Friday, February 24, 2006

More useless navel-gazing

A few years ago, I took one of those web-based IQ tests. You've probably seen their banner ads too. It seemed a bit too easy, so I took a few others. The results? Who cares. Today, whilst wondering around myspace.com, I came across yet another personality test. Here are the results:


Advanced Global Personality Test Results
Extraversion |||||||||||||||| 66%
Stability |||||| 26%
Orderliness |||||| 26%
Accommodation |||||| 30%
Interdependence |||||||||||| 50%
Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 63%
Mystical |||||||||||| 43%
Artistic |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Religious || 10%
Hedonism |||||||||||||||| 70%
Materialism |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Narcissism |||||| 23%
Adventurousness |||||||||||| 43%
Work ethic |||||||||||||| 56%
Self absorbed |||||||||||||||| 70%
Conflict seeking |||||||||||||||| 70%
Need to dominate |||||||||||||||| 63%
Romantic |||||||||||||| 56%
Avoidant |||||||||||||||| 63%
Anti-authority |||||||||||||||| 70%
Wealth |||||| 30%
Dependency |||||||||||||||| 63%
Change averse |||||||||||| 43%
Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70%
Individuality |||||||||||| 50%
Sexuality |||||||||||||||| 63%
Peter pan complex |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Physical security |||||||||||||||| 63%
Physical Fitness || 10%
Histrionic |||||||||||||||| 63%
Paranoia |||||||||||||||| 70%
Vanity |||||||||||| 43%
Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Female cliche |||||| 30%
Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Yikes. A paranoid, hyper-sensitive materialist who seeks conflict. Clearly there are some bugs in this system!

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Punto de Gravel



Just to the north of Washington National Airport, there is a little park. It has a boat ramp, a small parking lot, and some ball fields. The Mount Vernon bicycle trail runs through it. It's called gravelly point, and if you like to do planespotting, it's the place to do so around Washington.

After 9-11, I really thought the Park Service would close this place down. The airplanes fly so low over the park that I swear I could hit one with a good nine-iron shot. Well, that is, if I hit a good nine-iron shot... with a decent lens, you can read the serial numbers stamped onto the landing gear.



The shot above was made with a 300mm lens on a Nikon D1, so it's about the equivalent of 420mm in 35mm.

Years ago, I'd stand directly under the flight path, the MD-80's and 737's rushing overhead. After the airplane would pass, there was a swirling, "wooshing" sound. I think it's the superheated air cooling after the jet engines pass by, but I'm not sure. We called it "The Quickening," as in the film Highlander. Geeky, yeah, but there you are.

Now, even after all the times I've lugged camera and video gear to Gravelly Point, I've never gotten a truly interesting shot. This one, shot in the Netherland Antilles by Justin Cederholm, is pretty darn impressive...



This photo, and many other great airplane shots, can be found at Airliners.net

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Can't Believe it's Not Butterfield 8

The "all the Oscars" quest continues... up to 55.8%. This is going to take my whole life. The good news is that I only have three left for 2005, having banged out Transamerica and Mrs. Henderson Presents this weekend.

But, back to the historical task: Butterfield 8 was pretty good. Ironic that Liz Taylor hated the role, which was a contractural obligation, and it netted her her first Oscar.

What I liked was her car: A Sunbeam Alpine.



An often overlooked car that I've always thought of a as a classic. As a kid, I enjoyed "Get Smart," and my dad, from whence I picked up the gearhead gene, always, without fail, commented on Maxwell Smart's Sunbeam Tiger. I wish I could get him one for his birthday, but, what the hey, he already has my old Miata...

Another part I found fascinating, as a former road geek (ask me about the history of I-95 and Washington DC sometime. I dare you.) were the shots of a then-fresh New York State Thruway.



At least... I think it's the Dewey. There is a sign in one shot...



And the toll plaza looks right...



And those rocky sides, they look a lot like the cut-throughs I remeber going up I-87 to Middletown to visit my grandmother... heck, could be the same stretch of road; according to The Thruway's web site, the part near Harriman was under construction right around when this film was being shot.

And speaking of grandmom... until the day she died, at age 103 in 2001, she referred to her phone number not as "343-xxxx" but "Diamond-3."

Must be a New York thing...

Monday, February 06, 2006

More clever than I!

Regular readers (both of you) know that I sometimes read the comics. For me, they're like a car crash, I hate myself for looking -- most of them are just so, so awful. The profession basically ended with the last frames of The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, as far as I'm concerned.

