Five Fandom Friday: Media You Hold Dear But No One's Ever Heard Of

Image courtesy Katelyn Jade

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly meme hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick. This week's question was originally 5 Fandoms You Hold Dear... but I changed it a little because I'm not much of a fandom person. Anyway, moving on!

1. The Abhorsen series

Image courtesy HarperCollins

Remember when Harry Potter kicked off a mania for fantasy adaptations? On the one hand, we got The Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, but on the other hand, it's too bad they never made a movie adaptation of The Dark is Rising and the disaster (though hilarious RiffTrax) that was Eragon. It took ages, but we even got a mind-blowing miniseries adaptation for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. But no one ever has made a film or even TV version of Garth Nix's Abhorsen books. Whenever I bring up this one, it's like only super YA/fantasy nerds have heard of it. This breaks my heart, because it's miles ahead of Harry Potter in world-building, consistency, characters, and overall quality of writing, but it's JRowls who has all of the cash and acclaim and mindshare.

Life isn't fair, guys.


2. Jade Empire

Courtesy EA/Bioware

The day Bioware got bought out by EA was a dark day indeed for this original IP inspired by kung fu movies and Chinese mythology. Bioware built an entire world for this title and seemed keen to expand on it, but then Dragon Age and Mass Effect happened, not to mention some Star Wars games, and I suspect EA will be pumping them for sequels to those forever. I think I'm the only person who remembers Jade Empire these days. :( RIP best, most elegant fighting system in an RPG ever.


3. Sliders

Image courtesy St. Clare Entertainment/Universal Television

When people even remember this gem, they usually rag on it for being a poor man's version of Quantum Leap or Stargate SG-1, but those people are ignorant haters. The show definitely took some weird turns under Fox's overmuch control in the middle seasons, and Wade is the obnoxious token woman who just whines and moons after the hero, and Rembrandt might be a bit of an awful stereotype, but still.


4. The Dungeons and Dragons movie

Image courtesy Sweetpea Entertainment

I remember the trailers for this when it was first out, though I didn't see it until it was already on video. I don't remember what I thought of it back then, except that I knew it had gotten terrible reviews. But rewatching it as an adult, you know what? It's not that bad. I kind of wish it had become a full-on franchise, like every couple years we got another goofy swords and sorcery story set in a D&D campaign. Like the Dragonlance novels, only self-aware and funny. But I guess the golden age of 80s/early 90s swords and sorcery movies was over by the time Dungeons and Dragons came out.


5. Standard Action

Image courtesy Rob Hunt/Critical Success Productions

Speaking of goofy, self-aware swords and sorcery stories set in the D&D universe, how about Standard Action? Most web series are cringe-inducing, and even this one has its rough spots, but I laughed more than I groaned. Start with the first season and you'll have a few hours of binge-watching ahead of you.


Bonus self-aware D&D fantasy indie movies: The Gamers

Image courtesy Dead Gentlemen Productions

Bless Dead Gentlemen Studios, they seem to have built a pretty credible success out of their indie college production, The Gamers. I still haven't seen Humans & Households, Hands of Fate, Curse of the Blind Swordsman, or Natural One, but The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising are fantastic.

What I'm Playing: Cookie Clicker

I don't think I mentioned Cookie Clicker the first time I got hooked on it, and really I don't think it's a game even worth commenting on because it's so ubiquitous and mindless, but here I am without a post since last Monday, so fuck it I'll let you all know that I am hooked on Cookie Clicker.

I guess this is my life now.

If you've been on the Internet, you probably have run across Cookie Clicker. If you've missed it, the idea just is: make as many cookies as you can as quickly as you can. You start the game by clicking the big cookie, but soon you graduate from that to buying things to produce cookies for you.

Cookies are both the currency and the end game.

It's so simple! You don't even need to touch the game, ever, really. You could just let it run with a handful of cursors and grandmas, but in true MMO style you quickly get hooked on how to optimize your cookie production. There's an interesting take on it on this article over on Polygon.

This addiction comes at the best or worst time, as I've been hit with the double whammy of Russian finals and tax season. So, like a responsible adult, I've suddenly become OBSESSED (again) with how to optimize my cookie generation. Focus? Not entirely out the window, but edging pretty close. Fortunately, with the prestige updates in this latest version, there is an upgrade that, long story short, incentivizes  putting the game in the background and doing other things with your life: everybody wins!

