every once in a while i’ll leave my mp3 player behind on my way out in the morning. it’s not that i get sick of music or anything but there’s something strangely refreshing about being exposed to bustling ambient noise. it’s just that oftentimes i find myself too occupied with life’s headaches to be fully aware of my surroundings so it’s nice to have something help bring me back to reality.

and nothing does that better than a million billion cars honking at each other.

today my beloved 80-200mm begins the long journey to its new home in Sweden. i dressed it up in bubbles this afternoon and dropped it off at FedEx where it’ll make its way to the buyer’s friend in North Carolina who will then bring it overseas with him in April. then i imagine they’ll go to a sauna and engage in hand-to-hand combat because God knows there’s nothing else to do up there besides detoxify and fight to the death.

just got back from St. Louis and boy, am i glad to be home. i gained about 300 pounds on this trip so i’m going to be doing a lot of exercising this week, i think. when i last went to STL two years ago, i described it as “nothing but ten buildings and an arch. broke.”

well, things haven’t changed much. heh heh heh.

first day out with my new 18-200mm and i’m totally blown away by the performance. it’s everything that i thought it would be and so much more.

i <3 Nikon

a semi-linkfest of semi-fascinating nature!

angry aqua spy plane

Singapore spaceport?

more money than sense

PETA-friendly cat piano

in true gangsta fashion, a slick bunch of cats in England bought uniforms, wired up their mum’s Volvo with some blue lights, pretended to be chummy police officers, and made off with £25 million ($43.5 million) last night with the “help” of a security company employee and the leverage gained by holding the poor sap’s family hostage.

and while i don’t endorse crime in any way, part of me can’t help but admire the sheer audacity of it all.

Chevrolet had a “car” at the Chicago Auto Show this year that was so incredibly ugly that one of its viewers could not help but vomit uncontrollably all over the hood.

i’m not kidding. they were still cleaning up the mess on our way out.

in the interest of more intense competition, higher television ratings, and the obvious desire to please yours truly, the International Olympic Committee should seriously consider encouraging the audience to throw snowballs at the athletes, especially for some of the more boring events like curling or ice dancing. not for the biathlon, though. that could get messy real quick.

i had a bizarre dream last night in which i was trying to catch a flight but was being delayed in frustrating ways. when i tried running i could only do so in slow motion and when i was on the top of the list to get through security–which was handled by the oldest, slowest speaking woman on the planet–the list was magically flipped upside down and i became last. what’s worse was that i couldn’t find my ticket anywhere in my bag and therefore couldn’t check my departure time…

…or get on the plane.