Hi,

Last night you stole two of my cameras outside Angelica’s Kitchen on 2nd Avenue and 12th street.

I figured you’d try to sell them here, unless thieves are photo enthusiasts. You might make an honest living taking photos of shit you stole, hell that might make a great Gallery Title, “The Shit I Stole: Reflections on Urban Living in The 21st Century”. You might even get into Francesca Woodman-style self-portraits that you could take with my stolen cameras, make them real artistic, with a shallow depth of field, that’s what you can afford (or I guess, can’t afford because you are a damn thief) when you have a 50mm prime lens attached to the Canon A-1 (that’s the black one that you stole) that opens up to a 1.4. Fuck yeah, I’m giving you photography lessons, so at least you can shoot right, I mean what the hell were you gonna do with two cameras that no one wants anyway– don’t try to sell it to some Midwestern tourists in Times Square, man, don’t sell it in Times Square in general. It’s a 35mm film camera, who the hell wants to pay fro processing now that you can take a picture with your cell phone? Why didn’t you steal my cell phone instead? The camera on it is a piece of shit, and you would be making much more money off that, and I hate my phone so you’d be doing me a favor.

In your grubby hands you have a Canon AE-1– that’s the silver one with a zoom lens on it. You can set it to automatic exposure so you wouldn’t have to figure out metering or f-stops. Also you can really impress some chicks with the blue-jeans denim strap that comes with it, because you will look like Peter Parker in the sense that you will resemble a nerdy high school photographer from the late 70s. You should really do yourself a favor and get some polyester pants. You will not impress anyone else, however, because it’s just about the most basic student camera Canon’s ever made.

And that A-1? It doesn’t belong to me, so double fuck you for stealing my camera and stealing my friend’s camera. He got that for $10 from his friend’s mom on Long Island, so don’t expect to sell it for any more, unless you’re selling it to other assholes like yourself. It’s got a squeaky shutter and might not take anything past 1/125 (that’s the shutter speed, you moron, it means the shutter is open for 1/125 of a second, to refresh your memory), unless you wanna get real artsy and overexpose everything.

Finally, there are some miscellaneous shit in there:

a Firewire 800 Cable – this will not be much of use to you

Camera Logs – like you’d even understand them

a half-read secondhand copy of Albert Camus’ The Plague – Listen, you dick. I was 110 pages into that and until I buy another secondhand copy of that book I’ll never find out what happened to Dr. Rieux and the rest of the people in Oran. Maybe you could skim through it and summarize what I missed in a book report. I dunno, man, maybe you’re in the middle of an existential crisis, that’s why you’re stealing shit, right? to assert your existence or whatever. well, you should read that book. you might get a kick out of it. just don’t use it for kindling for your garbage-can fire under the 59th street bridge.

Three rolls of shot film – This is what I’m pissed off about the most. I took some pictures over the weekend with those cameras and they’re still loaded with film. I hope you didn’t open them in daylight like an idiot, not knowing that the little cardboard square that said “Ektachrome 64″ under the viewfinder meant that it’s LOADED, you fuck. There are shot rolls of Portra 800, 50D, and 1600 in there (film speeds– the higher the number, the more sensitive the film, you jackass) that are pretty important to me, and would have absolutely no use to you. If you could do me a favor and drop those off at Forum Photo on Waverly and Washington Square East– ask for George (I will not ask him to punch you in the mouth), or just drop it off under the name “Jerk McAllister”. You can even shoot the rest of the rolls in those cameras and I will pay for matte prints with a white border for you, so you can show your thief buddies all your photographic skills. I can already picture the great canted angles and center-framing you’re cooking up while looking for someone to take those cameras off you so you can get your next heroin fix.

Keep the freakin’ cameras if you want. They were cheap. They’ll come and go and to be honest they were kind of on their last legs. I just want the freakin’ film. You can even keep the leather case, I’m not sure if it’s real leather anyway. You’re probably not up for this but I might as well ask, there might be some sort of Robin Hood-like pity in your burglar heart.

Of course, I’m perfectly aware that you might have just been a Good Samaritan and returned it to a police station or you’re looking for clues around the the case to determine who it might belong to. If this is the case, then you can disregard all that mean shit and I hope you email me about getting it back. I’ll even throw you a couple of bucks and buy you lunch. But I’m also perfectly aware that if this was the case it would be raining gumdrops from marshmallow clouds and we’d all be singing showtunes. So, more likely than not, you stole it, and now you’re trying to sell it on craigslist.