Do you play any other mindless accumulation games? AdVenture Capitalist, maybe? Or Clicker Heroes?

Newly Listed: Turquoise and Pink Newtonian Constant of Gravitation Bracelet

I made this new bright, chirpy piece of gravity sciart a few weeks ago and then nearly forgot to photograph it! That would have been a shame, don't you think?

Newtonian Constant of Gravitation Bracelet by Kokoba

But I'm way more organized than I look or feel, apparently, so not even this sneaky little rascal could slip past my camera lens!

The digits of the Newtonian constant of gravitation are spelled out in the rich blue beads. I'm not sure what color to call them. They're a little more blue than I usually call turquoise, but I can't think of anything better. Indigo, maybe? Seafoam? The lone pink bead you see there is a placeholder for 0. (It makes a nice accent piece too, don't you think?)

(And speaking of physics, this physics infographic with PENGUINS!! has been my favorite #sciart offering this week. Go on, have a look!)

One of the greatest and worst things about being your own jewelry boss is that you can get carried away with color palettes that you love to death. Great because it's fun to work with colors you love! Worse because it's easy to become really repetitive, or only have things that are to your taste in your shop.

Now, I don't believe in following trends or the Pantone color of the year or what have you. I think, if you're an indie artisan, you should make things that you would actually wear (or at least not be embarrassed to wear). But I also believe that it's important to experiment with new styles and color palettes and try to reach out to the customers you have who are almost like you, but not quite. 

It's been a really fun run with these colors I've been using lately—bright pink, indigo-turquoise, fire engine read—and I'm sure I'll come back to them, but my inner store critic is telling me it's time to move on. I'm not entirely sure what I to focus on next. Fiery reds, yellows, and oranges? More maille? (Yes, always more maille.) Understated neutrals? Rich jewel tones? 

Tell me, what colors do you find yourself drawn to these days? Has it been consistent over time, or does it change with moods/life stages/the weather?

Five Fandom Friday: Things You LOVE But Didn't Think You Would

Image courtesy Katelyn Jade

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly meme hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick. This week's theme is: fandoms you love but didn't think you would. But I don't do fandom so instead I'm just going with media in general.


Hot Fuzz

It took me a long time to see Hot Fuzz, and I was convinced that it was going to be overhyped. I had heard too many people rave about it, and when too many people rave about something, it ends up being Harry Potter or The Hunger Games or Frozen and...yeah.

Now, I'd already seen Shaun of the Dead and really liked it. I wasn't expecting to like Hot Fuzz better than Shaun of the Dead but I did! The movie was a pleasant surprise and definitely has rewatchability.


Ulysses

People complain about Ulysses being a really difficult book and I get where they're coming from but it's also...gorgeous? Granted I'm reading it off and on (since I'm reading JV's copy), so I haven't finished it yet, but that's not because I'm not enjoying it. When I was in middle school someone once told me that this was the worst book ever written in the English language. For the record, Jay, wherever you are: there are definitely worse books than Ulysses!


Fallout

As I've mentioned before, for a long, long time I was convinced that the Fallout games were hardcore shooters. I don't know why or how I labored under that misconception for so long, but I'm glad I finally rectified it. (No, I still haven't gotten around to Fallout 4 yet. #PatientGamer)


Steven Universe

This was another one that was getting way too much hype, but I took the trusted advice of a close friend and gave it a shot, and....amazing.


The Turkish Delight novels

Courtesy Serpent's Tail Publishing/Penguin Books

I randomly found one of these novels on GoodReads somehow, and immediately alerted my book friend in Turkey that she had to read it because Turkish! transvestites! detectives! She couldn't find a copy in Turkish, but managed to secure on in English and then passed it on to me, and it was actually really fun! It's not great literature but it's a goofy beach read. Also, they've been translated into Swedish, which is good news for my language practice. There aren't that many books in the series (yet?) but the Swedish library has most of them.

What I'm Playing: Charity Miles

It seems disingenuous to say that I'm "playing" Charity Miles because even though it's an app, it's not really a game. But I like to keep my themes consistent so "playing" it is!

