Matrix Cuisine

In the movie, the Matrix, our world is just the computer simulator world called the Matrix. Our physical bodies are hooked up to all kinds of tubes in a slimy, gooey liquid-filled pod. Everything we do, see, hear, and interact with is just stimulations to our brains.

So my question goes like this: There is no real food in the matrix. It's all computer simulated to make our brains think we're getting the nutrition we need to live, because as we all know if you die in the matrix, you die in the real world. In the matrix we think we're eating. In the real world, our bodies are getting the liquid goo-type food from an IV to really keep us alive.

So if a person becomes really fat from eating too much in the matrix, does the physical body that's only getting liquid sustenance also get fat? I know that their brain is thinking they are, but in real life, they aren't actually eating all those fatty foods. So do their physical bodies get fat?

Discuss.

A Day in the PhotoLab

When my photography instructor got out her calendar during class yesterday and told us we have two weeks left before the lab closes, I felt a little nauseous. I have a mere fortnight to complete my body of work which is due for finals. First of all, my body of work can only be called a 'body of work' if all of my photos are cohesive in some way, be it similar by the lightning or theme or whatever. Secondly, I must have at least 8 photos but no more than 10. And this body of work is not just print and go. No no. These photos must be spotted and matted. Oh the work ahead of me. Lucikly, I have 4 good photos so far. I also have a fifth, but it's still in the maybe pile. Now it all depends on how many photos I can get out of my last two rolls of film that I developed just this afternoon.

Now this is no digital point and shoot. This is old school black & white photography with film to be loaded. Yes, you heard right. Cameras sometimes use film. No memory cards here. It's a LOT of work to get a good photo. And for you who casually peruse a friend's or relative's photos and just say, "Hmm, those are nice;" let me just say to you that you need to think twice. Consider how much work went into them and only then can you fully appreciate them. Not to mention, it's nice to hear more from people than just, "Those are nice." We photographers need more praise. And here's why:

Here's the rundown of how you get a finished black & white photograph:

1) Get your camera and film.

Here's the camera I use.







For my class, we use Trx-400 black & white film. Very important to use the correct film.






You load it in the back.









2) Go take pictures!

3) Once you've used all of your film, it's time to develop. After making sure your film has rewound back into the canister, you can open the back of the camera and remove it. Exposing your film to any amount of light means you're majorly screwed. No more pictures for you!
You must take your canister, a film reel and other accessories to a light-tight closet. People with claustrophobia beware. Here in this completely dark room, you have to take your film and roll it onto a reel that will then be put into a light-tight canister with a special lid that allows liquid in through the top, but not light. On to the chemistry!


4) Developing the film includes lots of chemistry and time. Here's the order they must go in: Pre-wet, Developer, Stop Bath, Fixer, Rinse, Orbit bath, Final wash, and Photo-Flo. This process in addition to rolling your film onto reels typically takes over an hour. Once this is done, you unroll your wet film. Hopefully you can see pictures on your negatives! Now they must hang dry for 3 hours. Once dry, you can cut your negatives to fit your negative sleeves.

5) Take your negatives into the print darkroom and make a contact sheet. This will let you see what your pictures will look like. (Remember, the negatives alone are reversals of light. Dark areas will be bright on a regular print and vice-versa.)














6) Pick the picture you want, the enlarger you want to work on, and get started. Insert the chosen film into the enlarger, use test strips to determine correct exposure time, choose the right filter (the filter will cause less or more contrast depending on the filter), and once everything is just right, use a full sheet of resin coated paper to make a full size print. Once the image is recorded onto the paper via light, it goes through chemistry too; developer, stop bath and fixer. This process of printing has taken me 3 hours to get one photo just right. Sometimes I get lucky and it only takes me half of this time.


7) Your photo will then be washed and dried. Now you have a print! But odds are that it will have spots. (White spots caused by dust on the negative.) Super. Now you have to spot your print. You use a tiny brush and black photo-paper ink to fill in these little white spots to match the shading of the image. When finished with that, you can mount your photo using white matte-board.

8) Admire your photo!

See how much grueling work is involved? So next time someone wants to show you their darkroom work and photos, give them the time they deserve and say more than just, "That's nice."

