Last Minute Photo Work

Today, it dawned on me that I had put off my photo assignment for too long. So at the paper I found a willing participant to be my subject. This is Allie Figures and she is a reporter on the Daily with me, and was kind enough to "pose" in photos that I was supposed to pick a random subject. Thanks Allie.

Who's Your Sponsor, Yeah Baby!

I just found this on the Arizona Daily Wildcat's Web site. I think it is funny when things fly below the radar. Check out the links in the sidebar.

Column: Renters Beware, Landlord Off Leash

"Insert column here." I know it is another column insert, but it is for a good reason. I am doing this for people who don't know which paper I work for, and those who are interested in my weekly column but have trouble reading it on paper. But here is what is 'grinding my gears' this week.

How did Fred Flintstone pay for that lovely string of pearls around Wilma's neck? The folks at GEICO assume he saved money by insuring his family vehicle with their company.

I think he may have been getting the extra income from taking advantage of college renters in the town of Bedrock.

A little more than three weeks before the Fall semester began, my roommates and I received terrible news. Our landlord could no longer pay for the house and was going to sell it back to the bank, or at least that is what she told us.

We started looking for new places, slowly packing up our things, preparing to leave the residence as soon as we found a new one.

With help from Craigslist, we checked out four- and five-bedroom houses for the five of us. We spent whole weekends looking at houses and filling out renters' applications, only to be turned down because we weren't "qualified."

When broken down, "qualified" as a renter really means who the landlord likes best. Being five college guys, we carried around the I-will-destroy-your-house stigma like a mosquito carries the West Nile virus.

Constantly being shot down because of renters' discrimination, we continued looking for places. We had no choice. It is illegal for landlords to deny a renter because of his or her appearance, but how do you prove something that is their word against yours?

We dressed nice and shaved our faces, made sure we showered that morning and brushed our teeth three times each, but it still didn't help our chances. Sadly, we were forced to move up into another price range and start looking at more expensive properties.

We ended up finding a nice place to live, but it came on the wings of good fortune. By good fortune, I mean we had a realtor sympathize with our situation, having a college student of her own who went through the same situation. Also, the landlord lived in the same town where four of us went to high school.

So we cleaned out our old house and went back for three days in a row to make sure the place was in better condition than when we moved in. We left it, in what we thought was better-than-before condition and started moving into out new place.

Almost two months later, we received our security deposit. Some renters already know this ironic phrase to mean a "free remodeling" deposit. It's also an ironic combination of words, like social security and civil war.

Sure enough, we had received a little more than one-sixth of the initial deposit.

"How could that be? We returned the house in good condition, right?" we thought to ourselves. "For a landlord who was selling the house back to the bank, they sure took a lot of money out of our deposit."

We quickly contacted our previous landlord and asked for a breakdown of how the money was used. She came back quickly with a list of things in the house that needed to be replaced and/or fixed. All of the figures were nice and large, rounded and without receipts.

The sad part is we don't have photographic evidence to prove that the house was given to us in poor condition, and that is the difference between us getting all our money back and waving the white flag of defeat.

If you live on campus and are looking to move or you are a renter and might face the same circumstances, take photos and make a list of the things wrong with your place before, or as close to the date, you move in.

Provide a list of blemishes in the house to the landlord and have him or her hire someone to fix or repair them. Before moving out, if you can afford it, hire a cleaning service to come in and make the house look like new. Before you leave, take photos of the place and show them to the landlord during the final walkthrough.

Usually, when it comes to landlords, the nicer they are, the more they want your money. If you feel like you might be in this situation, start documenting things that might get you in trouble and pay for them now, instead of later.

In my situation, my roommates and I paid $250 for "backyard repairs." When we went over to check it out, they had only mowed over the poor excuse for a lawn.

When in doubt, check it out. You might save enough money to insure something with GEICO.

(Photo of the crappy backyard coming, when I get back to my desktop.)

Does this Blog Make Me Look Fat?

Bullocks, I have figured out the double meaning of everything at the news paper. Yes I work there, but it has taken several weeks of observation and experimentation to sort out what is double-speak and what is not.

This parallels well with the stereotypes of having a girlfriend. (No, not about YOU). For instance, when a girl asks a guy, "Does this dress make me look fat?," even if it does, we don't have the desire to be in the dog house and answer politely, "No, you look great." Chances are that your guy will say no, no matter what because he doesn't care all that much about how you look with clothes on.

In the same way, my colleagues answer questions and act with the "expected" responses, being nice and non-controversial, while behind your back, spew outrageously horrendous sh*t about you. And when I say "you," I am talking about me. My insecurities just put me in that, most-hated-person-in-the-room mode.