Charity Miles is an app that tracks your walking, running, or biking workout via GPS and uses your mileage to donate to charity. In the abstract. In practice, the donations are physically given out once a year, based on everyone's total mileage. So if you walk, run, or bike X miles in a term, an amount based on X will be given to a charity at the end of the term. You earn up to $0.25 US / mile by walking or running, and up to $0.10 US / mile by biking. "Up to" because some kind of bookkeeping voodoo means that if CharityMiles' userbase outperforms a set limit, they might have to tweak their donations. You choose the charity you want to raise money for before each work out. There are a lot to choose from; right now I'm focusing on a water charity.

(Unfortunately, one of the charities supported is Autism Speaks. Another cool thing you can do this April is to comment on Charity Miles' Facebook wall and ask them to reconsider their partnership with that particular charity.)

Now that it's warming up and (more importantly) getting light here again, JV and I are much more amenable to going out and walking. Right around fall I discovered that I'd rather walk than do anything else, in terms of physical activity—right in time for it to get dark and cold. But hopefully my love of walking and my desire to help others (coupled with my inability to help as much as I'd like) will result in me getting out of the apartment and on my feet a little more often.

It definitely seems to good to be true, but so far I have yet to come across any concerns about things like data mining or privacy invasions. That's always my secret fear with apps like these: that the company is benefiting from me in ways that I'm not aware of or that I'd never agree to if they told me up front. But while you can find no end of articles decrying Facebook's privacy issues and data mining practices, Charity Miles seems in the clear.

I've been enjoying walking and biking to Mordor, but the reality check of: "It is so easy for you to just go outside and move, that's all it takes to be able to help someone, you might as well just do it" has been the kick in the pants I need. I mean, if I never make it to Mordor, so what? The only person who misses out is me. But to help build a well to increase clean water access? Sure, I can walk around the block to help make that happen.

Talky Tuesday: Word of the Year: Focus

Image courtesy Ryan McGuire

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, and this year was no different. But I was attracted to this concept of the "word of the year," as I wrote elsewhere, and chose the word focus:

A few people I follow and vaguely know online have talked about this concept of a "word of the year" instead of resolutions. Even though it kind of violates all of the standard rules about what a good goal is (clear, achievable, incremental, etc.) the concept seems to work well enough, so I thought I would give it a shot. 

Reflecting on the past year, I think the one thing that has hurt me the most is focus—rather, lack thereof. I am interested in approximately a thousand things, and I want to be approximately a thousand things, but I can't sit down and focus on any of those for long enough to get anywhere so I just end up pissing away my time on Facebook while I "try to remember" what it was I wanted to do.

Now that it's well into April, how are things going?

One clear improvement is in how many tabs I keep open in Chromium. This is a totally trivial thing but it's hard to focus on one project (finishing a blog post, writing an Etsy listing) when you have a thousand other tabs open. I had a habit of keeping tabs open for things I wanted to read later, or to discuss on the blog, and so my browser window was just a mess.

No more! I made a bookmark folder for "stuff to share later" and now I make liberal use of it. As a result, I can focus on online tasks easier, and get them done quicker (no more hunting through tabs: "Which one was it again...?") Bookmarks feel like 90s web 1.0 stuff, but it works, so whatever.

I'm also more on my own case about one thing at a time. When I'm stressed, I forget this, and start to cycle through tasks, but invariably if I catch myself doing that and slow down to just one, I feel better. More accomplished. The question is if, though. I've had some days where I got sucked into that black hole and went to bed feeling antsy and unfulfilled.

I'm also better at recognizing when I'm just futzing around and, as a result, finding something better to do, or finding something relaxing to do off the computer, which is invariably more relaxing than mindlessly refreshing Facebook. (This is slightly different than manically cycling through 400 different projects.)

Likewise with my open windows. I can leave a thousand windows open in a workspace and that's similarly distracting. But there's no excuse for that, especially in Linux—I think every available desktop environment for Linux has a multiple workspaces option, yet I hardly utilize it. It's like having a dual/multiple monitor setup with just one monitor.

