Photo Friday – Transportation

tranport.jpg

Photo Friday – Transportation [photofriday.com]

Transportation. I’m interpreting this with the basic, yet important
distillation that drives most vehicles – petroleum products. This was
taken at a BP gas station in the middle of the night in the south
eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. This relatively new petrol
station looks contemporary compared to most, with the streamlined pumps
and updated company logo. If you squint, you can see the Mazda
dealership across the road.

The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/60 sec – f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Tone Compensation: Auto
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Saturation Compensation: 0
Sharpening: OFF
Noise Reduction: OFF

The flash was suppressed to let ambient light in. The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Brightness: Gamma increased for better visibility.
Contrast: Contrast increased to draw out more detail from the background.
Image Size: Size reduced from 2048×1536 to 500×375.

The Weblog Review – Ei Baa Hashne

Original review for The Weblog Review here: Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it [theweblogreview.com].

I have made the terrible mistake of misidentifying the author’s
gender. This has been corrected today and it’s waiting for approval
before the changes will be reflected in the review page.

ebhashne.jpg

Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it

Do you know what Ei Baa Hashne means? I’ll tell you about it. No,
that’s what it means, “I’ll tell you about it”. I am very intrigued by
this weblog, it’s subtitled “A web log by a Navajo in New Orleans”. I
must admit, I don’t know much about Navajo culture, and this made me
very interested to read the weblog. The first thing I noticed was the
Navajo Word of the Week column in the right hand sidebar. That is a
really nice touch that adds a lot to the blog. It’s a great way to
introduce the written Navajo language to the readers.

I’m now aware that ‘chidi’ means a car (or automobile) and browsing
through the Navajo Word of the Week archives is interesting, I think I
can formulate a sentence based on what I’ve read: “Ei ashkii bi ‘at’eed
shik’is nizhoni”. My apologies if my attempt came out wrong. I was
trying to say “That boy has a beautiful girlfriend” but I’m not sure it
”at’eed’ and ‘shik’is’ can be joined to mean ‘girlfriend’. It’s fun to
learn the sentence structure and grammar and at least I can say
“Ya’at’eeh. Huai Bin yinishye. Ashkii nishli. 22 shinaahai. Melbourne
di shighan” with confidence. It’s in the Navajo Word archives. πŸ™‚ Go
look up what it means, Vernon (the site owner) has done a really good
job with the description and sample sentences!

Vernon has been running the blog since the 19th of February 2003, so
this makes it a relatively new one. The entries are fairly regular,
Vernon does not skip more than a couple of days in between posts. The
monthly archives are nicely peppered with photos too, and Vernon
participates in quite a few “blog memes” like the Friday Five and Photo
Friday (to name two). The blog starts out nicely, with most of the
entries in the first month and the first few entries in March updating
the reader about the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. Vernon was
part of the parade as well, in one of his entries in March titled “MG
update: My Orpheus Experience”, he describes his experience with
setting up and riding on a float.

It’s also very nice to see that Vernon is a proud of his heritage
and he makes his feelings about that known in the March 4th entry about
non-Native Americans dressing up as such during Mardi Gras. The later
entries are a mix of commentaries about TV series and the “blog memes”,
which makes the reader know more about Vernon. The two poems entitled
“My Words” and “My Deeds” are really good too, and I particularly liked
the second one. His feelings in that one really came through strongly.

I have always liked reading “nostalgic entries” and I enjoyed
reading Vernon’s post on the 6th of April regarding cliques while he
was in high school at the reservation. I have never noticed clique-type
behavior at my high school, but it seems to be common in the United
States. It’s also interesting to read that he’s on the Atkins Diet,
which I’ve heard a lot of bad things about. It’s worthy to note that
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt is on that very same diet by Dr.
Atkins…I picked that up while reading the papers last week regarding
Hollywood personalities and their diets.

I also noticed that I’ve been to his blog before, but didn’t read
anything then. I have recently started doing the Photo Friday too, and
I remember clicking through all of the past entries, so I must have
stumbled upon his weblog then, but didn’t pay attention to anything
other than the photo. I am disturbed by his entry about accidental
kerosene consumption when he was five. The taste of kerosene is all too
clear to me (don’t ask why) and reading that made nearly made me retch
in recollection of the taste.

