photo ©2009 Rena Katinas
Only weirdos and degenerates don’t love red shoes. On a side note, thank you Moll for being six feet tall and always willing to model for me!
09
May
09
My Friend Has Red Shoes
The first clue that these people are idiots with giant sticks up their asses — wolf plural is wolves, not wolfs.
The only thing these people are interested in, is scamming money from people who sign up. I wonder why the nitwits over at devilwolfs think anyone would give money to a website that looks like it was designed by Ted Kaczynski or a blind person. Their claim that it cost them $500 in utilities a month to keep the site going is ridiculous. Really devilwolfs? $500 a month just in utilities? What are you using power your site, dilithium crystals? Diamonds?
There are plenty of free and well designed bittorrent sites out there, so much so, that devilwolfs should be nearing extinction.
08
May
09
Last Shot Of The Day
This shot would have been useless if it had not been for Adobe Lightroom and that I switched to shooting in RAW format that day. As I was heading towards the subway, I thought I’d grab a quick shot across Daley Plaza. I metered for the sky, which left everything else black. My second shot, meant to expose for the architecture was ruined by a bus. I was without a tripod, so getting another shot in perfect registration wasn’t going to happen. Plus I was running late and needed to get home so I could get ready to see the new Star Trek movie, so I figured the shot was lost.
I couldn’t toss such a cool sky and imported it into Adobe Lightroom any way. Once it was in my library, I made a second virtual copy and brought out the mid-tones and highlights. I left the original copy with the exposed sky alone. I exported both copies to Photoshop, and opened them separately. It was easiest (laziest) to magic wand the black buildings silhouettes, saving the selection for use with both files. Then it was just a matter of pasting the sky into the second image.
It’s definitely not perfect, an image THAT underexposed, really has no business being corrected to that level in Lightroom, there is some color fringing on the edges that may have been correctable, or not. At least now I know that in a pinch, when I’m caught without my tripod, I can still sandwich “multiple” images, with just one (hopefully better exposed) RAW image and Adobe Lightroom.
The original image on the left, extremely underexposed for the sky, and the adjusted virtual copy on the right-a real testament to Adobe Lightroom.
02
May
09
Bought A New Camera!
Finally a brand new DSLR for me, yay! The menu system is more complex than my Olympus, so I’ve some reading and test shooting to do. My Olympus isn’t going into the dustbin just yet, it still takes great macro shots with the macro convertor lens. Plus it’s pretty sensitive to infrared light for a non-modded camera, so it’ll still come in handy.
21
Apr
09
Wanted: Underwear For This Man
My friend John and I saw this guy, standing in front of the Armitage-Western-Milwaukee Walgreens. John isn’t gay and I’m not into overly-tanned, shiny guys, but it’s really hard not to notice those glowing orange shorts.
photos courtesy of John Clark III ©2009
29
Jan
09
He’s History!
The Illinois State Senate has just voted unanimously (59-0) to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich and to never allow him to hold public office again.
Hopefully this is just the beginning, and we will root out each and every dirty politician in Illinois. Just because we rid ourselves of the guy with the hair, doesn’t mean all is now peachy in Illinois. Blagojevich wasn’t working alone, and he’s not the only politician who resorts to “Pay to Play” politics.
No matter what side of the political fence you are on in Illinois, we need to demand better.
I honestly do not understand what Rod Blagojevich thought he would achieve, running around New York, from talk show to talk show, including The View, when he couldn’t even be bothered to show up at his own impeachment trial. He can answer Larry King’s questions, but not ours? Is Blagojevich’s purpose to make himself and Illinois a laughingstock to the rest of the country? Perhaps he is looking for sympathy from bamboozled homemaker set. I say bamboozled, because only a sucker would fall for Blagojevich’s pack of lies.