Other infamous double speak is the oh-so popular, "I liked it." Referring to things written. I write a weekly column and give it to others to read, to get their feedback. I have a trusted source of critique, but she is bias. But when I ask other colleagues, I get a quick glance over, with a just-as-quick summation of "I liked it." — You can be hard on me, I mean come on! We are journalists for Christ's sake.

In roommate news, tonight I was watching Monday night football when the Hendrix-wannabe came back from what looked like a short, exhausting bike ride. He must have been wearing the flashlight on his head for traveling in the dark.

He went in his room for no more than three minutes, only to emerge from behind his white-shuttered door and said, "can you lower the volume a little," and without an answer, retreated back into his room. I was so pissed that I just turned off the f**king TV and went to my room.

The guy plays his guitar at 8-0f -10 volume on his amp and is asking me to lower the volume on the TV? It wasn't even close to being loud. It is not my fault that mister dog ears picked the room with the echo-prone wooden floors. I almost told him tough sh*t, but was too angry to look at him.

My plan this week, to make his life a living hell. Tomorrow night, when I emerge from the newspaper, at whatever time that might be, I am going to make myself dinner. And he can complain all he wants, but he started it.

As for car news, Audi revealed the 2009 A4 last week and confirmed that it is still a luxury sport coup that I want and cannot afford. Until next time; "Help control the pet population; have your pet spayed or neutered."— Bob Barker

Revenge of the Vacuum

Look around you; find something that is blunt, heavy but manageable. Now try not to run down the hall and bash your room mates head in. That is the predicament that I am in right now. I have the instigated motivation to barrel down the hall and knock him out cold.

Room mate trouble are nothing new for me, I just know that I am a neat freak and, like most other college guys, my room mates are really messy. I had been waiting for the kitchen to be magically cleaned (via. my lazy room mates), but it got so bad that I just decided to clean the place myself.

I began around lunch time and while I was cleaning, all of them came into and left the kitchen without helping. I thought the slamming of shelves and cooking ware was a signal that I was upset that no one was helping me.

From beyond the walls of the kitchen, after just seeing me clean, I heard my room mate begin to play his guitar. I was going to have my revenge.

I cleaned the entryway to the house, a dusty area where everyone leaves their shoes. Instead of breaking out the dustpan, I swept everything onto the rug and then got out the vacuum cleaner. Then began to vacuum the entire front room, banging the vacuum up against the door to the Hendrix-wannabe room mate.

I am sure he noticed since I almost broke open his door in the process. Surely I did not need to vacuum the front room, but the ruckus that it makes appeased my disdain for him ignoring the fact that I needed some help cleaning.

I am done now, but I am going to do my best next time to not clean it up. In fact, I might make it unlivable for them, hopefully forcing them into cleaning it.

These guys are so lazy that, when I get home from the paper on Wednesday night, I have to take out the trash cans, at 2 or 3 a.m., because they "forgot to."

Anyone have any ideas of how to make them change their ways? Or maybe have a suggestion for me on how to outlast their disgusting-ness. Either way, here is the result. Too bad I didn't get a 'before' photo.

Technology Is Making Us All Stoopid

Every so often I find myself wondering where all my intelligence went. Is there a secret off-shore account that is storing my random knowledge, or is it being held ransom somewhere in a damp, poorly lit warehouse?

Recently I have been saying things like, "What was his name?" and "You know! That guy in that movie," in the process making my brain cells run around like escaping convicts during a prison riot.

The more I keep telling myself that my brain is "too full" and that it is just throwing away useless information, the more I want to be able to recall the average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour. (It is about 61,000 … at least that is what I used to think it was.)

So, before my brain throws away the point of this column - I think that technology is making us all numb.

I mean dumb.

My cell phone has helped me forget everyone's phone numbers, my iTunes can make a better playlist than I can and my computer catches all my spllegin errrers.

When I was in elementary school, there was a directory that had all the students' numbers in it, which I would use to call friends. After a few times looking through it, the book became useless because I had memorized all the pertinent numbers.

Today, I struggle to remember my girlfriend's cell phone number. I have always known it as phone, favorites and at the top of the list. I have managed to memorize the number to call the police, but it being only three numbers gives it an unfair advantage.

My phone keeps my important digits saved, letting me browse them by last name and also allowing me to pull a Ms. Cleo, freaking a few people out when I answer by addressing them by their name.

"Hello Tom, have you called me now far yar free readin'?"

If anything, using a cell phone has made me a more effective call screener.

I don't pick up for numbers I don't recognize and if a voicemail isn't left, there is a good chance I'm not calling them back.

Then there is the computer: a high-speed moron that can calculate and recall any information, unless you put it in the recycle bin. But there in lies the problem.

On the first computer I owned, a 1990 Macintosh SE, I took the entire hard drive and placed it in the on-screen trash can, in an attempt to clean it of any programs my parents had not removed. Two clicks later, the screen went black and the computer never turned on again.

