Pareidolia. I’m always looking for potential ‘faces’, especially in food. Many a times I’ll interrupt the assembly of my breakfast, whip out my phone, and . . .
Bagels are the most frequent targets because I cut them into four slices, exposing various air pockets. Combined with the center hole, it makes for a high probability of facial expressions . . . provided one has the imagination and desire to see them. I’m told some people can’t see them . . . the poor bastards.
The voting for Round 6 of the Title Writing Prompt Challenge closes at Noon, Tuesday, September 6th. If you are interested in reading the stories and voting, or if you’ve read the stories and have yet to vote, there’s no time like the present.
You can find the poll and stories links in THIS post, and also — as a service to lazy readers — the stories, with their associated blurbs, linked below.
As mentioned in the last reminder post, both Perry and Gary wrote pretty good stories, and their heated votes battle reflects that fact. Of course, it would be nice if readers made a point of reading all our stories, but I’m suggesting their Round 6 stories are worth the effort. Mine? Nah.
E. J. D’Alise submission<<link
Edwina never dreamed she’d have to defend her choice. Now, she’s doing just that in justifying her antinatalism view.
Perry Broxson submission<<link
Jack, recently divorced, starts his second act. He finds a great new lady, only to lose her…inexplicably, to suicide. He has to know why, why, why she took her life. But that information will cost him dearly.
R. G. Broxson submission<<link
What makes a family uproot and risk everything for a new life? Follow a boy from Honduras as he and his mother and unborn sister make the treacherous journey to the land of opportunity. It won’t be easy. Hot on their heels is Satan, a ruthless gang banger that can’t afford to let them testify against him. Will they survive? Read and see.
Now, then . . . . Samsung Note 20 Ultra. I’ve not been posting many of the photos I snap, other than the results of me using Photoshop Mix and Paper Artist.
But, today, I share photos from April. Not all, mind you, but some.
I begin with a panorama of the Southern Illinois University Campus lake.
I happened to have spent a fair amount of time around that lake. Sometimes walking with Melisa, sometimes fishing, sometimes riding my bike, and sometimes just sitting. I was surprised to learn that bikes are no longer allowed on the paved path that goes around the lake.
Why was I there so much? Well, to the right of that first photo . . .
The SDS “Sloth” voting round has come to an end.
Here’s the updated logo . . .
If you want to know more about the SDS challenge, THIS Post <<link explains it.
If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins stories submitted for the Sin of Sloth and see the results of the vote, THIS POST <<link is what you want to visit.
This post documents our September 16, 2017, arrival and sojourn in Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s also the continuation of my documentation of our 2017 Alaska Cruise which began in November 2017. The documentation began in November of 2017; the cruise itself was in September 2017. With any luck, I’ll wrap this up this year.
Anyway, current and previous posts relating to this cruise are HERE(link).
There’s a gallery at the end of this post and a SmugMug gallery HERE(link) for photos from this day. Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size. The SmugMug Folder Containing all of the Alaska 2017 galleries is HERE(link).
You can click on the photos in the body of this post to see a larger-but-less-than-full-size-version. I’m breaking up photos into multiple posts in an effort to keep them manageable. Meaning, composing long posts in the Block Editor (ptui!) is still an exercise in frustration.
For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.
For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the top-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).
If you want the full experience, keep reading.
That’s yet another ice disk I pulled from one of my birdbaths following a partial thaw of the ice contained therein. I’ve shared such disks before, like, for instance in THIS post.
That was from two years ago, and I then had only one birdbath . . . I now have four, and I’m sharing the discs from three of them. The fourth birdbath is roughly heart-shaped, and I broke the ice before it dawned on me to photograph it.
I came across an image on the web, and I felt the call to recreate it . . . but, also, I felt the call to artsify it . . .
Now, the artsifications were made with the intent of obfuscating the subject of the image . . . so kudos to readers who can work out what it is before the reveal.
The SDS “Pride” voting round has come to an end.
Here’s the updated logo . . .
If you want to know more about the SDS challenge, THIS Post <<link explains it.
If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins stories submitted for the Sin of Pride and see the results of the vote, THIS POST <<link is what you want to visit.
This is a quick reminder that the voting for the SDS Challenge Pride Stories ends at Noon, January 6, 2022. We had a quick flurry of votes before it came to a screeching halt well short of our typical volume for this challenge . . . but, then, we still have seven days (six if you don’t count today) to pick up the slack.
If you are new to the SDS Challenge, a little background.
Three writers will each write one story a month, going down the list of deadly sins. The stories can be anywhere from 666 words to 6,666 words in length, although those numbers are not set in stone (and Perry has blown them out of the water and into orbit). If ambitious, the writers will provide accompanying graphics. These stories will not be anonymous because some writers may want to use the same characters for each story and write a series — or book — encompassing all seven sins. Finally, interpretation of the titular sin is up to the writer. Meaning, each ‘sin’ can take multiple forms.
Disclaimer: The writing challenge has no restrictions, and the stories will likely span a wide gamut of genres. Most of the stories fall in the PG-rating range, with a few perhaps pushing into the soft R-rating. Some readers might find a few of the stories disturbing because of the topics, language, and/or plot points, and if so, stop reading and move on.
If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins submissions for the Sin of Pride, and then vote, your gateway is THIS POST <<link. There, you’ll find links to each of the three stories and a poll for you to vote after you finish them (if you be so moved).
So, I’ve not shown many photos from the Note 20 recently. Yesterday evening I sat outside until it got dark, which is pretty early these days. In case people think I’m nuts, it was in the upper 60s and quite comfortable.
Later on, we experienced severe weather (but not as bad as to our South and East and West). but, what I want to show is a photo taken with the phone in “Pro” mode. That means the settings are all manual and the phone does no processing at all.
Can’t see, much, right? Well, what do you expect? … it was dark.
Yes, I’m still around.
For them wondering when the next SDS stories are going up, the estimate is the middle of the week . . . realistically, it’ll likely be toward the end of the week.
The SDS “Wrath” voting round has come to an end.
Here’s the updated logo . . .
If you want to know more about the SDS challenge, THIS Post <<link explains it.
If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins stories submitted for the Sin of Envy and see the results of the vote, THIS POST <<link is what you want to visit.
For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.
For a SmugMug slideshow click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the top-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos as this will pause the slideshow.
If you want the full experience, keep reading.
~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~
I’ve been too lazy to post stuff, and for that, I’m sorry. I have a number of new photos (and videos) I want to share, photo series I want to finish presenting, and, of course, the next installment of the Seven Deadly Sins Challenge; the Envy stories.
This post, however, is just to tell you all that is coming . . . eventually. Oh, remember Bagel Faces from a few post ago? Well, I kept playing with them . . .
They might look the same, but these have been run through Topaz’s Impression plugin. It modified the bread-like complexion and made them more . . . well, more face-like. or so I think.
The SDS “Wrath” voting round has come to an end.
Here’s the updated logo . . .
If you want to know more about the SDS challenge, THIS Post <<link explains it.
If you want to read the Seven Deadly Sins stories submitted for the Sin of Wrath and see the results of the vote, THIS POST <<link is what you want to visit.
Edited to Add: the caca Block Editor’s Paragraph Block is — for some probably stupid coding reason — highlighting all the text in yellow. I’ve tried to fix it a number of times, and I’ll keep trying, but if you see the distracting and unwanted yellow highlight, please curse whoever coded the editor (I do).
Edited to Add: Apparently, per the response I received, this is a recent and known bug. They are “working on it” without a current estimate for when it will be fixed. Yes, yes . . . the caca Block Editor is great!.
Edited to Add: One of the support people sent me this email, and the fix appears to have worked (except the text color is not what I had specified when I created the post); the yellow highlight is no more. Below, I include the directions and the piece of code to add to your site (use the customize link provided) as directed by the support team:
BELOW THIS LINE IS FROM THE SUPPORT TEAM
Can you add the following CSS code to your site?
/* -- fix text highlight issue | 4377763-zen (DZ)-- */
mark {
color: unset !important;
background-color: unset !important;
}
Please browse to Customizer ( https://wordpress.com/customize/ ) > Additional CSS and add the code at the bottom there below any existing code.
ABOVE THIS LINE IS FROM THE SUPPORT TEAM
This post continues my documentation of our 2017 Alaska Cruise which began in November 2017 (the documentation began in November of 2017 — the cruise was in September of 2021 2017). How’s that for running a bit late?
Anyway, current and previous posts relating to this cruise are HERE(link).
There’s a SmugMug gallery HERE(link). Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size.
You can click on the photos in the body of this post to see a larger-but-less-than-full-size-version. I should also mention many of these photos are of lesser quality than I would like as they are primarily taken with my then Note II. Not that the Note II didn’t take excellent photos; the poor quality is a combination of low-lighting and a bit of carelessness on my part.
Disperser Tracks 