Worst Dog Ever
I drew this picture of a dog the other day at dinner and this is the reaction that I got from my friend, the only other adult present out of four people: "That is the worst picture of a dog I have ever seen." The reaction was swift and definitive. There was no deliberation or hesitation at all.
I'm not sure that the picture deserved such a harsh critique, since it is, in fact, instantly recognizable as a dog. So at least, if nothing else, it is representational. It does convey the actual visual details that constitute the appearance of a dog. So even though it is not a particularly satisfying piece on an intellectual level, it does convey visual information. I agree that something a little less literal might have allowed me to express the more ethereal aspects of what it is that actually constitutes "dogness" in a more general sense, but I was actually going for something more documentary than that.
I think the worst picture of a dog ever would be a picture that conveys neither the representational details of the animal, nor a sense of the dynamic aspects of his being that make him who he is (or at least who he is to us.) So even though this piece fails to get at the more expansive emotive aspects of what a dog means, it is an acceptable stab at simply depicting a dog, and so I can easily conceive of a far worse picture of a dog than this.
Figure 1: Is this really the worst picture of a dog ever?
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Figure 2: I guess writing a story about a dog is something a little closer to my comfort zone than drawing.
Enlarge Photo Labels: animals, images, weird
The Perfect Pop 2
I'm still aggressively pursuing my dream of achieving the perfect pop, that is, the bag of microwave popcorn that yields 100% edible product with no wasted kernels. The search for the perfect pop has been long and much harder than I thought it would be. In this attempt, you can see by my analysis that I fell well short of my goal.
Figure 1: This bag yielded a satisfying volume of edible product. As you can see from this image, the substance that resulted from heating the bag in the microwave is both enticing and copious. Will this bag be the perfect pop? When I eat to the bottom of this, will I find that there are no unpopped kernels of popcorn left over?
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Figure 2: In this establishing shot you can see that there does remain a disappointingly large number of unpopped kernels.
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Figure 3: This is a view of the bag at high magnification. The brown ovoid masses that you see prominently represent unpopped kernels of popcorn. I realize that this image is a little bit too busy to be meaningful but I present it here so that you can see the raw data that I had to work with in my analysis.
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Figure 4: This image represents the same data presented above in Figure 3, but here it has been subject to graphical analysis which has revealed several key features which would otherwise have been lost to the naked eye. This analysis shows that there were 20 kernels of unpopped popcorn left over after I ate the edible yield. The unpopped kernels displayed in this analysis are marked with red circles. The analysis also reveals the presence of something else in this image, which I found startling. This careful analysis reveals that there was, in fact, edible popcorn substance remaining in this bag even after I had given the bag up for finished. If you study the output from this analysis, you can see the edible product marked by small green circles. Comparative optical quantitative techniques show that the largest of the uneaten edible fragments is nearly as large as an unpopped popcorn kernel. Finally, the graphical analysis that I undertook also reveals the presence of a substance far more sinister and disturbing than either of the two upon which I have previously commented. Marked with blue circles, even a person unaccustomed to the analysis of popcorn kernels can see that what we have here, are half-poppers. Half-poppers are the worst. What these are, are kernels that did pop, but didn't pop all the way. These are the kernels that start to look good to you when you get to the bottom of the bag, and your show is still on, and you don't feel like getting up for something else. These are the ones that you start to believe are edible, and they'll get you every time because they aren't. They'll hurt your teeth and they don't taste good, and I would much rather have kernels that just didn't pop at all than these half-poppers. I actually think we could demoralize Al Qaeda right out of existence if we all collected our half poppers, and then we invited the terrorists over for a movie, and maybe some beer or whatever, and then when we made popcorn we slipped our half-poppers into their bags without telling them. After that, they'd go back to their caves saying, "Man, that place is a dump. Why do we even bother? Their popcorn over there sucks."
Enlarge Photo Labels: food, images, weird
The Perfect Pop 1
I'm on a quest to achieve the perfect pop. The perfect pop is when you make a bag of microwave popcorn and two things happen: 1) there is not a single kernel of corn left un-popped and 2) the popcorn isn't scorched at all.
This attempt came pretty close. The popcorn wasn't burned, and as you can see from the detailed graphical analysis in Figure 2 below, there were only 4 kernels of corn left un-popped.
Figure 1: This was a decent bag of popcorn. Not a lot of kernels left and no burned corn.
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Figure 2: This is a graphical analysis of the extent to which kernels were left un-popped in this bag of popcorn.