The design of the site is based on a three column template, with the
blog entries occupying the middle column. The right sidebar contains
the wonderful Najavo Word of the Week (which I will definitely bookmark
this site for) and links to other blogs. The left sidebar has the site
navigation column, an avatar with the current weather in New Orleans,
links to fellow Native American bloggers, webring memberships and other
miscellaneous links. The design of the site isn’t anything special and
doesn’t stand out, but the interesting entries makes up for that. This
is definitely a blog that favors content over eye candy.

The About Me page pops up a window (with a different background)
with Vernon’s personal details, including his tribe and his ancestor’s
clans. It’s interesting to learn another fact about Navajo culture – it
seems to be a matrilineal society. Vernon is a physician (which he
mentioned in the unforgettable kerosene entry) and we share the same
favorite drink! No, not kerosene. Diet Coke. The other links are
Vernon’s poetry, photos (of the photo memes like Photo Friday), an
archive of all the memes he has done, a page dedicated to his pets, the
blog archives and The May Day Project!

I haven’t seen a May Day project I didn’t like, and this didn’t
break that streak. I enjoyed visually seeing what a day in the life of
the author is. Ahehee Vernon, I really enjoyed reading through your
entries! I’ll have to follow the guidelines and give it a 4 for the
inconsistent design though. hagoonee’ everyone, and don’t forget to
click on the link to check out Vernon’s blog, it certainly is a
refreshing change and a fun read for me. It’s a very good site, that’s
for sure.

[Edit: Mistake regarding author’s gender has been corrected. My apologies.]

This site was reviewed on 2003-05-28 by sixthseal.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
sixthseal felt that Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it deserved a rating of 4.0

Link to site: Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it [blogspot.com].

The site owner’s reply:

Ei Baa Hashne’ Reviewed
Wednesday, May 28

My site was reviewed at weblogreview.com.
The reviewer had quite a few flattering words for my site and I think
he summed up some of the intentions I had for this site very nicely.
However, there was one problem with the review. No, it had nothing to
do the reviewer’s opinions. I have nothing against the opinions
expressed at weblogreview. It was something more substantial.
Throughout the column, the author of my site is referred to as ‘her’
and ‘she.’ When I saw that, I had to double check to make sure that it
was actually my site that was being reviewed. Then I opened a new
screen to check the signature at the bottom of each entry to confirm
that I had not inadvertently signed it as “Veronica,” “Victoria,” or
“Verna.” After establishing that I indeed had signed all my entries as
“Vernon,” my next thought was of befuddlement, then an attempt at some
sort of understanding. Failing that after a few minutes, I next felt
curious, then strangely contemplative for a while. My next thought was
uneasiness, which melted into leeriness, and finally I was outright
paranoid.

Nah, just kidding. My only response, if someone were to ask would
be, “Hmm, interesting.” I always wondered if I had another personality
hidden deep inside somewhere. She must come out when I sit down at my
computer to blog. Well, to the Vernon that I don’t know about, I say
thank you for all those wonderful entries. You bring back some of my
most poignant and some of my proudest memories. Here’s to sisterhood!
Once again, thank you, Verna, or Victoria, or is it Veronica, … or
Vicky, maybe Viola, possibly Virginia, Vina, no wait, it’s got to be
Valerie, Vachon, Vanessa, …

Original post here [blogspot.com].

Changes: The links of the original Ei Baa Hashne’ – I’ll tell you about it post has been changed to open up in a new window.

I’ll rather be asleep

I’ve been up for three days and my body is saying no. Today would be
the day I came the closest to having a heart attack. I wish I’m
exaggerating, the damned chest pains and headache would go away then.
No food + no sleep + stimulants (caffeine, I always feel the need to
reiterate myself) = heart working overtime. No water (stupid me) = not
pissing for the whole night. Drank a bit before I went to class, was
feeling terrible before then…hypertension, the kind that makes your
head pound and makes those veins on the side visible, with tactile
rhythmic pumping too. I don’t know what I’m saying. I had to walk as
slow as a slug to not overexcite my overworked heart and yet I still
feel constant chest pain, breathlessness and that damned pounding and
random tingliness and pain in the extremities. Okay, enough of the
feeling sorry for myself bit, I’m going to sleep…sedate me, trusty
thingies.

dogcute.jpg

Of course by thingies I mean food…it makes you sleepy when you
haven’t had any in a while. Anyway, here’s a photo I took while on the
way back today…was feeling like absolute fucking shit, but that dog is
so adorable I had to take a photo. His head is too big for his body and
so is his tongue! πŸ™‚

Thanks for commenting everyone, I’ll reply when I wake up. I am
going to sleep now, before that vein makes good on its promise to give
me a stroke.

Pantone memories, greyscale eyes

Infected Mushroom – Classical Mushroom [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[9:18 minutes 192 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 12.7 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

dance.gif

I don’t know where that animated GIF came from. I got it in the
signature of an email from a friend and he doesn’t know where he got it
too. Oh well, these things tend to fall into public domain anyway. πŸ˜‰
The track is off IsrAliens 2 – Bizarro. Please be kind to my limited
bandwidth. πŸ™‚ It’s an Infected Mushroom one, but it sounds more
‘mainstream’ than the stuff they usually come out with. That makes it
easier to get into, give it a listen, you might like it enough to get
their other albums. Infected Mushroom makes great psy-trance, my
favourite track is still Tommy the Bat off The Gathering. That one just
blew my mind away the first time I heard it. Hmm…in fact all the tracks
in that album is great. Messy! πŸ™‚ MP3.com used to have a lot of their
tracks, but it’s all been replaced with Deeply Disturbed off their new
album.

Okay, I have an assignment due tomorrow, and I can’t write much so here’s my day in GREYSCALE photos:

captaina.jpg

I saw this new display at the Caulfield campus B block first level
public art box. Captain America! This photo doesn’t look good in
greyscale…

630longq.jpg

I noticed a very long queue for the 630 Huntingdale bus at the
Clayton campus bus loop when I came back. It usually is quite long at
around these hours, but I’ve never seen it grow to these proportions
before. Lack of detail at the back, I’m still learning how to take good
night photos. I took three – one with suppressed flash, one with full
flash, and one with “quick flash” (a fast and short flash before the
shutter opens). I found that quick flash works well in night photos,
but only in enclosed spaces, it doesn’t do much at all in wide open
areas like this. No flash produced the worst photo, hardly any detail
in it. Full flash wasn’t good (I already knew that, but just tried
anyway) too, it just artificially brightens the front people and hid
all detail at the back. The photo above is from the quick flash shoot,
which was the best shot in among the three. I used a sensitivity of ISO
400, aperture of f/0.8 and a shutter speed of 1/125s. Noise reduction
was also turned on, but it’s not exactly the best settings.

stair8lg.jpg

This was what I saw when I got back. The Stairway 8 door’s lock has
been removed for some reason. No need for keys then. Back to
assignments…after 9 am today I’ll only have one left! =D Oh wait…it’s
past 4 am now, so that means…that means…*calculating in head*…I only
have 4 hours to complete this one! Fudge! No, I really am eating one.

Link of the Day (internal): The Anonymous Game Developers at www.tierragames.com comments on Magnum “The Sixties Nine” [sixthseal.com].

You really have to read this comment…classic! πŸ™‚

Link of the Day (external): A good parent? [sanlive.com].

Insightful. Read this.

Link of the Day (news): Police charged over heroin [theage.com.au].

No wonder the contact I used to get heroin off insisted on being called “Detective”. Kidding! I joke too much. πŸ™‚

Breakfast food!

I had a rather large breakfast today. πŸ™‚ Well, technically
yesterday, but still…Anyway, I seldom have breakfast and lunch so it
feels good to eat “breakfast food” for a change. Here’s what I had:

hbreak1.jpg

The two paper bags contain egg and bacon muffins. The one in plastic
wrap is a chocolate eclair and the strange aluminium wrap thingy hides
three hash browns and two eggs. The dining room cashier thought it
would be hard to carry that many stuff so she helpfully wrapped it in
foil. How nice. Oh, and I did get “Wow, you must be hungry” again. Heh.

hbreak2.jpg

That’s the egg and bacon muffin. Mmm…salty.

hbreak3.jpg

Hash browns and nicely done eggs. πŸ™‚

hbreak4.jpg

Eclair…the cream filling is so nice, it bursts out whenever you take a bite.

