Old World Swine

Good News, Everyone!

I've invented a new computer virus defense weapon, patterned after some of my own antibodies, which I retrieved by swabbing a painfully infected ingrown toenail. This weapon is in the form of a concentrated anti-virus ray, which is aimed at the infected computer's hard drive... or at the screen, if you like.

Unfortunately, it's completely ineffective and therefore useless.

So, I was recently forced to take up a vigil at the bedside of my ailing and delirious computer, feeding it little sips of virtual chicken soup and waiting for the fever to break. I had to work my way around a variety of roadblocks that the virus threw in my way. First I had to figure out how to boot up at all, then how to get to safe mode, and then how to boot up under a previous configuration... all so I could get to my anti-virus software.

This helped, but we weren't out of the woods yet. My computer was still sweating and clammy and could take only liquids. The most stubborn virus was playing cat-and-mouse with my anti-virus software, and I had to do a little sleuthing of my own. Going with my gut, I shut down an anonymous "svchost" process that was sucking up 99% percent of my system activity. Things got better. I Googled around and found some more specialized anti-virus software that would hunt down additional "svchost" worms.

Things are running very smoothly, now. As I say, there is a special place in Hell for writers of malicious code.

I have been working for about six years on the same DELL Inspiron B120 laptop, on which I run all my graphics programs (Adobe Creative Suite 2) and do all my blogging. This is something like putting 200,000 miles on a Plymouth Neon... also a current project of mine.

Truthfully, this doggedly persistent laptop reminds me most of a friend's college car, a powder blue Dodge Dart, which he named Lazarus. It was basically a piece of crap the day it was driven new off the lot, but it simply would not stop running and would not die... or rather, would not stay dead. When it broke down, which was often, the problem always turned out to be just fixable. I think he and the car were in a battle of wills, to see which would quit first. The car won. Woody could have driven the thing another jillion miles, I think, but he just got weary of fixing it and bought a shiny new compact.

I've got to nurse this laptop thing along until I get a new Macbook Pro!

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"

Please remove your hats and observe a moment of internet silence...

Our old beast of a computer gave up the ghost in dramatic fashion last night, and so we will be broadcasting for a while from the luxuriously appointed facilities of our local public library, which finds it sensible to dole out internet time in two half-hour sessions per day.

I wouldn't be too surprised to find that this actually improves the quality. Economy is undervalued as an attribute of good writing.

Incidentally, this reminds me of an old blue jean jacket that I, my wife and some friends gave a true Viking funeral,l once upon a time. We sat and watched (and drank)  on the lake shore, as it floated away, burning. This was a little hard to explain to the policeman who came around... at 2:00 a.m..

I don't suppose a similar send-off would be ecologically appropriate for a computer. But then, it might actually be better than "recycling" it. There's no way we can make our curent level of wasteful living make sense, not even with fairy tales of recycling.

Oh, well. Maybe I can use it as a boat anchor. When I get a boat.

I Never Forget a Face...

Okay, here's a brilliant idea. Somone at Google should get on this right away;

As I was reminded in my last post, it can be really hard to find an image online if you don't already know the name or source of the image. I mean, if you had a picture of the Mona Lisa, but didn't know it by title or that it was painted by Leonardo, how would you go about finding it, or finding more information about it?

There ought to be some search software that would allow you to search the web for a particular image, not by title or subject, but by matching the visual information of the image, using something like the facial recognition software now used in security applications.

So, you just need a digital image - from a camera, or the web, or a scanned image - which you could then feed into the search, and the software would generate a list of the closest visual matches to that image found on the web. You might even be able to use this to identify places or landmarks you had photographed but forgotten.

Of course, this might have its nefarious uses, as well.

But there you go, the next big thing in web searches. You folks at Google, just direct deposit my royalty checks.

You're welcome.

UPDATE: Well, it appears that this concept is already in the works (check the links in the combox), which is not that surprising, but... NUTS! There goes my royalty checks, not to mention everlasting fame....

Blogging is *SO* 2005...

Eric Scheske at The Daily Eudemon posts on the Evil of Twitter and notes;

It suddenly dawned on me: “Holy Brevity! Blogs have become the new literary periodical genre!” Just five years ago, blogs were attacked for their superficial literary quality. It now looks like they’re getting too heavy for the average young reader. Heck, at this rate, literature will devolve into smoke signals and grunts. We’ll go back to caveman communication, but without the ability to draw.