Enlarge Photo Labels: food, images, weird
Congrats Grad
I hope the person who made the sign hasn't graduated yet.
Labels: images
Ribbed Hair Tie
This is a strange hair tie. It has ribs on it.
Labels: Hair_Ties, images, weird
Shatner Eggs
Bent Hair Tie
This parking lot hair tie has a kink in it. I think the kink in it, and the way it is sitting on the pavement, makes it look sort of like the numbers 13,000.
Figure 2: I wonder if the kink in this hair tie is due to some damage or if it came like that. I also wonder if the kink is why it either fell out or was discarded.
Enlarge Photo Labels: Hair_Ties, images, weird
Mysterious Hair Tie
I saw another hair tie in a parking lot yesterday. This one was special because it was touching the white parking lot lines. As you can see from the photo, this hair tie also looks a lot like the number 13,000.
Labels: Hair_Ties, images, mysterious, weird
Willy Wonka
I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again, an average of about five times every seven days. I made these two commemorative illustrations on my Magna-Doodle which I think look a lot like Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Which one do you think looks more like him? Please fill out my
contact form and let me know.
Figure 2: This is an illustration of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, movies, weird
Hair Tie 3
I was walking into Starbucks today at
River and Campbell and I saw this hair tie in the parking lot. It looks like it has light-colored hair on it. I wonder how many hair ties there are in parking lots.
Figure 1: This is the hair tie pretty much how I saw it in the Starbucks parking lot.
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Figure 2: This is the hair tie almost completely desaturated.
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Figure 3: This is the hair tie as it looked with my cell phone camera, and also hyper-saturated.
Enlarge Photo Labels: Hair_Ties, images, weird
Broken Ranger
I was walking today and I found this man who I think was probably hit by a car. He's missing a hand and a foot. I'm going to go back maybe on Thursday to see if I can find the missing parts.
Figure 1: I found this broken Power Ranger type of guy today.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, toys, weird
Shatner is Back
You know what it's time for. You know what went down this weekend with the rabbit and the eggs and whatnot. It's the best time of year, party people, because the Shatner eggs are back. And it's a good haul. That is all I have to say about that right now.
Figure 1: This decorative egg tribute to William Shatner was made using two different dyes and a Sharpie marker.
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Figure 2: Bill Shatner. If you don't know, you don't know.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, Shatner, weird
Easter Rabbit
Most of the dead rabbits I see were dead when I first saw them. This one wasn't. This was just a little fellow and he seemed sick. He just kind of died over the course of a day.
Figure 1: This poor little guy died from something. He didn't seem hurt or anything, just sick.
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Figure 2: I wonder if maybe he got separated from his mom too early.
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Figure 3: I don't think this spot was on his neck when he was still alive.
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Figure 4: He developed this hole in his thorax over the course of about two weeks.
Enlarge Photo In an almost unprecedented move this evening I've included this after-photo text to issue a challenge. If you are the first person to correctly explain the caption on the enlarged image above this paragraph, then I will send you a T-shirt.
Labels: animals, dead things, images, weird
Another Tie
I got a note from someone who saw my hair tie picture. She said she had the same thing happen to her, except the one she kept seeing was at the Post Office.
While we're on the subject, here's a hair tie that I've seen every day for about the last ten months.
Figure 1: This is a hair tie that's seen some miles. I would say about maybe 15,000 miles.
Enlarge Photo Labels: Hair_Ties, images, weird
Hair Tie
This is a mystery. Or maybe a miracle. Twice a week, I go to the same parking lot. I've been going to this parking lot since January of 2007. The first day I went to the lot in January, there was a little hair tie on the ground in one of the parking spaces. I noticed it on my way in. Then, I noticed it was still there on the way out. Not too big of a deal, I was only there a few hours. But the next week it was still there, in the same parking spot. And the next week after that. And the next month after that. And it's still there as of last night, in the exact same spot. That's a long time to be in the same spot.
In other news, I can't remember what I did with the remains of the original dead rabbit. I am not sure what happened to them after I put them into my truck.
Labels: Hair_Ties, images, mysterious, weird
Dead Rabbit Season
It must be dead rabbit season again. It kind of gives me the willies. There have been two found this past week. One, the one indicated here, was only about fifteen feet from the original one. This one didn't last long, though. He was gone within a day. I wonder if something ate him.
For the first time in recorded history, the pictures of this dead rabbit are too disgusting to show. They actually did not meet the standards of the Disgusting Pictures Council so they are shown here in only limited form.