So fuck you.

After reading that post in its entirety something a strange feeling came over me it was one of those pay it forward moments. I’m not always portrayed as a people person, and hell most of the people i work with would say I’m a cross between an asshole a prick and a fucking dick at times. Maybe because my camera was stolen this summer, maybe it was because I had 2 of the exact same identical cameras just sitting on a box doing nothing, and maybe it was great Zeus’s beard aligning with the moon. whatever the reason I decided to mail the guy. It turns out his name is Dean and he seems to be a pretty decent fellow. I told dean that I would part with my cameras if he gave them a good home and actually used them. He said he would and I let him know I would be home around 7pm thirty minutes ago to be exact.

Dean stopped by and we talked about loosing stuff, about what he used his cameras for. What was on them. He asked about my new camera and I told him about it. It was a quick little human interaction. Dean was thankful and I was glad to see him walk away a little brighter in his day. So I guess the moral of the story is sometimes you get more value out of an item giving it away then you ever would if you sold it.

So our goal is to determine if normal everyday Joe’s can tell the difference between 3 different quality rips of the same track the tracks will be encoded as follows:

1. 160kbit/sec VBR
2. 320kbit/sec VBR
3. WAV or FLAC (a lossless rip TBD)

If you would like to participate the rules are simple. Head to our forum HERE Submit a song you would like to listen to. We will pick the 6 most popular songs. If we don’t get 6 I will just chose the ones I like the most so post some or your gonna be listening to show tunes from the 50’s.  I will then track down legit CD’s and make 3 rips. I will then burn them back on to a CD in no particular order. Once done you will then receive the CD and we will tall your votes to determine if most people can or cant tell the difference.

I took my phone to the apple store and they pretty much blamed it on att as well after running diagnostics they found nothing wrong with my phone and basically told me tough luck. SO for the last month i have been working with a shoddy ass connection on a phone i love, (when it works. I had stopped answering calls, i used text messages i basically would do anything to avoid answering the phone. Then my symptoms got worse. The phone started locking up all the time. I went back to the apple store and was actually helped in no time. I told the genius dude My phone was actin a fool he said well we can restore it but thats about it. i said whatever lets try it. We ran a restore and chatted about work. His job is great jeans and a t-shirt my job blows suit and tie. I basically agree.

After the restore I was dreading that the phone would magically work for him and the second i get out of the store it would be back to its old assy behavior. Well for once the moons aligned and great Zeus’s beard (or zombie jesus whoever you prefer) was shining on me. He tried to activate and the screen wouldn’t work. I walked out of there with a new phone. So to sum up the story here are the stats:

Phone calls to AT&T: 2
Visits to the Apple Store: 2

I just wanted to post this because well for once I dont actually have anything to complain about. Have a nice day, and see you all at the wing and beerfest!!!

IN THE NEWS:

Why aren’t we metric yet? America Fuck Yea!!!!

E-Reader Comparison 6 readers 19 features FIGHT!!!

Crack WEP VIDEO Cause your neighbors suck.

Make your keyring magical with a fucking unicorn!!! File this under best shit ever

My favorite thing about going to mexico was telling people here in the states about it. Here were some of the better responses.
“I hope you don’t get swine flu.”
“Ooh man there is a lot of terrorism down there be careful.”
“Why don’t you go to Florida?”
“If you get your head chopped off I’m not coming to your funeral.”

Those were the best ones, there were a lot more But those were the best. Now while we were there, I told some of the other people we met about the “terrorism” problems my news told me about. And i was met with a look of total disbelief, and I’m pretty sure I set american relations back a goof 50 years. Besides all that mexico is amazing, if you get a chance go. Forget the “news” and the orange terrorism alert on Cancun, fucking Cancun.. lol.. Go get your drink on if thats your thing, get your food on if thats your thing, get your snorkel, dive, hike, whatever on. We had a great time and you will to.

On to the news I missed.

One man, One computer, one Service provider, and the fail that ensues.

That’s right, Comcast. This is me, waving my white flag. I’m not going to complain to you any more. Why did I even try in the first place? It’s like trying to erode Mount Rainier with licks. So from here on out, I’m just going to take it. All the outages, all the fees, all 20 levels of customer service. Who was I kidding, anyway?

via I surrender, Comcast.