Now I've been better about either closing windows I don't need, or organizing my workspaces by theme: jewelry stuff in this workspace, writing projects in another, and so on. Keeping a neat and tidy taskbar really makes you feel more organized.

One thing that really helped me a lot was a Coursera course: Learning How to Learn. It's the best MOOC I've taken so far, probably because it's on ideas that are instantly applicable to real life. Like: why do we procrastinate? how can we study more efficiently? I don't like the route that Coursera is taking—pushing their "specializations" that cost money over the stand-alone free courses—but there are still some gems to be had. Learning How to Learn is one of them. It's informative but low-key and low-stress. Most importantly, I learned to recognize when I'm procrastinating and to ask myself what painful experience I'm avoiding (sending an email, checking my bank account, finishing an assignment for Russian).

But focus is also applicable to the larger, long-term plans I have as well. I've begun to collect different blogs/businesses/outlets that I could partner with and started to reach out to them. I've decided on a career path to pursue beyond my jewelry and to take steps towards professionalism.

I didn't realize it, but leaving things so hazy and undecided was really fucking with my chi. I can deal with outside-imposed limbos and purgatories: waiting for paperwork to clear, waiting for acceptance/rejection letters. It sucks but knowing that it's out of my control is something of a relief, if that makes sense? But when it's all self-imposed, that's another thing entirely.

So, overall, my word of the year is going really well and helping me get my shit together.

Do you have a word of the year? Do you think you need one?

Newly Listed: Turquoise and Pink Pi Bracelet

Finally, spring is here! Put away your neutral, muted colors and break out some color! Turquoise and pink is a combination I've been loving for a while now, so I featured it in my latest pi bracelet:

Turquoise and Pink Pi Bracelet by Kokoba

I haven't done any memory wire bracelets in a while, so it was quite fun to string this little guy together. The colors strike me as being very mermaid-ish...or maybe that's just because a mermaid-obssessed acquaintance of mine has just gotten married in Hawaii and it's been beaches and mermaids all up in my news feed for the last couple weeks!

The Czech glass beads in this and other recent bracelets have been a new-to-me discovery in the last few months. The color is a wax coating, but it stands up to abuse quite well. I'm looking to get some larger ones soon so I can start putting out more necklaces again. If you look at the shop, I have a tendency to favor bracelets. They're quick and short, but there are also lots of reasons people avoid wearing bracelets—so the selection for them is a bit skimpier, and that's not fair. 

I think I also need to curb my habit of using pi as my default number in a project. I love pi, and pi day, and tau day, but it gets a disproportionate amount of the nerdy accessory love, and that's not fair either.

The SciArt Tweetstorm has been over long enough that someone's been able to do what scientists do best: crunch and analyze the numbers! Also, you may have also noticed some errant porn bots thrown in the mix this year. It's actually kind of a funny story, and it all has to do with M. melolontha.

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons and Mario Sarto

Or you can get lost in the winners of the 2016 Vizzies—awards for science and data visualizations run by Popular Science.

Happy Monday!

Skeptical Saturday: Autism Speaks? Not For Autistics

Image courtesy The Autistic Beekeeper

This is your annual April reminder that Autism Speaks is a misguided at best and loathsome at worst organization. I realize that the "light it up blue" event touches a lot of feel-goody nerves, but if you're interested in helping autistics, consider some alternatives.

1. Participate in, or just signal boost, the #RedInstead hashtag and Internet event. Autism Speaks routinely dismisses or marginalizes the reality of autistic girls and women; #RedInstead works to combat that. In a similar vein, #ActuallyAutistic features....people who are actually autistic, as opposed to celebrities in blue t-shirts. There are lots of great thoughts and blog links to be had in both.

2. For charitable donations, please direct your money to the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network or the Autism Women's Network. You can also make sure to vote for local, state, and federal representatives who support things like funding education (to pay for 1-on-1 classroom aides and special education teachers) and disability (kind of self-evident). Charities shouldn't be filling in all the gaps.

3. Check out some biographies by adults on the spectrum. Temple Grandin's is a popular one, as is John Elder Robison's. Autism is a spectrum disorder and every autistic person experiences it differently, so neither Grandin nor Robison should be considered to be speaking for the population at large. But Autism Speaks, and consequently the "light it up blue" event, focus almost exclusively on autistic children. But autistic children grow up into autistic adults—at which point we seem to forget about them.