Figure 1: The actual picture was more disgusting than this.
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Figure 3: I wonder why this guy disappeared so fast.
Enlarge Photo Labels: dead things, images, weird
Happy Meal Lion
Check out this lion. He came in a Happy Meal.
Labels: images, toys
Chain Bookstore Bathrooms
Why is the men's room in a chain bookstore bathroom always such a pit? They're universally filthy and heavily abused, at least the ones I've been to. The bookstore can be in great shape and relatively new, but the bathroom always looks like it's ground zero in a gang war. They smell like the ones in a bus station, they're torn apart like somebody locked a gorilla in there, and they're covered with graffiti. Why is that? Are chain bookstores typically centers for local gang activity? Are avid readers the kind of folks who like to tear up public restrooms and smear feces on the stall dividers? It's a mystery to me. I get the geeky pictures like the one below, that kind of makes sense, but the cigarette burns on the toilet paper dispensers? The urine scent on the walls? The gang-looking graffiti? I go to the bookstore quite a bit and I never see a particularly rowdy crowd there, so I'm wondering who does this?
Figure 1: I took this photo in the bathroom at
Borders Books and Music on Oracle Road in Tucson, AZ. The photo depicts Jack from Jack In The Box restaurant suggesting that we try his
ciabatta sandwich. If you left this picture in the stall there, please
write to me and tell me why.
Enlarge Photo Labels: graffiti, images
Barbie
Figure 1: This is a picture of Barbie. I took it a while ago with an old camera. Barbie is lit with a candle and I used a long exposure to get enough light.
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Figure 2: This is the same picture of Barbie, but different.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, toys, weird
Chinese Motorcycle 200GY
I ended up renovating a brand new Chinese motorcycle. Its chief complaint was a broken fuel tank. The petcock mounts to a three-inch stalk of polyethylene that is plastic welded to the main tank, and the plastic weld failed after 240 miles.
I looked around on the Internet to find a replacement tank, but parts are not so easy to find for a Chinese motorcycle, especially when you don't know the trick. So then I researched adhesives to bond the stalk back on, but they were almost as expensive as a plastic welder, which was way more money than a plastic fuel tank should cost.
Then I learned the trick of Chinese motorcycles. Many of them are the same or close enough to have interchangeable parts, even though they're made by different manufacturers. That makes it easier to find parts for them. I was used to thinking that any given model of motorcycle would be made by only one manufacturer. Like the way cars are. Only the manufacturer Toyota makes the model Camry. Only Mazda makes the model RX-8.
Chinese motorcycles aren't like that, though. There are a whole bunch of manufacturers for a particular model. For instance, what I was working with was a HiSun 200GY. If you go to look for parts for a HiSun 200GY, good luck. You won't find them. But the model 200GY is actually made by a ton of different manufacturers, so if you widen your search for just 200GY parts, then parts are available, though not conveniently.
I eventually found a fuel tank that has a long built-in metal petcock stalk that bolts directly to the tank instead of having a plastic stalk at all, and even though it was for a bike made by a different manufacturer, it pretty much almost fit with minimal effort.
Figure 1: This is the gas tank. It has been taken off of the bike. The right side of this photo would be toward the rear of the bike as assembled, the left side toward the front. The top of this photo is the top of the gas tank. So we are looking at the left side of the tank as it would be mounted.
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Figure 2: Notice that the petcock is mounted to an approximately three-inch black polyethylene stalk that is plastic welded to the polyethylene tank itself. This tank failed at that plastic weld.
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Figure 3: You can see the stalk separating from the tank.
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Figure 4: You can see one of the fuel filters poking up out of the stalk.
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Figure 5: This joint was made with polyethylene plastic welding rod. There are only a couple of adhesives available for bonding polyethylene. One of them is made by 3M. It is very expensive but it seems like the one that would be most likely to work on this joint.
Enlarge Photo Labels: Chinese motorcycles, devices, images, projects, serious
Gingerbread Man
Merry Christmas!
Figure 1: This gingerbread man has a sweater and a belt.
Enlarge Photo Labels: food, images, weird
Nokia 6800 R.I.P.
Gross-Up 3
Are you ready party people? Let's play Gross-Up, the game inspired by my brother.
Figure 1: What could this be? If you click where it says Enlarge Photo down below, you might just find out.
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Labels: images, weird
Leg Wound 3
With Congress out of session in August and everybody flung to the far corners of the country to drop in on the voters, there hasn't been much for me to blog about. But in the last week, things have definitely picked up. D.C. is back in action and so am I.
