Naked Girls in Chocolate

While going through my spam folder searching for false positives, one message subject stuck out above all the rest -- "Naked Girls in Chocolate." I also found an astounding number of messages that I appear to have sent to myself but have no recollection writing and/or sending. Good thing my spam filter catches these as they don't appear worth reading.

Naymz.com: Just Say NO

Perhaps I'm missing something but I find Naymz.com to be a waste of time. My friend Kathy suggested I sign up. She's usually spot on for cool sites but she missed the boat on this one.

Every time I visit Naymz.com, I wonder why so much of the page is blank. Then I remember that they still haven’t fixed their HTML and the majority of the page is off to the right. Yup. I have to scroll at least one page to the right just to see whatever it is they’re trying to show me.

Oh, right. And the content they consider important for me to view (important enough that they sent me mail about it) is an up-sell advertisement. So I’m visiting a site that doesn’t display correctly just to see that they want my money to display something I’m not likely interested in viewing. Right.

Just say NO to Naymz.com

New Layout

Spent some time this evening dinking around the with layout in hopes that doing so will motivate me to post a bit more frequently.

The Great Orion Nebula as Seen From the Backyard

The Great Orion Nebula, originally uploaded by DJMcCrady.

Looking at the subject you'd think this is some sort of joke. A friend of mine does some really incredible astrophotography from his backyard here in Redmond -- when it isn't raining. :)

I think this is one of his better images. Not that any of them are bad but this one really shines.

He uses a camera with a liquid cooled sensor along with a motorized tripod that rotates the camera to compensate for the earth's rotation. He'll shoot a number of relatively short (ten to thirty minute) exposures and then merge them in post-processing. Much of the process prior to post-processing is automated.

I just had to search for how to reset my iPod yet again so I figured I would try making a note of the information so I can more easily find it in the future (hopefully). According to Apple's How to rest iPod:

1 - Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2 - Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons simultaneously until the Apple/iPod logo appears, about 6 to 8 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

If you are still unable to reset your iPod, use only one finger from one hand to press the Center (Select) button, and one finger from the other hand to press the Menu button.

Frodo Failed, originally uploaded by smenzel.

Anthony and I were on our way to lunch in Bellevue when we saw this bumper sticker on the back of a Subaru wagon. After both of us got over laughing, he switched lanes so I could grab this image.

Pink MINI Cooper

MINI Cooper S, originally uploaded by smenzel.

I had fun with this image. The pink color of the MINI wasn't quite strong enough to stand out on its own as there were too many other distracting colors in the image. At first I tried muting the red in the Mini Wagon (estate) to the left but that didn't strike me as enough.

Once I decided to go the cutout route, punching up (electifying?) the color on the MINI just seemed the natural thing to do.