pow

A deer hit my car today.

You always hear people complaining that the deer hit them, it wasn't their fault, etc etc. In this case I'm going to have to say that there's no other way of putting it. I was driving down a small back road in central New York, a good thirty miles from cell reception in any direction. On my left was a tall bank sort of thing, well above the top of my car. A deer leapt off that, and was apparently intending to go across the road, but hit the hood of my car, instead. From what I can tell - keep in mind I didn't see her until just before she hit me - she didn't actually touch the road at any point. She bounced off the front of my car and went sailing off into the grass on the right side.

She died right away, thankfully, and even better my car did not - my hood is a different shape now, I lacerated myself nicely on the broken glass from my headlight, and I'm rockin' the college student vehicle with the missing grill cover in front, but that was it. All of the damage was to the front five inches of the car, and no impairment at all to the functioning. Since the car is destined for a scrap heap come spring anyway, I guess I'll just tie off the hood and hope she makes it through one more winter.

It was such a surreal experience. No warning whatsoever - just a deer soaring into my field of vision at a downward angle, then blam, and it just kind of twisted off to the right. It reminded me of nothing so much as some weird roadkill video game, all strange angles and utterly pointless. I've been in cars that have struck deer before - it's part of life in these parts - but it's never been so incredibly random. I'm not even sure what a deer was doing running around at 11:30 in the morning - I thought they liked dawn and dusk!

As my friend Hanne is fond of saying, better luck next time around the Great Wheel, deer.

news roundup 9/5/09

I'm taking a class on journalism this semester, and as such I'm required to read the New York Times every day. This is probably not good, because paying attention to the news tends to make me angry. So I've decided to round up articles that I found interesting, or annoying, or just worthy of a snide comment, and throw them all up here in a weekly lump. If this gets unmanageably long, I might switch to twice weekly or just give up entirely. We'll see. Anyway, in no particular order:

• I realize that discontinuing this tradition would be a very bad move politically, but after all that "omfg Obama is a Muslim" crap we had to sit through, this seems like a bad idea.


• I love the unspoken statement in this article: 'There are 300 murders just this year here in Manhattan, so we decided to waste the time of some cops with this crap because we needed a story.'


• Any headline that starts with "Panel Rules Against Ashcroft" is a winner as far as I'm concerned.


• This picture doesn't sit right with me.


• This picture intrigues me because Sean Penn doesn't actually look like Harvey Milk, but I still recognized a photo of the latter thanks to his portrayal by the former. Interesting.


• Sadly enough, this crappy review has convinced me that I do want to see Gamer.


• This is an excellent illustration of something I've been contemplating a lot lately: journalism used to be a public service, but somewhere along the line it became a business that called itself a public service. Now as the newspapers die and Fox News gets to call itself news, and citizen journalism begins to gain popularity, the concept splits into the two separate ideas. I approve, even though I think it's going to make this a lot more difficult.


• I would have gone with 'Scientists Still Don't Get It; Take A Few Guesses' for this headline, but whatever.


• Something is news because it didn't happen, but everyone was saying it would. Talk about journalists creating the news! I think the field has achieved a level of self-reference that was previously believed impossible.


• Want!

I guess that's it. Enjoy your weekend.

i love this country

Today I pulled in to Wegmans to grab some breakfast, and I was amused by the cars opposite me: a hearse, all somber and black, parked next to a big blue pickup with a panther airbrushed on the cab.

When I came out, I saw two men, obviously brothers, leaning against those cars. Both were stocky, bearded, and mostly bald in the same way. The one leaning on the hearse wore a dark suit, dark shades, and a crisp white shirt. The one leaning on the truck wore cutoffs and a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off. They were engaged in an animated and obviously friendly conversation.

I have no clever summary here, because I'm just too amused. I love finding weird sights like that.

Bicycle Graveyard III

Bicycle Graveyard III
Originally uploaded by infodump.

After nearly two years off, I finally got around to renewing my Flickr pro account. I also put up a few new sets: some piles of junk from a disused sawmill, various classic cars and piles of junk from a car show and swapmeet, and a time-lapse sunset I shot a few years ago. Enjoy.

Citation Needed

Citation Needed
Originally uploaded by infodump.

Hey, neat. I just noticed a comment (from over a year ago, it looks like) that this picture is being used on a guide to citation software. That's kind of cool.

going first

One interesting thing I've noticed in my time back in school: I'm no longer afraid of presentations. Well, maybe that's not quite the right word - I don't know that I was ever afraid of such things - but I know I used to experience a certain reluctance. This evolved - when I started in the world of higher education[1] I would put stuff off, skip class to avoid it, the usual childish crap. Then by the time I finished I would usually be willing to actually do the things required of me to pass my classes, but I would wait until dead last so I could just rush through it and be done. When I finish my associate's a few years ago, I did the only required presentation in, I think, the second available time slot, but only because I wanted to get the unpleasantness over with quickly, and I was so nervous I almost swallowed my tongue.

But here I am, older and wiser[2], and I find my stage fright essentially gone. I go first in presentations now because I might as well get the ball rolling, but why would I be scared? I know what I'm talking about, and I know how to speak. And if I make an ass of myself, the world will move on, and my life will probably not be significantly altered by it.

I don't know what caused this change, but it's a welcome one.

1: Twelve years ago! Egad.
2: Hey, 1 is greater than 0, even if the scale goes to 11.

"don't vote"