My leg wound still festers.
In a related story tonight, I found the scab off my leg wound -- the original scab. That's the second time I lost and found it.
I got asked if I needed help twice, and that annoyed me. I also prepared a photo essay on strollers. So there is a lot to look forward to in this new Fall season.
Figure 1: This thing seems to be taking forever to heal.
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Figure 3: The weeping bloody part perplexes me, since I don't remember injuring it again.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, weird, wounds
Zucchini Bed
Is that a zucchini in your bed?
Labels: images, weird
Face Harvest
The rabbit deteriorated to the point that I was afraid in not too much longer, there would be no trace of him left at all. So I decided to harvest his head.
Figure 2: The skull bones are becoming more visible, although they have been crushed. I imagine somebody stepped on the rabbit head by accident.
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Figure 7: This is the rabbit head on the floor of my truck.
Enlarge Photo Labels: animals, dead things, images, weird
Black Bug
I saw a bug. It was big and black. It didn't move very quickly. Both the bug and I survived this encounter.
Labels: animals, images, weird
Leg Wound 2
The leg wound is healing. It still doesn't look pretty, but it's not much trouble. People are always asking me about it. It gets me a lot of sympathy. It hasn't really had any adverse effects on me though. It hasn't interfered with my social or occupational functioning.
I'm listening to Johnny Cash. I like his new song "
God's Gonna Cut You Down." It was on my ipod yesterday while I was running and by doubling the beat, I could exactly keep pace with it at 9 miles per hour. But not for long. So I guess the lyric "You can run on for a long time," while inspiring to hear when I'm running, isn't precisely true.
You can run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
Go and tell that long tongue liar,
Go and tell that midnight rider,
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter,
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down.
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down.
Well my goodness gracious,
Let me tell you the news.
My head's been wet with the midnight dew.
I've been down on bended knee,
Talkin' to the man from Galiee.
He spoke to me in a voice so sweet,
I thought I heard the shuffle of angels' feet.
He called my name and my heart stood still,
When He said "John go do my will."
Go and tell that long tongue liar,
Go and tell that midnight rider,
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter,
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down.
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down.
You can run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
You may throw your rock, hide your hand,
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man.
But as sure as God made black and white,
What's done in the dark,
Will be brought to the light.
You can run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
Sooner, or later, God'll cut you down.
Go and tell that long tongue liar,
Go and tell that midnight rider,
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter,
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down,
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down,
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down.
I also think it's an impressive feat to come back from the grave and make an awesome record. I feel like not a lot of people are talking about how odd that is. I think Johnny Cash, Tupac, and Bob Marley should make a record together now. It would be like a "Back From the Dead" tour.
Labels: images, music, weird, wounds
Mystery Wound 12
Today is Day 52 after my mole removal surgery. The removal left more of a scar than I thought it would, at least so far anyway, but I guess all in all the wound healing process has been going well.
Figure 1: Day 52. This left more of a scar than I thought.
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Labels: images, wounds
Bird Problem
One morning I woke up in El Paso and stepped outside my front door and there was a dead bird right next to my foot. I had a terrible problem with birds nesting right above my front door and pooping all over the door step. I used to hose down their nest when I was sure there weren't any eggs or babies in it, and they'd rebuild with lightning speed. One summer, they got some kind of disease and the babies kept hatching and dying all summer. It was disgusting.
Labels: animals, dead things, images, weird
Leg Wound
What was in
Gross Up 2?
You either know by now, or you don't know. If you routinely use the "Enlarge Photo" link, then you know the answer to the Gross Up. Unfortunately, I have noticed that many visitors, even the most frequent visitors among you, do not regularly follow the "Enlarge Photo" link.
That is unfortunate because you can get a lot of entertainment by following the "Enlarge Photo" links. Sometimes there's a whole different picture there just waiting for you to click the "Enlarge Photo" link that is underneath every single photo in every single post. Often, nearly always, the captions under the enlarged photos are different than the ones in the actual post, and who knows, the captions may even contain cryptic but important messages that might be useful in future games and activities. In any case, it's probably a good idea for all Thinksimians to at least have a working knowledge of what's in the "Enlarge Photo" captions. You never know when that might be useful to you.
Figure 1: This is the leg wound featured last week in Gross Up 2.
Enlarge Photo Labels: Gross-Up, images, wounds
Hurt Foot
Back in September or October of 2005 I broke my toe.
