Leslie's Observations and Thoughts

26 April 2016

My favourite „Chinese restaurant up the street” (mentioned below) closed a few weeks ago.

This is my first post since shortly after I went back to school to work on my latest degree, and unfortunately it's not a happy post. This restaurant closure is the latest in a series of my favourite eateries shutting down during my years in Seattle. There is another Chinese restaurant within walking distance in a different direction that I ought to try. I may be pleasantly surprised.

25 December 2009 Merry Christmas!

Here's another cookie fortune from the Chinese restaurant up the street.

I wonder how far far away is. Is it past reasonable walking distance for someone who has to go to work each week, ie. no more than one day's walking distance? Is it as far as the next continent over, maybe across the proverbial pond in Europe? I'd like to think it's too far to either walk or swim, as in the good news is coming from my home planet and they're bringing me news that I get to return to my people where things make sense and I don't have to put up with the BS that enslaves us with petty bickering and attempts to control each other.

21 December 2009

Disco Balls Rule. In the past week as we near Christmas, I've gone to a luncheon and a dinner, each with the usual anonymous gift exchange. In each case I brought a 6-inch diameter disco ball. The folks who got them were thrilled, only to have them promptly stolen. The mirrored sphere at the luncheon was stolen twice—twice being the limit in the one case. It was coveted by would-be thief #3. The other ball at the dinner would have been stolen twice, had would-be thief #2 understood proper procedure for organized thievery.

Obviously, disco balls are quite desirable. Next year I'll consider simply buying everyone on my list a disco ball. Shopping will be easy, joy will be had, and maybe I can get a bulk discount.

Update: here's the disco ball from the luncheon over my friend's cubicle at work.

28 October 2009

Here is a piece of mail brought to us by the Department of Redundancy Department (DoRD).

This example of the ubiquitous donate-some-of-your-hard-earned-money letters I receive displays numerous faux alerts and in an attempt to look official. The legal caution takes the cake. Did they seriously think I would otherwise have thought that illegal use would be authorized? I wonder if John Standley ever got letters like this.

13 September 2009

Car Club? Car Cult? There's a fellow who lives down the street on the corner. He's owned a mid-eighties, red, four-door Geo Prizm for as long as I've been here. Last year he got a room mate who has a mid-eighties, burgundy-red, four-door Toyota Corolla. A few days ago a mid-eighties, red, four-door Chevy Nova (same body as Corolla) showed up by his house. What are the chances? I bet it's another room mate, though I haven't actually seen which house the driver of the most recent addition goes into. I should stake it out, huh? Maybe I could ask his neighbor. Perhaps the guy won't make friends with people who don't have that colour and style of car—they're quite similar in design and size. I haven't seen his girlfriend for ages; maybe he broke up with her for not having a similar vehicle. Maybe he's started a red car cult. Food for thought. Side note: he doesn't seem like the type who would cruise around in a simple four-door, but my hat's off to him. I've preferred four-doors ever since my brother gave me my first car, which was a little four-door. They're far more practical. I've had a couple two-door cars, and they're annoying as heck to carry people and things around. Maybe he's a practical guy, but still, what's with all the vehicular copycatting?

She's a Maneater The european garden spiders are still numerous on my shrubs. Four large ladies have been living on one shrub in particular, and a couple days ago one of the ladies moved above the shrub to the wall. When I returned from a walk, I saw a gentleman spider tugging at her web to get her attention. I watched as he would try to get her interested, sometimes playing a little patty cake with her before running a short distance away, only to return. After about fifteen minutes of this going nowhere I got tired of standing on top of the recycling bin and leaning forward to see, so I went indoors for a while. It must have been only twenty minutes later that I went out to check on the young couple when I saw that that lady of her house had something in her mouth. I got as close a look as I could, and I recognized the legs of what was half-wrapped in silk as belonging to the gentleman spider—and he was nowhere else to be seen. Same colours, same banding, same size. Her suitor had become lunch. Wow, I didn't realize that european garden spiders would do that. It explains why the males need to be so careful about their approach, and it makes me wonder if any of them ever get away after mating. I speculate mating occurred whilst I was in the house, but of course I can't be sure. Ironically, this was probably the same male whom I found on my desk earlier in the day, picked up, and carried outdoors so he'd not starve to death indoors.

I swear, I need to get a good digital camera now that I've replaced the stolen film camera—speaking of which, the new used Nikon F3 film camera works great. I'm still getting accustomed to the light meter and the automatic shutter priority features though.

30 August 2009

Aliens Abducted my Stain Last weekend I was cooking a hot link, it puffed up, and when I poked it with a fork, the darned thing shot a bunch of orange coloured juice out of the pan. It nailed my black jeans pretty badly and splattered the top of my dish towel. I immediately changed my jeans then rubbed Dawn dishwashing detergent into the spots. The next day I rinsed the jeans thoroughly and air dryed them. The stains still showed. I finally soaked the stains with Shout for several days before washing them today. Now they're clean.

