No prof that isn't a close up picture of a nipple.

Due to fantastical job of the administrators at my alma mater I had to go fill out my first credit report. Apparently someone at Ohio University never realized that a database of alumni information was hanging it's bare ass on the internet highway for all to see for the last year. Thankfully they finally put together a site to tell everyone what was going on and THANK GOD it was only contact information, names, addresses, social security numbers, pet names, favorite sexual positions, and no credit information. Did I mention social security numbers? Thank GOD they didn't have things like credit card information, I mean shit if someone got that they would have access to all of my $2 dollars. However with that pesky cute little social security number they'd only be able get a new license, credit cards, passports, WHEW. It's not their fault I'm sure they were like "Duuuuuuuuuude, that alumni database I think it was like ummmmmm.... on the internet for like the last year. I mean does that matter I mean those alumni's are all so like old." In continuing with the theme of being screwed Windows updated itself right into irritating mode. Now every time I logon it nags me like a mother warning me how I was "Victimized by software counterfeiter's" and that I should "request real Microsoft software." Shiiiiiiiiiiit They think they can out irritate me? They've got another thing coming, this stuffs going to run off me like water off of a dead goose. I'm the guy who's processor kept overheating for 6 months when he played counter-strike, there's no WAY I'm going to let nice little nagging messages bother me.

Tonight was my first class in B&W dark room photography. When I was in high school I decided to take a years worth of photography classes all to the woe of my parents I'm sure. Woe because photography is like say Scuba diving, it isn't very cheap. I burned through hundreds of sheets of photo paper like a Nazi on a book burning campaign, except I was developing pictures ... of the ... HOT type. Heh heh. No seriously of trees and flowers and pets. When I was in high school I was so sure that the equipment we were using was old. Well again WOE to he who thinks that as the class that I'm now taking seems to be using equipment even older than what my high school had. The timers that are hooked up to the enlargers which control how long the light is on have a design very similar to clocks found in cars made in the sixties. You think I'm kidding. Like it matters though I mean the camera I use is over thirty years old and I have little or no intention of buying a digital SLR. Not because I think digital is the devil, I'm just too cheap. The class is taught by this guy who could give your grandmother a run for her money when it comes to talking. You know those conversations you used have when you lived your parents and grandma used to call up. All you wanted to do was pass the phone off and every time you tried to say "Let me get Mom" she would break into another long story about some giant bunny she saw the other day that was walking on it's hind legs sucking the marrow out of a piece of celery all the while whistling Yankee doodle went to town. You get the idea.

After he showed us how to spool film on to a spool, how to use the enlarger, and make a contact sheet we were standing around and he was talking about the places he takes photographs and how if you send pictures back to that place that they are more likely bend a little for you, let you in earlier, trespass, and take "artistic" pictures. Heh heh. I understand that, it makes sense it was what happened after someone asked him what he thought about digital SLR's that everything got a little weird. Let me preface all of this, the Instructor is really a nice guy, and I'm really excited to be taking this class, he's just a little wordy is all.

Instructor: I can't use digital, hate digital. You see to get a decent rig you have to spend at least $1800 for a camera body and then another $800 for a nice lens.

I'm thinking, right he's going to make the point that digital is expensive and that with film SLR's you can just go buy on Ebay for $100 or so and start shooting. Nope, I couldn't have been more wrong, that adventure was not one that was available for the choosing and there was no "all of the above" option either.

Instructor: You have this nice rig and you decide that you are going to take pictures at a basketball game for a local newspaper where they'll pay you $60. That's great I mean you get to go to a game and get paid for it. Except that I've known people who have had their 5K cameras broken, destroyed, crushed, maimed, chewed on, craped at, forgotten or in the least they loose their memory cards. So you get done with the night with a potentially broken camera at the worst and at best 40 bucks spent between gas, food and admission and all you have left is the $20. It's just not worth it, not worth it at all.

At this point I figure, OK not sure what that had to do with the original question but we are at least winding it down here.

Instructor: There was this one time where I got a 100 bucks for a shoot, it was terrible though it was raining I had my camera wrapped up inside plastic bags, my flashes were going bad left in right spewing toxic gases and corrosive elements onto my skin and clothes. I looked at my camera Roger and said "Roger, this is the shit that mean die in." When I finally wrapped up and returned home I didn't start developing my film till 11pm and by the time I got home it was 2am. I had to then tear down my cameras and clean the water out with cans of air, q-tips and paper towels, by the time I finished it was 5am. All that for $100, it's just not worth it. Then there was this one time, in Nam when I was on patrol with my unit. At the time I was the platoons camera man so my rifle was on my back. While I was taking pictures of the unit a Vietcong popped up, POPPED up right in front of me. I instantly threw the 15lb camera at the Vietcong killing him instantly however it also killed the camera. I spent the next month in shock laying in a hospital in Saigon unable to eat or sleep. When I could sleep the nightmares would come and I would wake up in a cold sweat and feeling for the camera I had lost. Wher was I.. oh yes so whenever you take pictures of something be sure to send them back prints because people really like that.

I'll be honest with you he never said anything about being a camera man in Vietnam but you get the point. On the joby job dealio apparently we have some sexual harassment classes coming up. Which is going to be funny not because I find sexual harassment funny. Nope because I can't get the episode of "Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law" where they are watching a video on sexual harassment where they have peanut say something inappropriate and the announcer says in a booming voice "That's wrong!"

Peanut: (to two girls) I'm Peanut. How bout you be bread and you be jelly and we could make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich!