New Faux Fisheye Thingie AND bonus Edgar Allan Poe stuff!

In my continuous camera frenzy, I ordered this nifty thing. I thought it would give me groovy distorted circular images and be so unbeatably cool that I would finally, finally join the ranks of the cool kids. Or something - hell, I don't know, I figured it was thirty bucks and worth a shot. Now I have owned it for slightly less than 24 hours, I am not entirely sure if it was worth thirty bucks. Perhaps twenty four ninety five. Anyway, the picture on the left was taken without it while (you guessed it!) the one on the right was taken with it on. As we see, it definitely widens the angle but it would appear to lose some focus, which in some cases is fine, i.e., here, where it makes my house look super trippy and bizarroid, as befits it's sixties style. Further experimentation will be necessary but oh well, what the hell, new toy! And it makes my camera look intimidatingly professional, so there's that.

In other news, Theo let me vacuum him last night. I think it is highly inefficient of collies to lose last year's winter coat mostly in the fall in preparation for the new one to come in but alas, in this universe of unintelligent design, that's how it works. If I had designed collies the whole thing would come off in one piece like a snakeskin instead of clumping off in awful chunks that clog up the vacuum cleaner and make Theo look motheaten and even more pathetic than usual. But as we know, they did not call on me to design the universe, more fools they.

In other other news, it's only the third day of November and I'm already like 2000 words behind in NaNoWriMo. This does not bode well but I keep thinking I will sit down momentarily and whip them out in short order. Ha! We shall see. Also, since it is the third day of November, that means that YOU (and I, I'm going after work, I promise) must exercise your right as a citizen and GO OUT AND VOTE! It only takes a minute, really, and they give you a free sticker. Free sticker! How can you possibly resist? Vote your pants off, Asheville. Vote like . . . like. . . like something or someone who votes extremely seriously and intensely. Like Edgar Allan Poe on a laudanum binge.

There is some rumor I read somewhere once that said the final consumption & pneumonia that killed Poe was due to his having been abducted by scurrilous vote getters in Baltimore while he was on a laudanum & whisky binge. These vote getters were hired thugs who went around grabbing derelicts and forcing them to vote. This tactic has fallen into disfavor, recently, although perhaps, Gordon, if you're reading this, you might want to give it a try! Not that I would ever advocate such a thing. I'll vote twice for laudanum, though.