Miscellany

I think there's something wrong with my template on this thing but I'm not savvy enough about html to figure out how to debug it. Learning html has been a very slow process for me and I tend to just pick up little bits and pieces as I need to use different effects.

Back in college, I took two courses in computer science: Basic and Pascal. Pascal was supposed to be good for anyone into computers because it was a good beginner language. Basic was just stupid and I don't even know why they taught it, but I'm wondering now if it's at all similar to html. Actually, I couldn't tell you because I've forgotten everything I learned in those two courses.

My ex was a programmer, knowing pretty much all the most difficult stuff. Two of my brothers work for Boeing Computer Services as program debuggers. Why I didn't pick this stuff up via osmosis beats the hell out of me.

I do know that the things I obsess about are the things which I tend to thrive in. Take martial arts, for instance. I'm about as athletic (or non-athletic) as any guy, but I just love doing that shit, so once I start, I just can't stop until I'm ready for a new sensei or sifu. Unfortunately, martial arts doesn't help pay any bills. In fact, it's a drain on finances. But I love it!

One of my newest obsessions isn't something I'm likely to participate in. It's Flickr, that photo server that Yahoo! bought so photographers – pros and beginners alike – can share their photos with the world. I have an RSS feed on my Yahoo! homepage and I usually click on something every day. (FYI, the parent company of MySpace just bought PhotoBucket, which does the same thing as Flickr.)

And I know I'm not alone, because a photo will get seen by half a million people all over the world in just one day. That's serious reach, or there are a lot of fellow Flickr obsessors slash latent perverts out there.

Yeah, it's a perversion. It really is. Looking at other people's photos (aka voyeurism) isn't totally kosher. But what's weirder is the amount of exhibitionism on the site. Many of the photographers do loads and loads of self-portraits, particularly the female photogs. I mean, that's vanity taken to a whole other level.

I probably have done about 50 photo shoots in my day for different companies and I don't think I've seen even a handful of them. I don't even want to see them. It's probably a good thing I'm not famous because they'd probably all show up on some fan page.

Seriously, I just do the modeling stuff for the money, not the vanity. But Flickr? That's a whole other thing. And I'm happier for it....