The Itchy Scent of Grass

The pungent itchy aroma of grass hangs in the air around my neighborhood. This can only mean one thing: springtime is out in full force. Lately all of my neighbors have begun the springtime tradition of mowing their lawns. They and payed lawn-care experts are mowing, pulling weeds, and planting flowers. (Well, only one of my neighbors has successfully managed to grow flowers on a regular basis. My mom tries, but the results are usually pretty sad.) For many people, the smell of a freshly cut lawn evokes a sense of cleanliness and childhood nostalgia. For me, it's the smell of discomfort. Okay, it does evoke memories of childhood for me too, just unpleasant ones and here's why.

Just by smelling it, I feel itchy. My eyes begin to water and as the pungent scent of grass and weeds hits my nose, I twitch and sneeze. If I'm in the presence of this sadistic essence for too long, I will eventually need my inhaler for my asthma. I'd be itchy and unable to breathe. And this smell has a way of getting everywhere. I can drive by a house where someone is mowing their lawn and that itchy smell breaches the vents of my car. All I can do is hold my breath until I pass the house...and the house after it, just for good measure. Most people won't understand this because they are not burdened by nasty allergies and asthma. They love the smell of grass and probably can't fathom why someone could hate it or how it could harm someone. But I do and it does! So there you have it; grass from the other perspective. (My eyes are watering now just thinking about this.)

They come from France

Hackers, that is. My e-mail account was hacked by an IP address from France! This has never happened to me before so hearing that my e-mail was sending out spam to everyone was a shock. And then when I read about all of the security measures and reports to the authorities my e-mail provider is taking -which is NONE -I felt my temper rising. It just makes me angry that they can't do something to this IP address to screw up this hacker. I have their IP address! I know they come from France. This information is on my account activity list.

All I could do is change every single privacy setting I had and hope that that is a deterrent to this hacker from France. Hopefully seeing my password triple in size and complexity will make him exclaim, "Sacre bleu! Theez new passward is much too long and complicated. I shall move on to anozer fat American IP address that I can hack and send ze spam e-mail from." My imaginary Frenchman hacker will then finish his espresso, dust off his white & black striped shirt, straighten his red neck scarf, and ride his scooter off to another IP location -probably one that has wine and cheese.

Of course I do realize that not all hackers are from France. While reading through the e-mail help forum, I saw people complaining about hackers from Latvia, Russia, and other locations around the globe. So for anyone who has been in this situation, be sure you change your security settings. I will watch my account more closely now, that's for sure.

Frantic ball of girl-crazy

It's been two days since my aforementioned moment of absurd logic about my boyfriend. All is well and the flames of crazy have been washed away. Daniel was just drinking with Deana to help console her after work. I later learned that she screwed up on something, nothing else during the day seemed to go right; that topped off with her having had no lunch that day either, all added up to a woman in desperate need of whiskey. And I completely get that talking about it to me wouldn't help as much as talking to a friend who is also a co-worker and in the same boat as her.

The next night we all met up a recently re-opened bar downtown that offers a great relaxing atmosphere while still retaining the obvious surroundings of bar-life. Daniel, looking sexy as ever, met up with us after his late shift. We had a good night, an ever better after-party, a great morning followed by a wonderful afternoon, evening and night again. We hadn't spent this much time together at once since we took a weekend get-away a few months back.

The best thing about it all is, I never once let on that I was a frantic ball of girl-crazy one night because of his lack of texting. (And a good thing too. No boyfriend should be burdened with that unless totally justified.) I never once insisted we spend all Saturday together. It just happened naturally. And after a movie in the evening, (we saw Kick-Ass and I give it a B),  he asked, "What do you want to do now?" instead of just dropping me off at my house.
 I think he likes me.  ;)  

And just when I didn't think it could get any better, I had a late night revelation. After approximately 27 hours together straight, I was not the least bit sick of seeing him. This statement may seem harsh or negative, but stop to think about it. Sometimes, even with good friends, there comes a time when you just want them to go away so you can have a little alone time. Everybody has these feelings; just admit it. So the fact that I wasn't thinking these thoughts about how nice it would be just to go home and be on my own after 27 odd hours together with Daniel is a revelation of how much I adore him.

What happened in the year 2006?