Thank God for artificially increased metabolism rates. πŸ˜‰

The laundry fiasco @ Roberts Hall

[Update: (3:31 AM) Just received another note. Scanned and added below.]

lfdryer.jpg

I was so fucking pissed off just now…was all ready to (action which
would result in an assault conviction) the person responsible. I have a
quick temper and the stimulants (caffeine, caffeine, told ya in the
McDonalds post back there) coursing through my bloodstream exacerbated
things and I was dead set on waiting in the laundry room to physically
confront the asshole that removed my still damp laundry from the
dryers. The problem today was caused by the fact that 2 of the 6 dryers
in the laundry is out of order, another one keeps on stopping so you
have to constantly restart it, another one only blows cold air, so that
leaves 2 dryers for the whole of Roberts Hall. One of those only
produced slightly warm air while the other (which my laundry was in)
had true hot air. I had returned to find my laundry:
1. Stuffed in a corner cubbyhole with a fucking wet underwear that isn’t mine
2. Stuffed in a center cubbyhole with a sock that isn’t mind
3. Scattered on the floor
Tell me you wouldn’t give in to violent urges if this happens to you.
There’re some fucking inconsiderate ressies who wouldn’t think twice
about conveniently removing your laundry on the grounds that it is
already “dry”. Yeah, it’s easy to see that the outer clothes (the outer
part of the bunch dries faster than the inside of the bunch) is
somewhat dry and pretend that the ones in the middle of the bunched up
laundry isn’t still damp. I was very pissed off about the way my
laundry was scattered and stuffed indiscriminately too. Fuckers!!!

I waited a while, but didn’t have the patience to stay the whole
night, so I took the person’s laundry out and put mine back in (the
dryer is rightfully mine until my clothes are dry). This was when I
noticed that the person responsible is female (from the contents of the
dryer). That’s no excuse though, but I stopped my violent ideations (is
this sexist behavior?) and stormed back to my room to write a message
to stick on the dryer instead. I didn’t take a photo or scan my message
(yup, I still remember about images even in this state of mind :p) but
I did take a photo of the dryer (that’s the picture above) after I
stuck my message in there. I managed to exercise restrain and worded it
politely, but I also wanted to send a message that it is UNACCEPTABLE
BEHAVIOR to do that. The message is blurry because it’s cropped from
the larger original photo size (the one above) and that had suppressed
flash on. It goes:

lfmynote.jpg

If the text is not legible to you (I did try liberal sharpen filters, but it’s still blurry) here’s a transcript:

My laundry
is obviously
NOT!!
DRY. Please
refrain from removing
(crossed out text) clothes which have
not dried. I do not
appreciate the way you
stuffed and scattered my
laundry into the cubby holes!
I have put mine back in. Call
me at (my cell phone number) if
you feel this is in error!

Needless to say, being annoyed does not make one eager to observe
the grammatical and sentence structure rules, but it gets the point
across. I stuck that onto the dryer and waited for the phone call. I
didn’t get one though, so I just returned to the laundry room 30
minutes later (coz my laundry should be dry by then) and saw that my
laundry was still in the dryers and my note has been untouched. Or so I
thought…upon closer review, the note isn’t the one I wrote. She has
posted a reply and stuck it there instead. I looked for my note (wanted
to scan it) but it wasn’t anywhere in the laundry room nor the garbage
bin (I checked) so I figured she took it with her. That’s why you have
to settle for the blurry pic and the transcript above. Anyway, this was
her reply:

lfreply.jpg

Now that made me feel really bad. I wasn’t angry anymore (stopped
after 15 minutes). I have a quick temper, but I can’t stay angry for
long. That’s one of my good personality quirks. πŸ˜‰ I also felt guilty
about everything coz it wasn’t her fault after all and she was victim
to this mysterious laundry room asshole as well. Anyway, I put her
laundry back into the dryer so she wouldn’t have to queue if someone
came in before her. She was next anyway, and it was the least I could
do. She left her number (mosaic applied for her privacy) so I called to
apologize. She wasn’t in and I got her voicemail so I left a message to
apologize for the mix up and told her that her laundry is in the dryers
now.

I still didn’t feel very proud of myself though, so I called again
10 minutes later and got her on the phone. I apologized for the mix up
and she apologized too (though she didn’t do anything wrong). She also told me that she lives just one floor above me!
I was mortified…I knew who she is now. It’s the friendly girl from
upstairs whom I don’t know personally, but we have a “hello-and-smile”
relationship. How embarrassing…but it’s cool though, ended the
conversation with “everything’s okay” from both parties. So all’s good
and well. Except for the mystery laundry messer…you just wait till I
sn…er, drink some coffee and I’ll be coming down on you like a
ton of bricks. If I’m still angry that is…right now I’m more tired than
anything. I’ve been up since 10 pm yesterday and that’s just over 27
hours, which should be nothing…except I’ve been exhausted since early
afternoon. Anyway, that’s the Roberts Hall laundry fiasco. πŸ™‚

[Added @ 3:31 AM]

I just received another note. It was stuck outside my door and I
only noticed it when I went to the toilet just now. That’s very nice of
her, really appreciate the kind gesture! πŸ™‚

Front:

lfreply1.jpg

Back:

lfreply2.jpg

Mosiac applied to name and room number to protect her privacy.

I’m very disappointed at the predictable and immature way I reacted
at first though…I thought I had the “temper, temper” bit under control,
but apparently not. However, it’s been 6 months since my last one, and
that’s pretty good progress. πŸ™‚ I don’t want to send myself to an early
grave with the strokes and the heart attacks. I just lose it over silly
things, that last time was so ridiculous I feel stupid. Please don’t
laugh, but I actually got into a pissing match in IRC! Yes, the realm
of retards and trolls. *hangs head in shame* It was a local channel and
this teenager was just provoking me, getting my panties all in a twist
by talking shit about my father. I retaliated by telling him to walk
the walk, and told him to meet me at this car park near my house in 10
minutes. He further irritated me by going “hahaha” and not replying to
my challenge (yes, yes, I know I’m childish when I’m pissed) so I
questioned his manhood in the main channel, using classics like “Do you
even have balls down there?” and “Pussy, what a fucking coward” and it
took 35 iteration before he finally got pissed enough to accept, so off
I went (in my pjyamas, no less), grabbed the nearest thing (2 by 4),
and drove out in the rain at 3 am in the morning.

I circled around the area for a full 25 minutes and got soaking wet
but didn’t see anyone. I called my friend who was online and in the
same channel, and she said that guy was in the channel! This made me
twice as pissed and I drove back and made about 300+ taunts using
creative variations of all insults possible, I even had to resort to
“Your mother’s a slut” before he really got pissed and said he’s coming
out now. So off I went again, I was helluva cold in my wet PJs and I
had to wait another 30 minutes and no one turned up! He must be
laughing his head off in his comfy room. What right thinking person
would waste so much time for nothing? Just stupid me. Anyway, I wasn’t
pissed anymore after that, the cold just made me want to go home and
take a hot shower. While showering, it just occurred to me that it’s
not possible for a 16 year old to have a driver’s license! Now you know
the extent of my silliness. I’m not a hardass or anything, my panties
just have a high affinity with knots, so that’s why such things happen
to me. Oh well, back to assignments. I could have finished one if I
hadn’t started with the written version of verbal diarrhea.

The Cigarette Bible

The Cigarette Bible

cigbible.jpg

Genesis

To be a cigarette…

is to be squashed with other strangers for weeks or months in a dark
room with no air to breath, no space to move, and constant full
physical body contact with other cigarettes. Unfortunately, this is the
best part of your life. One day, your world-box will be suddenly
inverted and pounded against an invisible but strong object as your God
packs the box. That is your first indication that the world is not
limited to the box-world. There will be much rumbling and dissonance as
the box-world starts to undergo permanent changes – the sky will open
wide and you will meet your God.

Hebrews

God stares down at you with a ecstatic expression on His face and
you rejoice! God reaches down and takes one of your fellow inhabitants
and gives him a kiss. “Praise the Lord!” you exult as you watch one of
your neighbors go to Heaven and receive blessing from the Lord
with…fire? The awful realization dawns upon you…your God is not a kind
and loving God. The joyful expression on His face is not the benign
love you think. The path leads not to Paradise, but to the burning
fires of Hell. The fire of Hades will consume you slowly…leaving you
with nothing but a disembodied head. However, you are right in that He
is your God. He does not go by the names “Messiah”, “Prince of Peace”
or “Savior” because that is not his nature.

Lamentations

There is no deliverance. God decides when and where you die. It is
not possible to move around the “world-box”, and you start to realize
the worst thing of all – you know when you’ll be next. You watch as
your neighbor gets forcibly removed by The One Most High. You are next.
The dreadful waiting, the terrible uncertainty about the actual time of
death…you only know you’re NEXT. Maybe you will get temporary
salvation. Your other neighbor is chosen by The Almighty. But that
means you’re definitely next. Your time will be filled with fear and
insanity as you realize The Meaning of Life. Your average life span
after you meet God is 3 minutes. The 3 minutes are filled with agony
and pain and leaves you with only your consciousness, and a head
without a body.

Machabees

There is a purgatory called Ashtray and there you will receive your
second punishment with your fellow sinners. “Purgatory is good” is the
general consensus in there. “We have burned for our sins and now we
must repent! That is the only way to heaven!” is what everyone in there
believes. Soon, you will start to believe it too and you worship and
make penance. You will realize that there are several levels of
purgatory and their names are Wastepaper Basket, Rubbish Bin, and
Garbage Truck. The Day of Atonement will come after that and everyone
will get raptured towards a bright light.

Revelation

“Glory to The One Most High! Hallelujah!” and everyone sheds tears
of joy for you have paid for your sins and now you’re rewarded with
eternity in Eden, where the fruits grow as far as the eyes can see and
there is no suffering. Unfortunately, the destination is not Eden. The
trash combustion chamber is not Heaven, though it’s easy to make that
mistake as both has “bright light” as one of their attributes. It is
not Hell either, for that suggests your spirit lives on. The final
destination is Omega – The End. There is no afterlife for you.

The End

My attempt at creative writing. No blasphemy intended. There are
lots of verb tense inconsistencies in there, so I broke the story into
“books” make it more uniform. πŸ™‚
The idea came from reading the post Being an actor would be good [livejournal.com].
Link: aciddreammer [livejournal.com].
Photo courtesy of veritas.

Salvaging spilled methamphetamine powder

I have sunk to a new personal low. Please do not read any further
unless you’re prepared to be disgusted. The left side of my work table
is the absolute dirtiest surface area in my room. This is because – I
eat takeaway food there. I smoke there (ashtray is located there). I
store packs of (opened) chocolate/candy there (for my weed related
munchies). I put coins there. Receipts/bills/returned
assignments/letters etc goes there. You get the drill, it’s the
“everything there” part of the room. I took a single foil of meth out
from my stash. The foil is pre-weighted to 100 mg and packaged
individually. I unwrap the foil and put it on the left side on my desk.
I reached for my straw. Except there was no straw. Where did my straw
go? I searched my stash drawer, went through everything, but nope, it
wasn’t there. I searched the left side on my desk, flipping up letters,
bills, chocolate bars and the opened meth foil. Yes, the unwrapped
foil of meth! Oh, it flew everywhere. The “landing zone” was an area of
approximately 3/4 meter by 1/4 meter. It wasn’t pretty, I’ll tell you
that. I’ll like to say that my reaction was limited to saying “Oh, what
bad luck”, dust everything into the rubbish bin and get another foil
from the drawer.

nitemare.jpg
Only users lose drugs

It wasn’t. Instead, I dusted everything into a “working pile”. The
name alone suggests what I intend to do with it. Keep in mind that the
meth was salvaged from things as varied as the surface of a 50 cent
coin, the wrapper of a large Cadbury chocolate bar (the 250 g size
ones), a receipt from Coles, an odd piece of cardboard that I’ve never
seen, Metcards (public transport tickets) and a A$10 note to name a few
things. The remainder (which wasn’t on top of something) was merged
into the working pile by moving everything out of the way and scraping
the table with a card. I nearly retched while writing that sentence,
for reasons I’ll go into in a second. Anyway, the moving everything out
of the way bit is why the picture above shows a rather empty table.
It’s usually ultra-cluttered.

Now I have a pile of questionable things which I call the “working
pile”. The pile was not consistent with the volume a point (100 mg) of
the meth I get would look like. I’ll say it was about 1/3 of 100 mg,
which meant I lost quite a bit. I can see some bits on the table still,
but those are in areas which are very dusty and dirty (which was what I
meant about retching). I did scrape over those parts anyway. πŸ™ In my
defense, I worked around the most disgusting areas while scraping and
wiped the really dirty ones which had a bit of meth of it with a wet
cloth before I get any funny ideas. After that, I got down and went to
work on the “working pile”. I used the side of the card to separate the
“working pile” into two piles – “maybe meth” and “probably meth”
(cheers BigTrancer!). The “probably meth” consists of
relatively large shards of crystal and smaller bits which has a
translucent quality and looks like meth. I had a second bit of bad luck
when I dropped one of the largest shard on the carpet, but even I’m not
ghetto enough to go looking for it. :p

The “maybe meth” is what the rest of the “working pile” contains
after the “probably meth” filtration (this is too good a word for it)
was done. I insufflated the “probably meth” pile and went to work on
the “maybe meth”. It burnt much more than usual. These are among the things I found in the “maybe meth” pile:
Cigarette ash
Chocolate bits
Biscuit crumbs
Lint
A short hair (I’m getting rather put off at this point)
Piece of shredded cannabis bud
Unidentified brown gunk
Coagulated white stuff which I don’t want to speculate about
As you can see the left side of the table is not clean!
I shudder when I think about the takeaway meals eaten here and the
resulting stains (ugh). Anyway, after the above adulterants were
removed, the remaining “maybe meth” still doesn’t look quite right.

Well, I sat there pondering about the health consequences of
introducing the nasty things (and probably plenty of bacteria) that
reside on the left side of my table to my nasal membranes and I decided
that it won’t be a good idea at all. I ate the “maybe meth” pile. I
figured my stomach would be able to handle it better than my sinuses. I
feel so dirty and depraved. You can shake your heads in pity and go
“tsk tsk” now.

I’ve been told that last bit plenty of times anyway. In fact, SY just used it yesterday, also regarding me and meth but in a different context. πŸ™‚ The good thing about today is:

marlboro.jpg
I know. You don’t have to remind me every time I reach for one

I don’t have to use nicotine gum anymore. =D I ran out of cigarettes
yesterday and had to resort to the gum, which staves off the nicotine
monster running though my blood, but not the one in my lungs. No smoke
= no satisfaction. Oh, and some important things I want to share:

Please be careful and respect every substance.
I don’t have time to go through specifics, but I thought I was gonna
kick the bucket yesterday. I took way too much dexamphetamine and
methamphetamine last night and it fucked me left, right and center. I
was gang raped by the two and it wasn’t pleasant at all! I felt like I
was going to have a stroke, heart attack or a brain aneurysm and
possibly all three.

Please take care when you use urinary alkalinizers to potentiate (meth)amphetamines!
The way they work is by reducing the rates of elimination of
amphetamine type substances from your body. This makes re-dosing
dangerous, especially if you take high doses for prolonged periods of
time. I took most of my script (a stupid thing by itself) and some
meth, didn’t drink much water (in a stupid effort to further prolong
the action) and held my urine for very long periods of time (I only
went twice over 36 hours – another stupid effort to make it last
longer). I believe that all the above and the frequent re-dosing led to
a dangerous buildup of amphetamines in my bloodstream. Urinary
alkalinizers will lead to a buildup in your bloodstream because it
reduces the rates of elimination. Time your re-dosing well, and
consider reducing your subsequent doses to compensate for the buildup.
I didn’t even notice it until I jumped 3 feet out of my chair when A
PIECE OF PAPER dropped from the desk and made a tiny swoosh sound.

I was feeling extreme pressure in my head and I had this bright spot
of light in my vision which I think is related to pressure behind the
eyeballs. Other manifestations were constant dizziness, head rushes
after slight exertion (like moving your arm) and while urinating (not
the good head rushes, these are the ones that feels like your skull is
about to explode), very prominent chest pain, extreme difficulty in
breathing (had to really strain to get a breath of air and even then it
didn’t felt enough), a high heart beat that I could hear (feel?),
swollen and freezing hands and feet that looked grey with very
prominent and bulging veins (even the small ones, they aren’t
noticeable usually), and the worst of all – random jabbing pains. The
pains are sharp but short and usually around the hands and feet. I’ve
had these symptoms a lot of times before, it’s all part of the fine
line us tweakers straddle when we push the limits. However, every
person’s body is different and I urge you not to sniff and say that’s
just amphetamine overdose symptoms, especially if you have existing
hypertension or heart conditions.

This is because of something I’ve noticed which I’ve confirmed by
reading medical articles (forgot the links, but please search if you
want references). The thing I’ve noticed is – I cannot do long runs
anymore, it’s fucking impossible! The substance is not the limiting
factor, but the negative reactions are. I always don’t eat and drink
little while tweaking and that used to be fine. It still is fine. I’ll
be honest here – I use much more frequently than I admit to. It’s not a
“weekends only” thing by far. It would be better described by the word
“cycle”. I also tend to go for high doses, re-dose often, use
alkalinizers and other physical tricks like little water intake, forced
urine retention etc. All the symptoms I describe above starts happening
at shorter and shorter periods. It first started to appear at the end
of a 6 day meth run.