I was playing "Flying Diaper Dog" and I crashed into an ottoman. In that game, I hold the baby up like Superman and I fly him all over the place fighting imaginary crime. Usually we do alright, but in this case, the enemy prevailed.
Figure 2: This is my hurt toe bandaged up using the buddy splint method.
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Figure 3: This is a chicken carcass down on the kitchen floor.
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Figure 4: This is my sore toe next to a chicken carcass, for comparison.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, wounds
Gross-Up 2
Are you ready party people!
Let's play Gross-Up!
Labels: Gross-Up, images
Mysterious Damage 2
I finally found out what happened to the sign at Campbell and Roger, the sign I showed in the post called
Mysterious Damage.
I called the number on their website and the guy there told me that somebody hit it with a car.
Labels: Accidents, images, mysterious
Bruegger's Bagels
I like to eat bagels. Salt bagels are my favorite. In Tucson we are lucky to have a few different bagel places. In El Paso we just had the one. It was a good place, but it was the only place in town which made me nervous. Also, they weren't open on Sundays, which is kind of ironic.
Anyway, we've got at least one independent place here, and we have two chains. There are two
Einstein Brothers and ten or so
Bruegger's Bagels. Of all of those,
Bruegger's is my favorite mostly for two reasons:
- The bagels taste the best to me.
- They have salt bagels.
A few weeks ago, all of a sudden the Bruegger's on
Sunrise and Swan started using the wrong salt on their bagels. Instead of using pretzel salt, they were using kosher salt. That disgusted me.
I ate it like that for maybe two weeks, and then one day I was in the Bruegger's on
River and Stone and I saw a guy working there wearing a tie. He looked like a high-ranking official of some sort, so I figured it might just be the time to say something, even though the problem I was having wasn't with the River and Stone Bruegger's at all.
I told the tie-wearing guy about my problem. He said they didn't use kosher salt, even at Sunrise and Swan. He said they always use pretzel salt. I said I knew for a fact they weren't using pretzel salt at Sunrise and Swan. I just ate a bagel there, and it didn't have the right kind of salt on it. He said maybe they ran out for that one day and used the wrong salt. I told him the problem had been going on for two weeks.
The official's attitude was kind of annoying. His communication to me was more trying to convince me that they weren't doing what I said they were, even though I knew they were.
It was a while before I went to Bruegger's again after that. Not because of the marginally unhelpful official, just because I didn't go for a week. When I went again, I went to the Sunrise and Swan location. When I got my bagel, I noticed that they started using the right kind of salt again. At least for the most part. There was actually a mixture of the right kind of salt and the wrong kind.
Figure 1: In this photo you can see that Bruegger's has started using the right kind of salt again on their salt bagel. The larger white opaque granules are the pretzel salt. The smaller translucent amorphous granules are the kosher salt. For about two weeks, the salt bagels were covered with the translucent kosher salt rather than with the pretzel salt.
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Figure 2: Can you see the clusters of kosher salt mixed in?
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Figure 3: In this photo I've tagged the pretzel salt with green, since it's what's supposed to be there, and the kosher salt with red because it is not supposed be there. I wondered if the translucent salt was maybe an artifact of some salt dissolving on the surface of the bagel and then re-crystallizing. I though that was unlikely, and a more likely explanation was that the person who salts the bagels does so from a large shaker. I imagined that he filled the large shaker from an even larger box of salt. My theory was that for two weeks the bagel maker had kosher salt in his shaker, and then when he got the regular pretzel salt in, he just poured the pretzel salt into the shaker on top of the kosher salt, and so the two became mixed. If the translucent salt is an artifact of dissolving and re-crystallizing, the ratio of red dots to green dots in the photo above should stay relatively constant from day to day. If the issue is that there was still some kosher salt kicking around in the shaker, then the ratio of red dots to green dots should diminish over time.
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Figure 4: More examples of inappropriate salt on my bagel. The black sphere is nothing. It's just a poppy seed. Not a mouse turd or anything like that.
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Figure 5: By now you should be able to pick out for yourself which are the good salts and which are the bad.
Enlarge Photo Labels: food, images, serious
Wounded Engineer 5
Day 6: The sutures are out.
Figure 1: It doesn't look like there will be much of a scar at all.
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Labels: images, wounds
Wounded Engineer 4
This is Day 5 after the wound was sustained. Data for Day 4 was lost due to a dead battery.
This is the last day for the sutures. The next time you see this cut, it'll be held together all on its own.