I dropped this in his combox;

I have a Twitter account, but I very rarely use it, for all the reasons you mention.

I recently observed to a friend that to the LOL generation, blogging is considered a more serious, staid and respectable form of communication because its practitioners make use of archaic things like capital letters, punctuation and paragraph breaks.

Okay, I made the comment on Facebook… but my point stands.

Undoubtedly, I have not made full use of Twitter, or Facebook, or even this blog, in terms of marketing myself. I started this blog for fun, to keep a kind of loose journal and because scrapbooking strikes me as really gay.

I do feel like I need to more effectively promote my daily painting blog, though, so I had better get on that.

Stream of Bloggishness

The number of hits on the ol' blog have been way up in the last few days (and generally over the last couple of months), which is encouraging, in its way.

The spike in numbers is apparently due in part to reader Inertial Mass, who has tagged a few of my posts at StumbleUpon, through which I've had a number of hits lately. True, the Stumblers aren't a talkative bunch... but, to everyone dropping by through StumbleUpon... umm.. "Hi" (waves sheepishly).

I am also now mysteriously popping up on search engines, it seems. An AOL search for "How to tell if a swine is pregnant" brought me up on the first page. Another post placed highly in a search on the word "mylar". I get hits from "pipe smoking" searches. Do a Google image search for "nativity painting" and I'm not only on the first page, I'm the top entry. Blog life is weird.

I really enjoy blogging, but it's something I do for pleasure and not anything I take too seriously. I are not a righter, after all. For that reason I don't really do much at all to promote the blog. Nothing, actually. I have had some nice comments from some bigger, name-brand bloggers who (whom?) I really respect, but the idea of posting these endorsements in the margins rubs me the wrong way. I don't know why.

It is a quirk that I find is pretty common among artists. Most of us desperately need a manager or an agent (also a valet, a cook, a gardener and a maid... we need help with life, is what I'm sayin'). A lot of the artists I know are intensely uncomfortable with self-promotion. Unfortunately, self-promotion is a do-or-die thing for professional artists. If you want to make a living at this paint-slinging gig, you have to get used to the idea of knocking on doors, shaking hands, attending "events", rubbing shoulders... all the things that make my fellow studio mavens want to crawl under a rock. Preferably with some cookies.

A great Chestertonian, Del Teeter - whom I was delighted to meet at ChesterCon 08 - made note of the fact that... how do I put this?... well, he said in essence, "You look taller on television" (though I have never been on television). It's true that in person I am something more like a drifting shadow than a Sherman tank, with a face more forgettable than my name. I'm accustomed to being the tornado watcher, rather than the tornado. It's a different story once I become really comfortable with people, (and it takes very little time to become comfortable with fellow Chestertonians). As I've said, if I had to be in a foxhole with anyone, I would hope it's some of these people from the Chesterton conference.

Again, most artists I know are pretty solitary folk, and perfectly happy that way. It's something I have to actively work on, to expand my circle. By nature, I'm content as any fat squirrel, curled up in my studio all alone, so long as the cookies hold out. I often go for hours with nothing but the sound of my brush and my own breathing. But this is not exactly what God has made us for.

No doubt there are those of us called to a more solitary way of doing things, but in general "It is not good for man to be alone". We need each other. We need to think more about keeping some spare cookies on hand to share. I find it of great interest that the only Bible passage I could find that simply doubles itself for emphasis is when St. Paul admonishes us to "Practice hospitality. Practice Hospitality.". Seems like he meant for us to practice hospitality... even if we find it a bit of a challenge to lift our rock a little and offer a cookie to a stranger.

On a Chestertonian note: Blogger Paul Stilwell at his blog Spike is Best posts on the Saint Austin Review;

The latest issue of StAR landed in my mail today. This Nov./Dec. issue: Sex and Culture. I've just read Joseph Pearce's editorial and the first article by Jennifer Overkamp entitled: Close Companionship and Satisfying Sex: Chretien, Augustine, and Medieval Marriage. As always with StAR, even one article is a rich and comprehensible feast.