The computer had not short-circuited my brain yet; I was just too young to realize what I was doing. But as I write this, my computer tells me that I am spelling a word incorrectly, or that I am using poor grammar and warns me if I have mistakenly created what it thinks is a fragment.

By changing my misspellings and fixing my grammar, I can't learn from my mistakes, which wouldn't make me a very good copy editor.

Even though things have become easier because of computers, work done on them tends to be critiqued at a higher level. Make a typo in your resume - forget about that job interview. Make a punctuation error in your manuscript - expect ridicule from the publisher.

When authors used typewriters, if they made a mistake, usually there was an angry removal of paper followed by vigorous crumpling. While typing that sentence, I used the backspace button four times.

I was going to say that TV and video games help with the itinerant-brain inactivity, but everyone knows that already. Not to mention the unbearable amount of unfiltered, un-sourced information on the Internet.

I would give you the number of blogs created a day, but thanks to last week's lecture on the Cornelius effect, I think I forgot it.

So, as I keep doing crossword puzzles and reading books to gain knowledge, I am hesitant to think that I have reached the limit on available space on my mental hard disk.

For my sake, I hope I don't forget the account number and password to my off-shore memory banks.

Caffeine Hallucinations

You know you have had a long night when you can't focus enough to tune the radio on your drive home. You know you have also had a long night when you resort to slamming multiple energy drinks.

I am beginning to think they are killing me slowly. Last night I drank a Monster and a sugar free Red Bull. When I got home from the paper at 1:30 a.m. I felt like I was going to die. Increase heart rate and rapid eye movements. I was freaking out, worried about why I was sweating in a 58 degree room.

I called the lady, waking her up and feeling guilty about it, but I didn't get to talk to her that much yesterday. After that I got ready for bed, carelessly stumbling, almost falling after not completely removing my leg from my jeans.

Then I saw it, just as I threw my laundry in the hamper. The biggest, hairiest spider I have ever seen, sitting on the inside frame of my closet door. Further increased heart rate made me feel dizzier than I already was.

In a moment of clarity, I grabbed my shoe and smashed the hell out of the thing ... or so I thought. I pulled the slipper away, checking the bottom to confirm the kill, further freaking myself out when I could find no spider-goo residue. I was sure I had hit that thing with the force of a sledge hammer on a thumbtack, but no confirmation.

I practically torn down my closet trying to find the thing. Resulting in a thorough search of my bed and carpet. Also resulting in me sitting in my bed like a scared three-year-old child. Waiting for it to show its ugly face.

To no avail. A caffeine induced hallucination, a headache of mind-confusing proportions.

I ended up going to sleep with the eerie feeling of things crawling on me. Not the way to start the day, since it was already 3:30 a.m.

Being lazy (Like a fellow blogger described)

I know this is lame, but I have nothing else to write about at the moment. Today I have gotten good feedback about my column for this week, so I am going to post it. It is a cop out for writing something new, but I (with a bias) like it and hope you do too.

It is too easy these days to judge things based on their appearance. I am a journalist and on first glance could be considered a liberal blogger in print or possibly a rambler of publicly viewed nonsense.

No matter how you slice it, things are just easier for people if they are broken down and categorized. Unfortunately, they end up being horrendous predispositions about people we know little about.

To give an excellent example, I will quote an excerpt from a review by Jeremy Clarkson, a poorly dressed, giant-of-a-man, motoring journalist whose work I like to read.

"I saw the parting in his hair and knew he'd have a plasma television, an appointment to play squash that night with someone called 'Dom' and no carpets," he wrote, referring to a passing motorist he encountered while doing a review of the 2006 BMW M5.

It is safe to say that everyone does this whether they are willing to admit it or not. When we see something, someone or whatever, we take mental Polaroids and file them away in the annals of voluntary recall we call our brains.

Think of it like the movies, doing word associations in a therapist's office, saying the first thing that pops into your crazed cranium.

Clowns - convicts. Short - Gary Coleman. NASCAR - rednecks.

I was watching the SPEED channel last weekend. (See, already you are labeling me). I woke up at 4 a.m. to watch the ING Belgian Grand Prix. The seven-kilometer, 19-turn track is the 13th stop of the Formula 1 season. I know these things because I am a huge fan of international racing.

Label me a European empathizer or a fish 'n' chips flunky, but racing here in America is just not as good as it is in Europe. The drivers are better, the teams are more prestigious and the pit girls are better looking, minus the whole dental plan thing.

There I go again with the labeling. It is hard to avoid. I caught myself doing it at a dinner conversation when the topic of short-term memory came up. I simply rubber-stamped my father as "past his prime," referring to his inability to recall things he had done earlier that day. See how easy it is.

It can be something as harmless as calling someone childish or as serious as labeling someone a Nazi sympathizer, but either way, it is easy. As vocabularies of slang words increase, it becomes easier for things to become synonymous without the affected group knowing. We can thank Urban Dictionary for that.