What’s funny is somehow he suckered Geraldo Rivera into believing his BS. Geraldo, don’t you even bother to fact check, before you go around repeating Blagojevich’s lies? Now he AND Geraldo claim he cannot get a fair trial, he continues to lie about Illinois’ impeachment proceedings, as if no one in the media is going to point out, that Governor Blagojevich will indeed be impeached according to Illinois law.
This is no horse-thief trial Gov, these are proceedings to decide if you are fit to run the state. It’s pretty obvious, you are not. For God’s sake, you were not even IN the state, which you claim to be able to govern.
A lot of people in Illinois want to know if it is us, the Illinois taxpayers, who paid for Blagojevich, his staffers and security to live it up, like some sort of celebrity plugging a movie, in order to spread ridiculous lies in the State of New York, where they haven’t a clue as to how things work here in Illinois?
While Governor Blagojevich claims he’s looking out for the best interest of Illinois residents, he continues to waste the state legislature’s time, and hurt our state in the process. Apparently seven percent of Illinoisans want to keep our governor, while the rest of us just want him to resign. He claims we are setting a dangerous precedent by impeaching him, then why doesn’t he resign and show the people of Illinois that he has our best interest at heart, instead of backing us into a corner, forcing our legislature to remove him.
Governor Blagojevich, you are a selfish and insane man; you have put your needs above the people of this state. Any sympathy you might have gained, has been lost and has now turned to anger, by your refusal to step aside.
With millions of Americans unemployed, our youth dying in Iraq for an astronomical cost and corporate lobbyists having a greater political voice than us, the American people, you, Rush Limbaugh hope the president that the American people elected to correct eight years of failure, FAILS?
After having criminals in the White House for eight years, dismantling our constitution, you now hope the president we elected to clean up all the damage these two criminals have wreaked upon our country, FAILS?
How are your sentiments any different than someone who is against the war in Iraq, saying they hope we lose? I can be against the war in Iraq, but I certainly don’t wish it to go badly. Somewhere in the process of losing, more American soldiers would be killed. If the president fails, that means more people suffering under the repercussive weight of criminal acts perpetrated by George Bush and Dick Cheney. You can be pissed off that we elected President Obama, but wishing for his failure which would lead to more Americans suffering, is pretty selfish.
Much like my own Gov. Blagojevitch, you place your ego above the needs of the American people and you disgust me, more than you’ve ever disgusted me before, and that’s saying something! Thank God the only people you have power over are your dittoheads.
It must be nice to earn so much money as to be completely removed from average American people who live on a budget, who are losing their homes, the elderly who might not even be able to afford dog food to eat, the sick who have no choice but to seek medical attention at emergency rooms because they have no alternative or health insurance. What’s the matter Rush, are you worried you’ll have to have to finally pay your fair share of taxes? Will that not leave you with enough money for oxycontin?
What would make YOU happy, Rush? More people out of work? More people without a roof over their heads? More dead and wounded in Iraq? How about a complete economic collapse then?
When you say you hope the efforts President Obama undertakes to make this country a better place to live for ALL Americans, not just YOU, actually fails, you sound an awful lot like Osama Bin Laden.
As far as this American citizen is concerned, you speak like a traitor to the American people no matter how you MEANT those words, because anyone who would prefer the success of an ideology over the success of the American people is a flat out, Un-American jerk. I don’t generally like the term Un-American, but this time it’s the best word for the job.
You remind me of the two rich old guys in the movie “Trading Places”, who bet on the survival of Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd after having their lives turned upside down. By the way, Rush, you’re the meaner old guy. You’ve confused us, a nation of people, with a nation of pawns in an ideology experiment.
I DO love this country. How many places can someone have the freedom to spout quasi-treasonous rhetoric, to an audience of millions, while their head is shoved completely up their ass, while somewhere else a soldier is fighting, supposedly for your freedom to do it?
This is a beautiful collection of photographs taken during the Inauguration in Washington D.C. and other parts of the world:
The Inauguration of President Barack Obama – The Big Picture – Boston.com
