Month: October 2007
Sod’s Law
And, of course, once I find a tolerable theme that has already been ported to Coppermine, and after I finish massaging it into something I can more or less live with, I think to check it in IE, where it is all kinds of b0rked. Damn! The lovely sidebar, which ought to be along the side (duh!), is down at the bottom. Gaaah! I hate IE!
Teh Ugly
I apologize for the real-time fiddling, but I just didn’t feel like creating a whole new back end directory to play in. Anyway, I’m surely not finished yet. There are some things I really like about a few of the themes I’ve been playing with, but every damned one of them has a deal breaker of one sort or another. For example, this one. I’m not super keen on the blogroll being uncategorized, or the fact that all the sidebar junk is at the bottom, but I have to say, I do really like the rest of it. Only, it does not go with my image gallery. And y’all know how I feel about sans serif fonts. Yes, I could alter that, but unless I’m totally in love with the theme otherwise, I’m not going to bother.
I thought I’d found a WordPress theme I liked that had–miracle of miracles!–been ported to Coppermine. Obviously, that would have been too easy. There was some sort of error in the Coppermine files that was beyond my ability to figure out. Crap.
Another theme I really liked was missing a blog roll. I added one, and it worked but the formatting was wonky. Same with a calendar (which I’ve decided is indispensable, as it prompts me to be less lazy). Another had something seriously wrong with the archives, and I wasn’t able to fix the problem.
I’m not going to find something I like straight out of the box, obviously, but I’d like it to at least not have structural problems with the code. I can slap a coat of paint on it, but I cannot rebuild the foundation, if that makes sense.
So, I’m still hunting, and the periodic moments of ugly or even flat-out not working are likely to continue. So, if you get a blank screen or a bunch of code, you know that I broke something. I’ll fix it or switch it back to another ugly-but-functional theme ASAP.
Headless Ken and Barbie
As threatened. Howsomever, no Polaroids, because it’s just too dark today to take them.
Ken was headless when I found him. Barbie’s legs were disembodied, too. The legs must have belonged to my old landlord’s daughter, because I found them lying in the gravel lane outside my house. They have teeth marks in them, and I’m not sure whether they’re from a small child or a dog.
Foo Dog and Duck
Foo Dog and Duck
The concrete foo dog is part of a pair that my mom had. She gave me one, and Ms. Lea has its twin. The duck has starred in other photos of mine. It used to belong to a family friend. She passed it on to me when I fell in love with it. Both of them spent the last year indoors, where their lovely mossy patina deteriorated, so I set them out on the patio to regain a little of their former color.
I’ve been going through the stash of old Polaroids I took when I was working at the art museum. I’ve only got a few left, so it was a nice surprise to find that I actually have a (sort of) working Polaroid Land Camera (and a box of film). I had no idea! Ms. Lea confirmed that she found it at a yard sale a few years. They couldn’t get it to work, so she passed it on to me. The color is a bit green (heavily corrected in the above photo), and the image is blurry (after Photoshopping, I think the problem is that the shutter is godawful slow, so I’ll need to use a tripod). I think it will do just fine for what I need, though, because I’m going to alter the photos, anyway.
So, yay! I now have another toy to play with.
While cleaning out closets last week, I also found my stash of Naked Barbies. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
(I didn’t like how pristine the real border is, so I swapped it for a dirty, old, taped up faux border.)
Awesome M-F-ing Dog
Have y’all seen this? It’s been posted to Boing Boing and just about everywhere on the interwebs. I keep going back to it and marveling at its, well, motherfucking awesomeness.
lookatthisdog by Rachel
Carriage House Again
Carriage House with Pear Tree in Spring (take three)
I wasn’t quite happy with the way the earlier one turned out. I was working from an image that was in my Flickr stream, which means it was already cropped and minimally processed. I went back and dug out my back-ups from that time period, and had another try using the raw image.
I was trying to get the pinky look of faded old low-fi photos. I also wanted to try using radial blurring to make it look toy-like. It’s not quite there, but it was a good learning experience.
Sassafras and Sumac Leaves in the Rain
Sassafras Tree
Flame-leaf Sumac Tree
The line of trees at the back of the field behind my apartment is made up mostly of sassafras and black walnuts what I thought were black walnut, but are actually flame-leaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata). I love the explosion of scarlet against the grey and green of the sky and grass.
Fallen Leaves
Fox Grape Leaf
Sumac Leaf
Sassafras Leaf
It’s been drizzling all day. When I walked the dog after work, I noticed that the leaves in the back field were beaded up with rain drops, so I went back inside to grab my camera.’
Flame-leaf Sumac with Raindrops
Flame-leaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata) (raw from camera)
I love the way this photo turned out, just straight from the camera. It could have been centered a little better, but the colors are super saturated. When I’ve mentioned that taking photos on overcast days has certain benefits, this is what I’m talking about.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from tinkering around with it.
red paper boat 