I am sure that if I give the average reader some information about myself, within a few seconds they could form labels for me. I am a fan of the charismatic character created by the author Ian Fleming. Bond, James Bond. Witty label: a martini-sipping, womanizing, bad-guy-bashing MI6 misfit.

What is with the obsession with Europe? No, I don't want Tony Blair's autograph. As tempting as it is to label things, it shouldn't be so simple.

With how much tension there is in the world with wars, natural disasters and oil prices, it would do us all some good to keep the labels quietly to ourselves.

Sure, the emotional teen scene needs to stop buying black nail polish and the entire Spears family needs to take parenting classes, but shouldn't they figure it out for themselves?

If labeling is your thing, go ahead. Just make sure the person is not standing behind you when you publicly plaster them with prejudiced predispositions.

The Proof is in the Pictures

On occasion I will take photos from my iPhone to tell a short story. Last night when I left the school newspaper at 2:30 a.m., I decided it would be fun to take a couple snapshots and give them a subtle, yet descriptive cut line, for others to make up their own stories. The photo above was taken when I pulled into the driveway of my house.

If I wasn't so tired last night, I would have snapped a shot of the empty freeway that I got to travel on for a few miles. I couldn't see anyone, in front or behind me. When I figured out that I was alone on this open stretch of road, I had envisions (at that hour they were probably delusions) about racing down the Autobahn in a fancy foreign car, with nothing but gravity and wind resistance holding me back.

Then I caught up to a police officer while doing 80 mph and decided it would be best if I followed the rules of the road. Before I left the parking garage, I managed to take this snapshot. Two Camaros in the parking lot, planning devious plots. I looked around and saw no other cars, and the only thing I could think of was ... "And then there were two."

Until The Page Bleeds Red

Currently I am sitting at the fourth computer I have worked at today, and I just got back from moving my car from the overflow parking lot here on my campus. I have been on campus since 9:30 a.m. and I am pretty sure I am not going to leave here until around two in the morning tomorrow.

I don't blame the time on my colleagues, we have been working as hard as we can, I blame it on Today's schedule and the inability of writers to start stories before the day they are due. Don't get me wrong, I like to procrastinate, I mean, that is what my blog is named after, but starting a story at 7 p.m. when it was due at 4 is unacceptable.

I started some stories, the day they were due, when I was a staff writer. But I did it in the morning before I came to school, and most of the time, had more than half of it done before my editors asked how far along I was.

I wouldn't care if the writing was clean, but our managing and executive editors, not to mention our section editors, have been marking up the pages with correction ink in an attempt to help our writers improve.

What that translates into is, slower returns of stories to the writers, longer reviewing of editing marks and an overall longer process of finishing a paper.

The process is coming along and things have drastically improved since the 4 a.m. night ... I mean morning. Other than the writing side of the paper, everything else seems to be going fine. The editors really have gotten the hang of their pages and are catching some of my mistakes. Yes I do make them. It is good to know that, in a couple of weeks, everything will hopefully have become streamlined and the process will yield an earlier return-home time. Possibly on the same day as we begin creating it.

Shaken, Flame-broiled Weekend

This weekend I went back to my parents house, mainly, to be in an air condition place during our little heat wave here in the Bay Area.

Among the things I did, was get shaken like a dirty martini by a 4.0 earthquake and melt like and ice cube in a frying pan, in the 102 degree heat.

But I did get to cool off in the swimming pool and get to spend a good amount of time with my girlfriend. We spent our 11th anniversary just hanging out, mainly because I didn't plan anything ... because I am dumb. Oh well, our year is coming up and I am already working on that, which should make up for it.

I got some textbooks over the weekend, picking them up in boarders because my professor forgot to order copies to be in the school bookstore. So about $60 later, we walked around a little around the shopping area, eventually going into Bed Bath and Beyond. Which was a mistake, because I found out that they sell the Beertender. (You will have to verify your age.)

But anyway, now I am back in the South Bay and it is starting to cool off, still about 80 degrees, but that is a nice change for the temperature our house has been all day. Now I am getting ready to do some reading before class tomorrow and waiting for it to get colder in my room so my brain can function. Anyway, here is a picture I took this weekend.

Mind's Lazy Eye

I got a new camera over the weekend, a Nikon D80, and today I got to use it for a fill-in assignment. I came into the Spartan Daily, SJSU's student-produced newspaper. Immediately I was given the task of photographing song writer and acoustic performer, Roem Baur.

Even though I have no formal training in photography, I have taken pictures for the paper in the past and did, what I think, was a decent job.

Below are two photographs, the first is my favorite of the 100 I took from the performance today and the other is one that they might use in the paper tomorrow. (Click on the picture to see them in a larger size.)