sometimes when i watch nature documentaries, i see animals eating in the dirtiest of places. sometimes it’s gophers digging up carrots, other times it’s a crocodile dragging a gazelle down into a muddy river. so the question is this: don’t animals care that they’re ingesting so much dirt/mud/sand/crap with their meals?! just thinking about it drives me absolutely crazy.

one of the rubber bumper pads on my flip phone is missing. GROAN.

this is a car that i didn’t know anything about before going out to California. built by International Harvester (now a part of commercial truck manufacturer Navistar International), the Scout was one of the first American-built SUVs available to the public and was produced from 1961-1980. i don’t know how well they sold but i’ve seen 4-5 different examples while i was in Los Angeles.

design-wise, they’re very utilitarian with an undertone of awesomeness. feature-wise, they’re pretty basic; there are no creature comforts to speak of unless you count padded seats and a shifter that won’t stab you every time you change gear. add some manly features like a winch, run-flat tires and a gun rack and you could go dinosaur hunting.

clever girl.

the day before i left Los Angeles, i went to go say goodbye to Dean, my homeless friend who gave me a BlackBerry. we chatted for a while and as i was getting up to leave, he stopped me saying that he had found something in an alley the other day and wasn’t sure what to do with it. he dug deep into his pocket, produced a coin and held it out to me. “for luck,” he said as he deposited it into my hand.

assuming that this is not a replica, this coin dates back to the Qing Dynasty (the Chinese on the front and Manchurian on the back is a dead giveaway) and, because it bears the name of a particular Qing emperor who reigned from 1796-1820, we know it’s roughly 200 years old.

pretty nice for an alley find, don’t you think?

i tried cutting my own hair last night for the first time. my brother was standing next to me giving me pointers and making sure i didn’t accidentally shave a big ‘X’ across the top of my head but i was still understandably nervous. my brother had to do some tricky bits for me but it was mostly just me staring into the mirror with clippers buzzing, wondering why i had embarked on such a terrifying journey. well, it took a little under two hours and there were many times when i contemplated just shaving my head but i managed to do it: i (more or less) cut my own hair!

and i’ll probably never have the courage to do it again.

i ordered a bunch of miscellaneous stuff for the camera today: LCD protector, strap, cable release, etc.

the D700 won’t really feel complete for another 5 business days or so.

so i’ve got a Nikon D700 now. its dimensions and weight are a little bigger and heavier than the D200 but otherwise there are no blatantly obvious physical differences. however, even though i’ve only had the D700 for less than a day, i’ve already noticed several major advantages over the D200:

- full frame sensor which is considerably bigger than the D200’s
- a “virtual horizon” system; a digital level that lets me know if my camera’s tilted
- two more megapixels; not a big deal, but handy to have around
- programmable DOF preview button which i’ve mapped to enable “virtual horizon”

anyway, i haven’t really had the chance to shoot with it yet. i’ll let you know more when i do.

so things haven’t really been working out with my job here in Los Angeles. i won’t go into details but i’m flying back to Chicago tonight and unless my job situation changes, i’m going to stay there until further notice. it’s just as well, i guess. Los Angeles has a way of sucking the life out of you and i’d like to keep what’s left of my sanity for as long as possible.

despite it all, i will miss certain things about this place. i’ll miss walking on the beach by myself and watching surfers fail. i’ll miss spending my afternoons at the park next to the library hanging out with Dean, Robert, and the other friends i’ve made among the local homeless population. i’ll miss wearing t-shirts in January and being able to laugh at the weather elsewhere.

i’ll be back, though, because i have to help Beka move out when she eventually quits her job and leaves this wretched place. i don’t know when that is but my fingers are crossed.

they claim that the first car ever seen by 60% of the developing world’s population is the Land Rover (i’m guessing the other 40% saw the Toyota Land Cruiser). yeah, Land Rovers in general are pretty tough little cars. they’ve traveled the world and have been used by all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. they say 70% of all Land Rovers ever built are still in use today. 70%!

what fascinates me about this one (other than it being only a few feet away from me) is that “POLICIA MILITAR” is written on the side, indicating that this particular vehicle may have been used by the military police of a Spanish or Portuguese speaking country. cool, eh?

it also looks like it could eat that Mini behind it.

all my housemates were either dead or dying in their rooms and i really had to use the toilet. i had just walked inside the restroom and shut the door when the power went out, allowing my ears to pick up a faint scuttling noise without visual distraction. a loud thud and suddenly the bathroom door caved inward. i instinctively tried to hold it shut, fighting some unseen force when the door suddenly flung open and a life-sized doll of a little Chinese girl burst into the room and charged at me. i quickly grabbed the creepy doll and smashed its head against the wall, violently showering the room with porcelain shards.

with the head gone, the rest of the body slumped lifelessly to the ground. relieved and feeling safe at last, i looked up again to see a similar doll already lunging at my throat.

and i woke up trying to remember what i ate yesterday.