Max Pictures’ Blather

…worse than than old breakfast.

I was introduced this morning to a frightening new train-based mobile breakfast technology: the Breakfast Bacon and Egg Quesadilla. Deceptively simple in its appearance and microwave-delivery, the quesadilla belied its complex factory-preparation and lab-based ingredients.

And, it tasted terrible.

Actually, it wasn’t how the quesadilla tasted, it was the texture. Part of the problem may have been that I spent five minutes photographing the thing before I dug into it—the quesadilla rapidly cooled, the cheese started to harden, and the tortilla became chewy and tough. More of the problem was that the egg in the quesadilla may have come from dehydrated chickens—I’ve never had scrambled eggs anywhere as mealy.

This, however, did not stop me from consuming the whole thing.

Once upon a time they had a small breakfast burrito on the train that was inexpensive and pretty good. It was replaced months ago with a larger, pricier, less-palatable burrito. Now, that burrito has been replaced with this crime against quesadillas.

I suppose for now we’ll just stick with the croissant.

…but Picasa is cheaper.

Max Pictures has photos posted all over the place. Well, a couple of places. Okay, four places*, I think.

We started out with a self-hosted online gallery (using the open source program Gallery, of all things), but when Flickr came on the scene we quickly jumped (our own) ship and maxpixpix on Flickr was born. Actually, we double-posted for a while, but the features (especially geotagging) and ease-of-use that Flickr offered quickly bought our allegiance. Like Gallery, Flickr was free. All was good.

Then, we hit Flickr’s free account 200 image limit.

I cursed. I swore. I wrote angry emails (in my head) to Flickr’s management team. I couldn’t go back to free, cumbersome, and slowly-updated Gallery. I considered paying for a Flickr Pro account. Miss T reminded me that Max Pictures was already paying for web hosting with oodles and gigabyte oodles of server space. I searched for another free Flickr-like Web image service. Google’s Picasa Web Albums, oddly enough, was the top result from my Google search.

Picasa wasn’t (and still isn’t) as function-rich, widely-used, or just-plain-sexy as Flickr. But, it does have many of the same features as Flickr (specifically geotagging) and it is being (slowly) updated by Google. Most importantly, the free account storage limit of 1 gigabyte beats the pants off of Flickr’s 200 image photostream cap. Max Pictures’ photo gallery jumped ship again to maxpixpix on Picasaweb. All was good.

Today I discovered Flickr Enlarger. It’s a simple Web app that let’s you view Flickr images like this: Astro Boy promotes Tezuka.

Very simple. Very sexy. For Flickr. *sigh*

Okay, back to editing photos for posting to Picasa.

*The fourth way we’re posting images is via WordPress.

…in Davis.

Actually, order takeout food from Sam’s, eat at home. The place ain’t much in the looks department, but the food is great.

Miss T and I don’t mind cooking, but I don’t think either of us has ever attempted to make Mediterranean food (beef shawarma, lamb kebab, falafel, etc.). There’s no reason for us to since Sam’s is just a hop, skip, and a jump and another jump away from the house. (Ali Baba’s, which is another Mediterranean restaurant some Davisvillians swear by, is about 100 feet away from Sam’s, but I’ve never gone past Sam’s to try them. Must be that ‘location, location, location’ thing realtors are always talking about.)

This week’s story: Tuesday night we didn’t feel like cooking. So, off to Sam’s I went. I came back with lamb kebab on pita, beef shawarma over rice, french fries, and baklava. All were excellent.

Two things to note about Sam’s:

1. Cash only.
2. Eating a pita sandwich is messy.

The above photo is from a couple of weeks ago—back when the sun still shone in the afternoon. No pictures of Sam’s food since I’m always so anxious to dig in that I forget to photodocument it.

Man, I could go for some Sam’s right about now.

…but Happy Dharmaween!

And, iPumpkinween.

And, uh, Eyeballween.

In case you don’t recognize the first pumpkin, it’s sporting the “modernized” Dharma Initiative logo that is part of the Lost alternate reality game “Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project.” And, uh, Lost is a TV show on ABC.

Kamen Rider carved the iPumpkin. Miss T carved the eyeball. I’m pretty sure it’s just an eyeball and not the CBS logo.

Twelve more months ’til next Dharmaween. (Thankfully, Lost returns in February).

…a really new day.

…at the library.

When I was in school I rarely went to the library. As an adult I’ve continued not going to the library. (Miss T is a regular library user and sometimes she checks out books for me to read—inexplicably they’re always weight-loss books.) I’m not against libraries, mind you, just my going to libraries.

Last month I was at two of the libraries at UC Berkeley for work: the then-not-yet-reopened Bancroft Library, and Doe Library. I took some pictures while I was there (mostly of the Bancroft’s new entry atrium) which you can see at 10 UC Berkeley libraries photos.

Hey, where are all the books?

…it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.

It’s raining cats and dogs in the Bay Area—looks like we’re having a normal (read: wet) fall/winter this year.

Despite the drenched conditions, Miss T and I ventured out to San Francisco on Saturday. Our ultimate destination? The Ferry Building Marketplace.

The outdoor farmers market seemed to have been washed out, but the Ferry Building shops were open and bustling. We spent a leisurely hour or so at the Imperial Tea Court drinking hot tea to ward away the damp.

Good times.

(You can see more pics at 10 Rainy day in S.F. photos at maxpixpix on Picasa.)

…holiday greetings from the patch of pumpkins past.

Have a safe and sane (and dry) October’s end!

…one solution (and one additional problem).

As I’ve kvetched about before, there are challenges to taking photos on the train. There’s motion: swaying like a ship in 15-foot seas; vibration like a hideously unbalanced clothes dryer. Lighting: cars with zero interior lighting; cars with bland fluorescent lighting. People: passengers thinking anyone with a camera is a terrorist; terrorists thinking anyone with a camera is a fellow terrorist—it’s a real problem.

But, here’s one of the most annoying obstacles to on-board photography: glass. Specifically, windows.

While the windows do a great job of keeping out heat, cold, moisture, wind, noise and debris, and an equally great job of keeping in heat, cold, tickets, newspapers, food and passengers, they’re a pain when you want to photograph something through them. On the outside, the windows pick up and show with brilliant clarity all manner of dust, scratches, water spots, bird droppings, and glare. On the inside, the windows pick up reflections.

I’ve finally figured out a solution to the reflections: use a hood. At least, I think you would call it a hood. It’s not a lens hood, and it’s not a display hood, it’s a… a train window hood.

Basically, I do the following. I aim my camera out the window at whatever astounding memory I’m try to capture. I grab my (usually dark-colored) jacket and press it up against the window, trying as much as possible to form a pocket around the camera while not blocking the lens. I snap a photo, pull the camera out of my makeshift hood, inspect the results, then try again.

If that made no sense, don’t worry. The key idea to take away from all this is that there’s a way to block reflections when you’re trying to take a picture through a window—you just can’t see through the camera while you’re taking the picture. Shooting in the blind, I got results like the photo above—motion blur, crazy angle, but no reflections.

Hey, maybe the jacket-thing should be called a blind.

…was a day of rest and reflection. I.e., we didn’t do much of anything.

Miss T and I did manage to get out of the house and over to Sacramento, and we stopped off for a late lunch at a favorite place, Harry’s Cafe. On Harry’s suggestion, I had two eggs over fried rice (eggs sunny-up; breakfast sausage in the fried rice). Miss T ordered the Vietnamese beef noodle bowl (same as pictured above).

The food, as always, made us happy.

Good, good, good stuff.