PS3 Gets HAXOred Finally

After over three years on the market, the PlayStation 3 has finally been hacked. Famous iPhone hacker George Hotz, aka “GeoHot”, has become the first to achieve the feat, though what this means for the PS3 modding community remains to be seen.

via Three years later, the PS3 gets hacked.

Google reader now reads sites without Rss Feeds.

RSS, Atom, and other XML-formatted feeds revolutionized the way we keep up with our favorite web sites, allowing us to use newsreaders to track updates rather than bookmarks and constant refreshing. The only problem: Some sites don't have RSS feeds.

The Google Reader team addressed this problem today, adding a new feature to allow users to track changes to any web site—even those that don't have their own feed.

via Google Reader Gets Smart, Tracks Updates on Feedless Web Sites – Google Reader – Lifehacker.

Bad ass Video: if you have any more info on this movie let me know. I want to go there.

The World’s Most Important 6 Second Drum Beat.

A 2004 video of Nate Harrision taking a look at “Amen Break”, the world’s most important 6 second drum beat, from the The Winstons’ 1969 song “Amen, Brother”.

via The World’s Most Important 6 Second Drum Beat.

Now this by itself isn’t a strange thing, its not unusual for someone that big to be cooking a double bacon cheeseburger with pancakes at 9 in the morning. But as i walked by i got a wafting smell it was some type of fruit. I was like what the fuck you don’t get that big eating fruit. Well I was correct, cheeseburgers don’t smell like fruit. it was the girl. watermelon of all fucking things.

Protip of the week:
if your fat, don’t make yourself smell like food.

IN THE NEWS—————

The TacPen sports a rugged, weighty body made of high-??grade aircraft alluminum and comes with two different crown attachments designed not only to throw some hurt on an attacker, but also to lock him (or her) behind bars when the doing's done.

via Tactical Pen Perfect For Stabbing Coworkers. Ahem — I’m Looking At You, Superficial Writer – Geekologie.

If you were looking for something to get me for my co workers thats it. Thanks!!

A video from our sponsor, ooh wait we don’t got none, someone send me money…

Well thats it for today. As Always keep it trashy san diego!

I don’t got a ton of shit to share with you guys, but its gold all gold.

Apple vs Dell Tech Support
Grammar first then sexy talk u liek dong
Black Friday Sales get some
Gulping down TEN alcoholic drinks a day slashes heart disease risk in men this is soo on.
ninja of the day i dont even have a comment

Muppets / Bohemian Rhapsody any questions?

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
About Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

One of my fondest memories from the military is from bootcamp.

In the marine corps you stand in line on either side of the squad bay and do inspection every night after you clean your nasty ass. Your in a towel and the drill instructors want to see your fingernails and shit to make sure your cleaning their bodies all nice and good. Yea its pretty homoerotic now that I think of it.

Anyway I’m standing there waiting for my turn and directly across from me is this Italian dude from Georgia or something like that. His last name was Monteverdi and he would have been called private joker if he was a private, we were still recruits, in the marines you don’t get called private until you are one.

So the drill instructors get to me and there all looking at me, so what you do is stand at attention with your hands at your side, when they step in front of you you raise them and say SNAP! all the while staring straight forward once they inspect your fingernails and then they motion for you to turn your hands over and you yell POP! Now I had done this what seemed like a thousand times and I had the 1000 yard stare like no other. As soon as they step in front of me I say SNAP! As soon as I say snap Monteverdi drops his towel and in one motion grabs it from behind, its threaded between his legs he is riding it like a 18 year old Tijuana stripper, and I crack a smile.

Needless to say a Marine Drill Instructor does not like smiles. Its safe to say that they would rather you fuck there sister and call them sally. They unleash on me telling me to get on the quarterdeck which is the front of the squad bay, and to bring some friends. Well i grab my standard workout buddies at this point so its me Monteverdi, Shipley, and a couple other guys who were just collateral damage. The saying in the Marines is that you can be 1 of two things in bootcamp Smart or strong pick one.

That day while we were being worked into a pile of our own sweat, I realized that we were strong, and that nothing later in life was going to be the same. I kept smiling and they kept pouring it on. They would never break these men around me and I knew then that this was what they wanted.

Its hard to look back on these memories sometimes and not want to figure out why it works, why we still feel as we are brothers, why in my life these men will stand amongst my true brother. But today I don’t have to, its the day I can share, and hopefully someone will just listen.