Figure 1: This is a running suture. A running suture doesn't have knots on each stitch. It's one continuous thread of suture material from beginning to end. Some of these sutures are completely embedded at this point.
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Labels: images, wounds
Wounded Engineer 3
The wound is healing. I think this guy is going to be OK. The skin may mend itself, but that basketball game is lost forever.
Labels: images, wounds
Sweet Skills
I have some sweet drawing skills. Check out this one guy I drew.
Labels: images
New Brain Age
This is a little better. I didn't feel like my Brain Age was 62. Most of the time it hovers in the low 30s but this was my all-time best.
Figure 1: That's a relief. My Brain age isn't as bad as I thought at first. It takes a while to get used to the interface. It does have excellent handwriting recognition, though.
Enlarge Photo Labels: games, images
Wounded Engineer 2
The wound continues to heal. Good thing, too, because who would do all the satellite circuit testing otherwise?
Labels: images, wounds
Wounded Engineer
Our friend the aerospace engineer from the Los Angeles area has sustained a serious injury. He was trying to get a rebound from a guy who can dunk and he got an elbow in his eye. He went down hard and everyone was yelling: "[aerospace engineer whose name has been altered so nobody Google's him and sees his name on this site and thinks he's some kind of weird freak because of that]! [aerospace engineer whose name has been altered so nobody Google's him and sees his name on this site and thinks he's some kind of weird freak because of that]! Are you OK? Dude, that is not good. You need to get stitches, [aerospace engineer whose name has been altered so nobody Google's him and sees his name on this site and thinks he's some kind of weird freak because of that]."
Our poor friend didn't even get to take his foul shot because he was bleading all over everything.
Labels: images, wounds
Mysterious Damage
What happened here?
The University of Arizona has a farm. Several of them, I think. This one is officially known as the University of Arizona College of Agriculture
Campus Agricultural Center. It's in an odd place for a farm, sort of in the middle of an urban/suburban environment.
The U of A has a sign for their farm. The sign is at the northwest corner of
Campbell Ave. and Roger Rd.A few weeks ago I noticed that the sign had taken some pretty serious damage. I don't know what happened or how long ago it was, but it looks like there was a lot of energy involved, fire, and moderately intense heat.
There are three competing theories for the cause of this damage:
- A car went through the fence. Maybe it was traveling north on Campbell, tried to make a left onto Roger, and then the left went bad for some reason. Maybe it caught fire at some point and that's what burned the sign.
- Lightning. Maybe the sign was struck. The fence and reflector posts bent toward the sign make this less likely, as does the presence locally of several taller metal poles.
- Gas Problem. There is exposed plumbing visible poking up from the ground in Figure 2 and Figure 4. Is it gas plumbing? Could this have caused or contributed to the problem?
I am going to try to get to the bottom of this.
Figure 1: Looking west across Campbell at Campbell and Roger
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Figure 4: From Campbell. Notice the reflector post to the right is not bent, but the one to the left (between the two white posts from this view) is bent.
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Figure 5: From this angle, it looks strange that one reflector post is bent but the other is not. Figure 4 makes it more clear why that is.
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Figure 6: I wonder if somebody stood the white fence back up a little bit, because it seems like if a car went through it, it would be flat to the ground.
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Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 11
The Steri-Strips are off. They came off at about 7:30 pm 12 July 2006. As far as the contest goes, it's sort of too close to call and I think we have a three-way tie. Well, unless the prize is expensive, in that case I will "randomly" choose the lucky winner from among the correct entries received from aerospace engineers living in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
The wound itself is looking good. Too good, as a matter of fact. It looks so good it's sort of boring, so I developed (actually refined, since I used a similar process once before) a process I call "Zombification" which is designed to make relatively non-disgusting wound images look like disgusting wound pictures again.
The proprietary Zombification process whose mathematical description is a closely guarded secret is now fully automated and reproducible. The automation of the Zombification process allows for different images to be Zombified in a systematic way, providing for detailed comparison and analysis.
Figure 1: This is the standard view of the wound taken after the Steri-Strips came off.
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Figure 2: This is a close-up of the left side of the wound.
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Figure 3: This is a view of the right side of the wound.
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Figure 4: This is the Zombified view. Note the generally Zombie-like appearance of the skin and the amplified redness.
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Figure 5: For comparison, this is a picture of the wound right before the sutures came out. I applied the proprietary Zombification process to this image to give you a frame of reference for what the process does to an image.
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