I had the singular pleasure of meeting and talking with both Jennifer Overkamp and Joseph Pearce at ChesterCon 08, as well as hearing them speak, and these were among the highlights of my trip. I've got to check out this Saint Austin Review. Paul also has a cool, sort-of-geeky (not that there's anything wrong with that...) review of The Karate Kid, which is interesting. Looks like I might need to give Mr. Miyagi another chance.

"... and All the Children are Above Average"

*Snort*... This is great!

I have been informed by the editors of blogged.com that;

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 7.7 score out of (10) in the Personal Blogs category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement!

That's a 7.7 out of a possible 10, if you weren't paying attention, and if my old grade school math memory files haven't been corrupted too badly, that works out to 77% which is - what - a C+? *grins* That sounds about right!... And (just like in high school) I didn't even study! Take that!

This only shows that just because you have a Master's Degree in Fine Art doesn't mean you can't go on and lead a productive life.

A solid C+... I'm thinking this merits a round of celebratory beers, tonight. What does a C+ call for... Pabst Blue Ribbon?

And speaking of vice...

Sean at The Blue Boar passes on this bit of historical insight;

Where was the world's first public anti-smoking movement in modern history? No, not California. Not in the Twin Cities. Not even in Chicago. It was in Nazi Germany.

Light up for liberty.

I'm not much of a cigar man, but I'll likely have a pipe on the porch later... you know, in solidarity with The Resistance. I smoke a pipe a few times a month. I enjoy it most while listening to the rain on the back porch, especially when the weather grows cool. Tonight happens to be perfect pipe weather.

Tune in next week for more above average blogging!

Scam-Fisted Fraud

Below is the text of my most recent (and last) e-mail to a guy who has been trying to run a scam on me. Fun as it had been, it was time to draw things to a close. I spotted the fraud right away, but others (apparently) did not.

"Dear Mr. Morris White -

I'm afraid I have been deceiving you, though I never actually lied. I never did deposit the check you sent. It, and the envelope in which it came have been handed over to the FBI, as well as all your e-mail correspondence and my phone records.

Let me say sincerely that this is the clumsiest scam I have ever personally seen or heard of. Disappointingly inelegant. Tired of running the old frauds, are we? Bored with recently deceased relatives having left you millions of dollars in foreign banks, begging to send their money to the U.S.?

Let's review;

1) You live in the state of Washington, but you're presently in England on your honeymoon. Okay.

2) None the less, you are in a hurry to buy a painting from me (not my best work, either). What kind of honeymoon is that? You're surfing the internet, looking for art?

3) Though offered the chance to negotiate the price of the painting, you decline. Wow! You're so wealthy that you don't even look at the price tag! Or you're just feeling generous, no doubt overflowing with wedded bliss.

4) You send me a check from Atlanta, courtesy of "a client", you say (I know when I'm away on trips, I always ask my customers to take care of personal matters for me while I'm gone, preferably by writing checks for things I want to buy).

5) The check is signed by someone who's name has never come up in any of our correspondence (and speaking of names, it might help the deception if you were more careful to spell your own name correctly).

6) The check is for an amount seemingly unrelated to the price of the painting, and though endorsed with a man's name, is signed with the big, loopy script typical of a high school girl (or drop out).

7) In your last e-mail, you request that I send a money gram for the difference to yet another person, this time in Oregon. This is getting more confusing than the tax code.

8) You are so anxious to get the painting, that you are going to take care of all the shipping arrangements yourself, and send a courier to pick up the artwork. I don't have to do a thing!... except send off this money gram, for some inexplicable reason.

Not to mention the copious misspellings, the bad grammar, the stiff attempts at sociability ("Thnaks for the prompt reply and  how are you and how is the family and i really appreciate your interest in selling" the painting)... the whole thing stunk like last week's lutefisk.

In short, you should look into another line of work. Or should I say, simply another line. Work would be a good idea.

I don't know if you believe in Hell... I'm guessing not. There are people every day who offend God by numberless acts of selfishness and pride, but many are unaware of how selfish they really are. They are so self-absorbed that they are unconcerned (or perhaps no longer able) to see how their behavior effects others.

You have no such excuse. Your actions are evil, and you know this.

You should be ashamed of yourself."