Now, the symptoms are starting to appear sooner and sooner – 5 days,
4 days, 3 days, you know the drill. My runs are the no sleep, no food
and no other substances except stimulants type, so that could be part
of the reason. I don’t exceed 3 day runs now, because I can’t! That’s
the only cycle I can sustain now – 3 days on/1-2 day(s) off/3 days on.
It’s not for the lack of trying, the symptoms get progressively worse
and worse until breathing take up most of my energy and the chest pain
becomes to prominent, it makes work impossible, so what’s the point of
tweaking then? I’m concerned that this means that there’s some sort of
permanent damage being done…I have existing hypertension (high blood
pressure) and that and the urine alkalinizers might be the reason why
it hits me so hard. I’ve been reading about amphetamine induced
pulmonary hypertension – if you get this lovely condition, the average
time till you buy the farm is quoted as 1-3 years. Speed/meth puts a
lot of strain on your body. Please be careful out there, if you’re
taking high doses with frequent re-dosing/using urinary alkalinizers as
potentiators/have existing hypertension or heart conditions. Do the
drugs, don’t let the drugs do you, eh? πŸ™‚

Now if only I would take my own advice…

P/S – I found that taking a high dose of benzodiazepines (I took
clonazepam) seem to lower your blood pressure and eliminate most of the
symptoms. Don’t take this as medical advice though, it’s just personal
observation. Also, by “high dose”, I mean a definite hypnotic dose –
one that will surely put you to sleep. I would also eat before I sleep,
cannabis works wonders.

I just realized that (meth)amphetamine is one of the things which
tends to lead to the utilization of multiple substances to effectively
manage the side effects – or as the anti-drug people like to call it,
“poly drug abuse”. That might be a cause of concern for some people, so
take care everyone!

Related link: Guide to coming down off meth and speed [sixthseal.com].

GABA – it’s not just a genre of music (that’s gabba)

I am so sleepy right now. I had a nice, long sleep from 12 pm to
nearly 10 pm but only the first 6 hours was any good…large cymbals
clashing over my face would not rouse me. It might give me a nosebleed,
but I’ll still be asleep. πŸ˜‰ Unfortunately, the increased binding of
GABA to my GABAA receptors and the resulting opening of the
chloride channel to promote the entry of Cl- which leads to
hyperpolarization and inhibited cellular excitation started to decrease
when I was 6 hours into my nice slumber. I’m being intentionally
obscure here, if you haven’t noticed. πŸ™‚

maccamrl.jpg

Anyway, I started to wake frequently after 6 hours – my neighbor
closing her door, our floor’s phone ringing, the resulting knocking on
doors and shouts of “phone call”, even the fucking toilet flushing made
me wake up. It’s all good though, I feel pretty rested but still
slightly sedated, but we’ll fix that later with some…caffeine of
course, what did you think I was going to say? Well, I’ll be off to
McDonald’s with my mates soon, and then it’s no sleep till Monday as I
finish up my written assignments this big fuck off coding assignment
which I haven’t even started. I had better get my laundry done too,
before I have to resort to re-wearing dirty underwear. The photo above
was taken outside the McDonalds we usually go to – it’s a mural of some
sort, with a caricature of someone with the Maccas Krew…thought it was
Simon Creen at first, but his facial features do not look the one in
the deco after a second look.

P/S – Thanks for commenting everyone, I’ll reply when I get back.

Photo Friday – Overlooked

overlook.jpg

Photo Friday – Overlooked [photofriday.com]

I’ve just started doing the Photo Friday weekly photography
challenge today. I’m interpreting this week’s photo challenge with this
photo – it shows a woman struggling with her push trolley and bags
after crossing the street, but that detail is easy to overlook. The
building’s strong visual presence in the background makes it the
dominating feature of the photo and the woman only makes herself
noticeable after the other elements have been visually processed. I
find that the building is the first thing I notice, followed by the
bus, and finally the woman, and only because it’s centered in the
bottom of the photo.

This photo was taken in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The shot
was made in Auto mode (without any custom settings except a suppressed
flash) from the open window of a moving car. My digicam uses Matrix
Metering in Auto mode. The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/78 sec – f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Tone Compensation: Auto
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Digital Zoom Ratio: 1.00
Saturation Compensation: 0
Sharpening: Auto
Noise Reduction: OFF

The flash did not go off (suppressed), and I didn’t realize I had
used a digital zoom of 1x while taking the photo. The digital zoom only
gets triggered when the optical zoom is at the maximum (3x zoom), and
the digital zoom probably contributed to the slight lack of detail. The
digital zoom also means that the photo was taken with a total of 4x
zoom. Chromatic aberration is noticeable on the left wing of the
building, and this was not corrected in post-production. The
post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Crop: A very slight crop to center the woman and reduce the
vertical scale of the building was applied to the original photo, with
aspect ratios intact.
Brightness: Gamma increased for better visibility.
Contrast: Contrast increased to draw out more detail from the woman.

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