Meanwhile, I never touched the cream coloured hand towel. I figured it was toast and come wash day I'd just wash out what I could. Yesterday I noticed that the stains were gone. How could they just disappear? It's the same towel. I never moved it. As far as I know, orange (paprika?) hot link stains are not volatile. Did my fairy friends clean the towel one night whilst I slept? Was it cleaned by those elves one hears about? Or was it taken by aliens, perhaps mistakenly thinking I'm working on a secret chemical formula and hiding it on my towel? I don't want the stain back; I'm just curious about its disappearance.

Patty Cake I'd just come home from a walk and was saying hello to my spider friends. When I got over to Freddie's neighbor, who's still there, I saw that she had company. A gentleman spider was very carefully plucking a web connected to hers, and I realized right away that he was courting her. He got her attention right away, and I ran in and grabbed my camera.

When I came back out, she was already right in front of him, and they looked like they were playing patty cake with their front legs. I got it on video, but it's too many megabytes to post here. My impression was that he was being very careful about approaching her too closely or within her web, lest he be bitten, mistakenly or otherwise. After a scant few minutes of this, he left. I took a still picture before he got too far.

I don't know if there's something important I don't know about how they mate, but it appeared like he gave up. They didn't couple. If they had, I would have had to leave them alone and go inside the house. Maybe he passed something to her. Anyway, he walked away to another part of the shrub. Oddly, he fell twice from one leaf to another, and that made me wonder if something had happened in a subtle way. Once he made his way across the shrub, he cleaned his front legs and rested beneath a leaf.

Neither one lit up a tiny cigarette, and the lady spider went back to the center of her web. That was yesterday. Today she spent her time hunkered into a nook with a sensor line stretched out to the center of the web. That's a change in behaviour. Maybe she's pregnant.

22 August 2009

Freddie is Gone Yesterday morning I went out, and Freddie was nowhere to be found. Her entire web was gone, so I don't think she was snatched. I was a bit worried about her the night before, because her web was full of debris that had blown into it the previous day, which was windy, and she hadn't rebuilt it overnight. I hope she went off to lay eggs and tragedy hadn't struck. There is what may be an egg sack near where her web was.

Huh? Yesterday I was walking back from the store, and some young gal leaned out the passenger window of a passing car and hollered at me, "DYKES ARE PEOPLE TOO!" Fine, I agree, but what's the relevance? As far as I know, I wasn't wearing anything that telegraphed dyke, and my hair is kept in a feminine style. Maybe she was one, and this was some sort of affirmation for her.

19 August 2009

I have a bunch of European Garden Spiders, Araneus diadematus, living with me. Well, actually they stay outside on the shrubbery, and I reside indoors. There was one a few days ago, however, who set out to make a web on one of my gargoyles indoors, but I moved her outside so she wouldn't starve. Fortunately she'd just started spinning her web and hadn't expended too much energy. I kept her web with her when I moved her so she could recycle it (yes, they do that).

In any event, Freddie is pictured below.

Why the name Freddie? I make it a point to greet my spider friends and browse their webs. Freddie, in particular, is very sensitive to sound. Every time I say hello or close a door near her, she throws her arms...err, legs up as if in defense. Her neighbors don't do that, though one of the small ones rappelled out of view yesterday when I greeted her. I named Freddie after the old term 'fraidy cat, because she seems so easy to scare.

Here she is tossing her arms up. I'm sorry she's out of focus, but the camera just wouldn't cooperate. I spent about ten minutes trying to get the camera to focus on her again, but I finally gave up after killing a pair of batteries. I even tried to focus on a leaf the same distance away then pan over, all to no avail. Oh, and I didn't say hello to Freddie until I was ready to take the picture, so she wasn't under duress with her arms up for that whole time. Read further about cameras.

Autofocus Cameras The next person who tells me that autofocus is what I need is going to get an earful. Had I had manual focus option with my digital camera, I could have set the zoom and focus, gone up to Freddie, said hello, and taken a very clear picture in a few seconds. Apparently I totally lucked out with the first picture. After that, the camera would not lock onto Freddie. I was reliant on a piece of self-directed hardware that had no idea of what I intended to focus on. As far as it was concerned, Freddie did not exist, only the plants in the background existed. Hogwash! This is EXACTLY why I got a manual focus SLR when I replaced my film camera. I control the focus.

New Lens My replacement lens arrived today, so I will be back in business with my film photographic pursuits. I have yet to actually put it on the camera body, but I will do that tonight. The lens is a Tamron 28-300 mm all-in-one zoom with macro capability. I've had others tell me I could or should get a better lens, but a "better" lens would cost a lot more and take up a lot more room. This lens is what I used on the previous camera, and it covers all my desired focal lengths with good quality results. I may look into one or two Nikkor lenses for specific situations, but this one does everything I need for my compositions in the mean time without requiring me to carry a lot of equipment. There is a lot of value in that.

15 August 2009

I got this in a fortune cookie from the Chinese restaurant up the street.

That's brilliant, absolutely brilliant fortune-telling on their part. Who would have ever guessed that there is something—whatever it is—that I will do very well, and which someone else was inept with? Amazing. As soon as I identify something I turn out to be very good at, surely someone somewhere will have failed at the same task, and these cookie-baking, fortune-telling jokers will have been right!

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