Nuisance Log Part 4 - Photographic Uselessness

I am often irritated by people. Sometimes I find myself in public when I get irritated, and as I've previously stated I am prone to fits of spectacular, explosive anger - so I really need to control myself when I'm pissed off AND in public. One thing that really infuriates me beyond-and-to-a-whole-new-extreme is when people have no sense of how to take a decent photograph.

Taking a good photo is not an abstract art form, nor is it something that requires any unreasonable expenditure of brain energy. I'm not talking about professional-quality photography with profound composition, striking contrast, and tantalizing subject matter. I'm talking about every-day, tourist snapshots. Taking a photo should be as easy as looking through the little window or viewing screen and pushing the little button. It seems the world is lousy with mongoloids and drooling mouth-breathers that are not capable of doing this effectively.

No. Bad. No touch camera.

Nowadays most people (if not all people) own a decent digital camera. It's actually pretty hard to find a shitty digital camera. If you spent more than $50.00 you probably have a half-way decent digital camera. If you bought your digital camera from the dollar store in the "bad" part of town you probably have a shitty digital camera.

The great thing about digital cameras is that they can do all the work for you! Like magic! Strange lighting conditions or low light? No worries, the camera will automatically adjust the aperature, shutter speed, and even release the flash if need be. Moving target? No problemo, the camera once again recognizes the subject and adjusts as needed. It's almost impossible to take a bad photograph. My dog has accidentally sat on my camera and produced high-quality images of seat cushions, the kitchen floor, and the ceiling.

Why then, when I recently asked someone to take a picture of me in front of a landmark, did they take a picture of my left ear in the far right of the frame, placing full emphasis on the taxi cab parked in front of the landmark, most of the building cut off with only the main entrance visible, and everything blurred because of sudden hand movement? SUDDEN HAND MOVEMENT????!?!? Do you know how violent a hand movement you have to make to create blurs in broad daylight on a digital camera set to automatic?! You can be in the midsts of an epileptic fit and still fire off a few steady frames. You can literally throw your camera across a street and capture several crisp images of oncoming traffic. This person was obviously a functional retard.

It's like he just randomly pressed the shutter release at an arbitrary point in the arc that his arm made on it's way up to his face to take a normal picture, like a normal human being. He didn't even care enough to make sure I was completely in the frame, I guess just my left ear, half a nostril, and an eyebrow was enough to identify me. The maddening thing was that this creten inspected the image before handing back the camera and decided that it was an adequate interpretation of what I asked him to do: take a picture of me in front of this building.

Yes. That is in fact my ear, my half-nostril, my eyebrow, and a few whiffs of my hair in front of what vaguely appears to be some sort of significant building. Good job, sir, you have served me well. Now crawl back under the detritous from which you came, you snail, you pond scum, you evolutionary leap backwards.

Unfortunately, I cannot post this miracle of modern photography in this blog for reasons that defy any sort of rational logic. Here, then, is my own artistic recreation of the photo:



Photography: capturing memories to last a life time.



Resume of Ridiculousness: The Beer Store

One day when I was 13 my stepdad "surprised" me with a job offer to go work at a local beverage center where he often stopped to get coffee in the mornings. I jumped at the opportunity to earn cash off the books, after school mostly and on weekend mornings.

I'd never actually stepped foot inside this place and learned on my first day that, holy crap, they sold a crazy assortment of beers!! Beers from all over the world!!!! And, Kegs! Kegs of beer!!!! Here I was, 13, staring at a wall of beers, most of which I'd never heard of before: Grolsch, Red Stripe, Lowenbrau, St. Pauli Girl (honk honk), etc, etc.

Honk honk!

I also ran a redemption center - various bag ladies and vagrants would turn in empties for cash, at 5 cents a pop. The smell was magnificent. Like hot, sweet vomit.

After a few weeks I worked up the courage to start stealing beer to bring out with me and friends. I basically would come in after school with an empty backpack, and then leave with a six pack or two, or several 40s. Delicious and nutritious!

The owners were an older couple, total weirdos. The man had ridiculously long hair that he kept pinned up in various styles - like a woman. He also had boobs, and wore a mustache. The woman was some new-age freakshow, smelled like patchouli and kept crystals all over the place. They creeped me out at first, but they were good people more or less.

One day I didn't feel like working there any more for some reason. I stopped showing up, never called Mustache Man-Boobs or the Hippie Lady. I never heard from them about it either. My parents never asked me about it.

Randomly quitting a job with out any sort of justification or without letting anyone know became a tradition of mine. Haha.