The question has become, What happened in the year 2006? With the start of this blog, I began to wonder why I have not written anything in years. I tried to think back to when I last really sat down to write anything creative. And even the process of thinking about writing made me feel mentally exhausted and ready to push it all aside. But no! I must attempt to resist this lethargy. What will happen -no, make that what has happened is this: I've lost it. Whatever IT is, I've lost it. The desire to write, the inspiration I used to have, the passion for creating; whatever it was it is no longer there in the same quality and quantity. Was it ever really of any quality to begin with? Is it like this lack-luster blog entry...boring, lifeless, and an obvious attempt to force creative thought and fanciful words? I'm beginning to think it is.

I used to constantly write. Since grade school I've been writing. I wanted to write my own book since I could read. And so I would grab a pencil and paper and just start writing about whatever I was in the mood for. I was (and still am) susceptible to the influence of other authors. When I was a child, I read every Babysitter's Club book written and due to this influence, I wanted to write about my own club of friends going about their simple but meaningful adventures. Then I got into scary stories and R. L. Stine's Fear Street series. That's when I began to write about cheerleaders getting squashed beneath fallen basketball backboards and teenagers with split personalities. (I promise it was just a faze in my writing and not a wicked twist on my own psyche.) As a young adult entering college, I read more than my share of chick lit. Naturally I began to toy with writing about my own female heroine who struggles through a bad relationship, a job from hell, and other conflicts only to finally come out on top a better person with a new sense of purpose and a renewed outlook on some aspect of life.

So what happened in the year 2006? I found an old journal of mine today while going through a ton of old school folders and junk from under my bed. I think it was the last one I kept. And I bet you can guess what the last date I wrote in it was. Yep, 2006. And the last entry, the same last entry I had here on this very blog, was about my new job at the newspaper. So is that what really happened in the year 2006? I started writing for a living and was burned out on writing for myself. And then when I was let go from the paper, (for reasons that I would like to spare anyone reading this otherwise today's blog entry will double in size), I just didn't want to spend time writing. I still read as much as ever, but never could pick up a pen or open a word document. Talk about a long spout of writer's block. And I still have it. My rant here isn't creative. It's informative and only mildly interesting (to me). I suppose the silver lining in this is that at least I started to blog again. Who knows, maybe in another two years I'll be back up to where I once was. I can only hope.

Absurdly Logical

It is in a rather absurdly logical sense of thinking tonight that I create this new blog for myself to type out random thoughts, opinions, fears and the like. In our world of blogging, Facebook, the almost dead Myspace, and all other avenues of mass communication on the Internet, one may think we are all free to express our thoughts and emotions freely. Yet this is not entirely true.

Yes, we use the Internet to connect to people, to find old friends, and network. (We also use it to numb our brains with celebrity gossip and funny -but ridiculous -humor on YouTube.) But don't we also find catharsis in randomly blogging about our lives to a nondescript, silent audience that does not know our real name? And what happens when they do? You lose all sense of anonymity and therefore everyone knows your business. Hence my desire to create a new blog (which I've stated earlier, is rather silly but justified).

Where am I going with this? I do apologize for digressing or ranting. I am prone to do such things. Tonight, I needed to express my thoughts to this wonderful anonymous Internet audience...a.k.a. myself...without friends and family reading my diary so to speak. I would keep a journal but I am a product of the 21st century and have been using a keyboard since I was in grade school. My writing utensils cannot keep up with my thoughts the way my fingers can fly across a keyboard.

And so my dilemma finally begins. My group of friends is closely knit. Everybody knows somebody else in our large, diverse group. I'm even dating one said person. He's been a terrific boyfriend these past 8 months. But who do I turn to for one of my girly freakout moments? A close friend? The answer is no. My friend Nicole would be a sympathetic listener and would no doubt give great sound advice...she usually does. This would be fine if it weren't for my worry being based solely in my head.
First I'd have to explain how I came to be worried and slightly upset, and I know that during this process I would not find the right words and I would realize how silly it all sounds once said out-loud. And by this time, it's already in the open and then I'd have to defend my way of thinking, or just make something else up entirely. (Which I probably couldn't do on the spot. So that idea is out.) Nicole, being the intelligent girl she is, would start to ask questions about why I am feeling this way. Intelligent girls like her like to ask questions. So then I'd be stuck forever with the irrational worry conversation out in the open. And night-time does have a tendency to escalate worries, at least for me. So it's all a bad idea.