4. "People-first" language is gaining traction among a number of communities, but when it comes to autism, by and large "identity-first" is preferred. Naturally some people will prefer the "person with autism" model, and of course you should respect their preferences, but by and large, members of the autistic community see autism as an inherent part of themselves, not something separate from.

Five Fandom Friday: Fandom Guilty Pleasures

Image courtesy Katelyn Jade

5 Fandom Friday is hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick. This week's theme is Fandom Guilty Pleasures. It sounds familiar because we tackled this one less than a year ago. My old answers still apply, but I want to add one more item to the list:

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

BUT THE WHALES! I hear you say. THEY TIME TRAVEL TO SAVE WHALES IT'S SO CONTRIVED.

I know and I don't even care!! Is Wrath of Khan a better movie? Sure, probably. If you don't cry at the end of that one you might actually be a Vulcan. But Chekov running around San Francisco asking for "nuclear wessels" is also amazing, and it's time that people give this movie the credit it deserves.

What I Read: Giovanni's Room

At one point during my trek through the TIME Top 100 novels, I picked up Go Tell It On The Mountain. But for some reason I never finished it? I don't know why. I remember enjoying it. But I forgot about picking it back up until my Internet book club decided on another James Baldwin novel, Giovanni's Room, for April. So that's one off the list!

Giovanni's Room is a really sort of all-purpose read. Have you been in a funk and need something quick and snappy (yet still satisfying) to read? Have you decided to read more "classics" but don't know where to start, or are intimidated by the prospect of long books and complicated language? Are you looking for alternatives to straight white males? Are you looking to brush up on the gay literature canon? If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, then Giovanni's Room is the book for you.

Courtesy Signet

I'm really tempted to summarize the entire plot, as the book is quite short, but then I suppose that would be quite spoiler-y, and this is a book that I think can be spoiled (though it does a whole lot of foreshadowing). Instead I'll just discuss what happens in the most general sense.

This novel is a story within a framing story. Our frame is simple enough: the narrator, David, is cleaning out his rented house in southern France. It's his last night there, and while he cleans, he reflects on the last year or so of his life: his relationship with Hella, a fellow American abroad, and the alluring Italian Giovanni. 

I've started and deleted a review here multiple times. I guess I don't know what to say about Giovanni's Room. Did I like it? Yes. I loved it, actually. Baldwin does a really great job drawing out the tension, keeping you wondering about what will happen next—or rather, about what exactly happened. But to imply that the best thing about Giovanni's Room is the plot is to do a great disservice to the language of the novel, and the great many themes it tackles. It's part of the gay literature canon, but for me it was also a novel about expatriation and belonging. David has been in France for some time by the time we meet him in the novel: he can speak French and he has befriended at least one Frenchman, and yet no one forgets, or lets him forget, that he is American—the American, sometimes. It's not his taste for men that his company finds strange, it's his nationality. Giovanni's Room certainly a novel about sexual identity, but national identity is a prominent and important secondary issue.

Also, Giovanni himself has probably the most beautiful dialogue I've read recently. Beautiful because Baldwin captures all the music of an accent without it being hackneyed or awkward. For that alone, writers should takes notes from this text. Here's just one of many examples:

"You do not," cried Giovanni, sitting up, "love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror—you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it—man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you will go out covered with soap—and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime...You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you—you are immoral. You are, by far, the most immoral man I have met in all my life. Look, look what you have done to me. Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is this what you should do to love?"

It's enough to make me wonder if Baldwin ever had a Giovanni of his own. (To my chagrin, I didn't know until I read Giovanni's Room that Baldwin was gay. Funny how some things get glossed over in biographies...)

Newly Listed: Black and Silver Speed of Light Wrap Bracelet

As I said on Twitter, I want to call this wrap bracelet "disco physics sciart." The silver-colored cubes are flashy (literally—they're quite reflective) and funky, and spell out the speed of light (in a vacuum) (in m / s). The black Czech glass beads act as muted, understated spacers between each digit. It's a look that's aggressive and futuristic.