Still, occasionally a gem pops up. A great site called The Comics Curmudgeon, written in a dry, hilarious style that I wish I had, pokes fun and analyzes these little bits of art almost every day (although Josh has been AWOL for most of the past couple weeks -- tsk). His comments on the unbelievably preachy "For Better or For Worse," the utterly imcomprehensible "Gil Thorp," and the just-plain-weird "Phantom" are his best work, imho.

A few weeks ago I even did my own lame attempt at bringing some humor to a "Spiderman" comic. But The Talent Show blog has done a truly fine job of skewering "Malard Filmore." I once read that good parody fools 50.1% of your audience (think "This is Spinal Tap" or "Best in Show"). "The Talent Show" has managed to capture that angry-but-still-not-quite-serious "humor" of Mallard (if, of course, you find cartoons about women drowning to be humorous, but I digress).




Hell, I don't even know how he got the font to match...

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Tempted

I've been a football fan for 35 years.

But it's tempting, after miserable team, that shouldn't have even made the playoffs, with a joke of a head coach has won the Super Bowl, to end my football fandom. To not watch another game. To give up my Redskins season tickets. To leave this previously glorious sport to crass and classless Steelers fans.

But nah. There's always next year, right?

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Is it just me?





...or is "B.C." getting more and more incomprehensible as time goes on?

Can someone explain this strip to me?

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Scoring my picks

Oscars announced -- how'd I do?


Best picture: 3/5
Best actor: 4/5
Best actress: 3/5
Sptg actor: 5/5 (Yip!)
Sptg actress: 3/5
Director: 4/5

Total: 22 out of 30.

73%

Pathetic.

Really big ships


When I was 14, my family spent a rather disastrous vacation in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina: It was hotter than two hells, my father caught the flu, our TV broke, and the house wasn't really what we were promised. Still, we tried to tough it out. I will always remember that trip for two reasons. One, we went to see the film "Jaws" one day. I was so scared of the water, that I wouldn't turn my back to the surf whilst building sand castles; apparently I thought the great white shark was going to walk on its fins and cover the dozen feet of sand to get to me.

The other memorable event was visiting the battleship USS North Carolina, a floating museum in Wilmington, NC.

I was in love.

Everything about the ship struck me. The bleached teak decks, the massive-yet-graceful lines, the endless corridors, the dizzying heights of the upper decks. Even the smell of the lubricating oil brought back some kind of false memory, and closing my eyes I could see, hear, feel and even smell the south Pacific , circa 1944. Perhaps in an earlier life I went down with my destroyer, victim of a Japanese torpedo. Or perhaps I was just an imaginative 14-year-old boy.

The fate of old ships has fascinated me ever since. These floating examples of cutting-edge technology go from being protected secrets and national assets to so many tons of scrap in such a short time. I think it's wonderful that so many other retired ships have become museums, but so many more suffer less distinctive fates. I remember in the 80's seeing an aircraft carrier being systematically dismantled near the Harbor Tunnel entrance in Baltimore. It took months, and each trip north I'd see a little more of the poor ship's innards exposed. Humiliating.

Some day I'd love to photograph the mothball fleets. One is at Suisun Bay at Benicia, near Martinez, CA. I think this is the USS Missouri on the right -- the ship on which the Japanese articles of surrender were signed. Sitting in a bay, quietly rusting away. If she becomes a museum, will her engines even fire? Or will she have to be towed?

How humiliating...

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

State of the Onion


I was impressed by the President's speech tonight. While short on specifics, he outlined some bold ideas and occasionally tried to reach out to the Democrats. Still, he couldn't help but be confrontational about some touchy subjects. Still... the Dems seemed a bit petty in applauding the lack-o-Social Security reform. Bush was right -- it still needs to be fixed.

The part that surprised me was the "addicted to oil" comment. Wasn't Bush an oil man? Isn't his staff comprised of many former oil execs? Didn't he push through a $75,000 tax rebate program for 6,000lb+ SUVs? Didn't he cancel the tax credits for hybrids? Isn't Andrew Card, the former mouthpiece of Detroit, his chief of staff?

In other words, his backers are going to be very upset if America starts reducing its oil consumption. The technology is there today: Safe, reliable, good-performing vehicles. They just aren't built by Detroit.

I'm not sure where this can go, but it will be interesting to watch... well, as long as we don't wear t-shirts that say "Support our troops."