If you're a girl, you may know what I mean when I say "girly freakout moment." And if you're a guy, you may find this next bit of information useful. "Girly freakout moments" are those moments when little things make you think of bigger things, which starts your mind racing and depending on your imagination level, could grow to even bigger things that have now grown a life of their own. These new worrisome thoughts will not just go away by telling ourselves, "No, stop. That's crazy." We're not crazy. We just sometimes jump to conclusions that may make absolute no sense to others because you don't see the dots we're connecting in our heads. But it makes perfect sense to us. Logic is not welcome in this part of the brain.

So what's all the hoopla about anyway? Surely by now it must be anti-climatic. And I can assure you, it probably is. The background is this; my boyfriend Daniel works til 10:30pm. He began calling or texting me when he got off work around this time. Sometimes it was just to say goodnight, sometimes it was to get confirmation that we would be seeing each other shortly. I never asked him to do this; he just got in the habit and I got used to it. And on the nights that we don't see each other, his texts are anywhere from long and poetic, to short but very sweet.

Tonight, he simply texted that he was "Drinking with Deana." Deana is a co-worker and part of our group of friends. Last time he went drinking right after work with her, both had horrendous days at work. I ask if they've had a repeat of this and all I get back is "Sorta." No explanation at all. Daniel more often than not has more to say than one word responses. This seems to me to be slightly unusual. But whatever, maybe he just doesn't want to get into to it tonight, and through text messaging. Ok, fine, I think. I text back, "Well drive safe tonight. Love you." I get nothing back.

And it's this lack of a response to my last message that begins the Rube Goldberg device in my head. I'm now thinking, "Why didn't he text back? He always texts back when I make my goodnights." (Usually, he's the first to text 'Love you', then I text back, 'Love you, too.')

The following is how my dots connected to become a frantic, worrisome ball of girl-freakout.

The preliminary round of thoughts occur. He is in a bar, he could have missed the message. Daniel always keeps his phone on vibrate. Or maybe he and Deana are hashing out the horrible day and he's distracted. Daniel did call me at random this afternoon just because he was thinking about me. (Awww.) But I was in the photography darkroom and phones are not allowed, so I had to hang up after our "I love yous."

First round: What if I hurt his feelings by being so abrupt on the phone earlier? But no, he knows I wouldn't cut him short if I didn't have to. However, I still overthink how I wished I'd talked more. Should I have called him back later? Probably not since he was at work and I could be disrupting him. Then I think, I don't have to be concerned if he's out with Deana, do I? Noooo. Of course not.

Second round: What if I do need to be concerned? No, he loves me. This is absurd. He had a life of going to bars with friends before he met me. He doesn't have to stop that now that we're in a relationship. I'd be a terrible girlfriend if I insisted he stop. But why didn't he text back?

Third round: He's not beginning to lose interest in me, is he? Why couldn't he have just texted back like he always does? Does he not see how this is driving me nuts?? I only need a simple validation that everything is ok...preferably tonight before I go to sleep because now, this is obviously my obsession for the night.

And that gentlemen, is how we can go from being rational girlfriends to irrational emotional basket-cases. And now you know. Because knowledge is power!

In the end, I cannot tell my friends about this. It's irrational. (As of right now. Let's hope my fears are unfounded.) Not to mention they all know Daniel. I cannot tell my friends this because then they'd know something about their friend Daniel, and one of them might tell, and then that'd put him in a needless situation between me and our friends. This I will not allow. What I will do, is type until I get so sleepy that I'm ready to fall into bed (and I'm nearing that now) and hope (fruitlessly I'm sure) for a late night text that I occasionally get from him. And in the morning, I will most likely feel a little better. However, I will not feel completely better until I have that validation from Daniel by means of a simple "I love you" text or phone call. Oh, and naturally I cannot tell Daniel about any of this. He shall be spared my frantic thoughts, lest his head explode from my absurd logic.

Ah, the female mind. It's a wonder we manage to be sane at all.