already established world of yellowness which Fred absorbed daily.

Daily, monthly and in two days for up to a whole year. He was obsessed with yellow and he did not know why.

He got up to leave Lemon's Diner and made sure to collect at least two yellow Lemon's Diner napkins after leaving a tip. For the past 363 days he followed this same 7 a.m. routine. The corner grocery near Spring and Broadway would be his next stop.

Exiting, he paused to trace the sound of a horn and he looked over his shoulder only to fix his focus on a yellow cab.

As he placed his yellow iPod earphones over his graying thirty-five year old hair he noticed two women exiting the cab.

They both were wearing yellow.

Continuation of Judging Photo Contests

-LIGHTING -
ENHANCEMENTS
Of subject
Of message

-APPROACH OR CREATIVITY -
IMAGINATION
Fresh imagination can lift image into world of art
Good use of creative technique
Aware of the unique and the unusual and makes the most of it
Subject is revealed in an extraordinary way

-SUBJECT MATTER -
INTERPRETATION
Outstanding

-PRINT QUALITY -
PRESENTATION
The best

Voting using 0-9(9 being the best)
Know that to receive the 9:
-"Knock your socks off" quality of image
-Technically correct in all respects
-Outstanding composition
-Tells complete story or creates mood
-Has a high impact on first sight
AND FINALLY...
-Is it an image you would want to have in your home or office?

Popcorn for Breakfast

I just like the title and, quite honestly, it might have some tangential tie-in to the subject matter at hand...which is...Judging a Photo for Contest Quality.

Here are the notes I keep in my shirt pocket when I have been asked to judge photo contests. These have been gleaned from many sources and come down to the bare necessities:

Judging Notes
(All sub-headings are questions to ask yourself)

-CLEAR CENTER OF INTEREST-
IMPACT
What we see first
First Impression
Strong feeling of power
Hold your eye

-COMPOSED WELL-
ARRANGEMENT
Successful
Enhances overall image

-FOCUS AND EXPOSURE-
NEED I SAY MORE?

-TELLS A STORY-
MEMORABILITY
Evokes an emotional response

MORE TO FOLLOW...GOTTA GO TO A SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!

SmugMug is Great!

I've started to test out the virtues of the Pro Level Services offered at SmugMug and am really enjoying the creative flexibility and look.
Please visit and let me know what you think:
Enjoy Your Journey to SmugMug

Exciting New Photoblog

Check out this website.

I have samples of my photography there.

My name there is- IMAGINE

Use this link and be sure to leave some input
(and start your own page!) :

"http://www.imagine.shutterchance.com/"

How Long Can a Reader Last?

Defying the temptation of links by not putting the reading material down!