Black and Silver Speed of Light Wrap Bracelet by Kokoba

This one is actually pretty appropriate for my mood today. I have been jamming out to Rihanna's "Bitch Better Have My Money" over the last few days—in case you couldn't tell by my tweet earlier today:

Dealing with CSN be like... pic.twitter.com/qA6IIgGYF8

— Kokoba Jewelry (@kokoba42) April 4, 2016

Maybe I'm just in a Rihanna sort of mood, but I think this bracelet would totally suit her glam eclectic look. Wouldn't it though?

Pay no attention to the manicure in need of a touch-up.

I don't know why I have Rihanna on the brain in this post. I don't really care for more than a handful of her songs. I guess I've just been itching for really angry, aggressive songs about money in the face of CSN arbitrarily and without notice pushing back my study stipend deposits. "BBHMM" is a pretty good way to scratch that itch. So is Barrett Strong:

I try to take an attitude of mindfulness and gratitude: there's so much that I do have and I shouldn't lose sight of that. But I do not appreciate my money being jerked around for no good reason that I can find or that they can give. Hopefully it'll be sorted by this week, though.

What are your favorite songs about being broke?

Skeptic Saturday: Pantene Shampoo Burning Colored Hair?

Another one from Facebook. This time, you shouldn't use budget shampoo and get your hair colored. OR SHOULD YOU?!

If the text is too small:

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!!! 

For the love of anything holy.......PLEASE stop using this crap in your hair! 

I had a client wanting to do a light blonde ombre..... I can do this in my sleep! (And on my [sic] occasions, I have,lol) the application was finished and it was time to sit a [sic] process......
After only ten mins. 

She came up to me telling me her hair is burning..... I felt the foils and... Damn, nearly burned my fingers!!!!!! I opened the packet an smoke comes billowing out........ 

Mind you I have done this clients color for several years with no issue ever.......Iasked the usual questions i.e. Well water, medication etc. the only thing that was there she used Pantene shampoo and conditioner.......
This crap had plastic and silicones in it and when it comes in contact with a bleach or hi-lift color it reacts and the bleach will melt off the build up and becomes a very hot liquid and if it come [sic] in contact with skin it will cause a burn. 

I had two other clients in the past 7 years that this crap called Pantene was the key factor in a serious situation. 

If you are using it and plan to get color done, please throw it away and have your stylist do a detox to get rid of the deposits. 

There is a difference between cheap and salon quality. Do not let anyone lie to you and try to say anything more....... 

Namaste!!!!!!

Refinery 29 did all the legwork for me on this one: when events like this occur, it's not due to the ingredients in Pantene or other budget shampoos—rather, it's most likely a reaction between ammonia (the coloring agent), sodium hydroxide (an ingredient in hundreds, if not thousands, of shampoos and soaps), and aluminum (the foils), or the result of heavy metals or henna lingering in the hair.

As the cosmetics blog The Beauty Brains pointed out, Pantene and salon brand shampoos have nearly identical ingredients. What's more, they both contain the silicones so roundly denounced in the original post. (Also note that there is nothing in Pantene that would be considered a plastic or would function in the way that the post is implying, i.e. leaving a flammable residue of some kind on your hair. Nor does it contain, or leave behind, wax.)

Buy your budget haircare products without fear!

Friday Five: Into The Lens

What was your first camera like?

Oh, man. It was a Crayola-branded 110 mm camera for kiddos.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I forget how old I was, but I was fairly young. For a short while I had ~~artistic aspirations and took some really not-good photos. (Bless the photo tech who developed them. I hope my mad Dutch angles and stuffed animal portraits cheered them up, whoever they were!)


What kinds of accessories have you purchased for a camera?

None.


When did you last shoot photos on film, and how many rolls of unshot film do you have in your house?

Oh, probably in...2008? I had purchased a heavy-duty SLR and wanted to justify the purchase, but I think I only ever shot one or two rolls with it. There is zero unshot film in this apartment—or film at all.


Digital photography has all kinds of advantages over film photography, but what’s better about shooting on film and having to get it developed and printed?

I guess it keeps photo techs employed?


How do you manage your digital photos?

I have them organized by year, and that's about it. Once in a while I do a huge system backup to an external hard drive.