the sloppy copy

What are you trying to say to me, Camera?

Santa was exceptionally gracious this Christmas: Julie got a new digital camera! At long last, I would be able to give back to my brother his camera: one that I’ve been using for approximately eight months now. Why was I using brother’s camera? More on that in a minute.

My love for taking pictures is a new one, my addiction having been enabled by my photog friend Carynn. Though the artistry of my pictures doesn’t quite live up to her results, it’s nice to have something to aspire to. (There’s your shout-out, C-Dawg!).

My first digital camera was a good one, but as is often the case when one starts making “real” money in a “real” job, the need to upgrade slowly creeps in. In retrospect (sigh), I should have saved my money.

So, in late summer/early fall of 2008, I started shopping around for a new camera. I settled on another Kodak: my first one was fine, why fix what ain’t broke? So one fateful evening, after weeks of playing that add-to-cart, remove-from-cart game that often precedes a purchase of over $100, I bit the bullet and clicked Place Order. In about a weeks’ time, I’d be the proud owner of a new camera.

Or not.

One week, two weeks, three weeks passed. According to the UPS tracking number, my package had been delivered… but where? I filed a claim with UPS — no help. I even called Kodak — no help. I stalked the mailroom (at the time, my shipping address was sometimes complicated, so it made sense that it was just sitting there, undelivered). Every day for about a week, I called to inquire about my package in the morning. Then, when I felt like there might have been a shift change, I would walk over there in person in the afternoons. I asked to speak with the person who had apparently signed for my package. I was even allowed inside to watch while employees searched shelves upon shelves of packages, looking for mine. The folks I spoke with seemed genuinely sorry, especially after I told them exactly what I was waiting for.

I was upset. I was disappointed. I was very, very angry.

But after a few months of waiting, I chalked it up to a loss. I shouldn’t have been so greedy, I told myself. My old camera was perfectly fine, I didn’t need a new one. I decided it was a sign.

Fast forward to about February 2009… when my package mysteriously arrived. Seems it had gotten shoved to the back of some pile of boxes, or… No. I didn’t even care anymore. As long as I had my camera, all was well. She was a beauty, and took fine-looking pictures. I’d even sprung for a memory card (I’d never owned one before) so that I could take more than a dozen pictures at a time. It was awesome.

But then, one fateful night, I placed my camera in my purse and went out with some friends. We were chaperoning a dance. I put my purse and coat in what I thought was an out-of-the-way closet. I forgot that my camera was inside, but no worries. Other people had cameras; the night would be documented regardless.
It wasn’t until the next day that I pulled my camera out of my purse.

The screen had been smashed.
This voided the warranty.
It could not be fixed for less than the original purchase price.
Talk about a cluster fuck.

It appeared that someone must have stepped on my purse, with the camera still inside. I had tucked it into a corner, under a chair. Maybe someone moved the chair and crunched my purse in the process? I didn’t want to think about it. Disappointment and sadness and anger – more than before – overwhelmed me. I vowed to never waste my money on a camera again, and I took possession of my brother’s. He never used it, after all.

But then someone funny happened: he wanted it back. So back to the drawing board I went, playing the add-to-cart, remove-from-cart game.

Until Santa intervened, bringing me the glorious device pictured above.
To say that I was stoked would be a gross understatement. I mean: look at this thing! Santa done good! This was far better than anything I’d considered buying for myself.

So I got her out of the box, charged her up, and took her for a test spin: Wow, what a zoom! And so many settings! I was overwhelmed, but with excitement and happiness and gratefulness this time!

Until I noticed something funny: after I took a picture, the camera started making noises. I can’t quite describe these noises other than to say it sounds like it’s trying to autofocus on EVERYTHING. Little scritch-scritch sounds I’ve never experienced with any other Kodak (remember: this is my fourth). Online research and troubleshooting has proved to be unhelpful. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing (or what it’s doing, really). Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.

So here’s my dilemma: The sound is incredibly annoying, but it doesn’t seem to affect any of the picture-taking. Am I being too picky? Is this just a quirk of this particular model? Does this mean that the camera will cease to function the day after the warranty expires? (Side note: Santa was kind enough to purchase the Extended Warranty. Santa knows me quite well). Should I try to exchange it now? Send it in for service?
Or is this just a sign that I should have never wanted a new camera two years ago?

If it ain’t broke…

“Viva Las Vegas” / Elvis Presley (1964)
My favorite (well, one of my favorite) Elvis songs, in honor of his 75th b-day.

“A Taste of Honey” (Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (1965)
[from the supremely titled album Whipped Cream and Other Delights – seriously, best album name ever? Yes].

“Syracuse” / Pinback (2004)
When I searched for this song on the Youtube, I came across this homemade music video: it is beautiful. I couldn’t have imagined it better.

Bye, bye Andy Murray. We – or at least I – will certainly miss your gravelly-voiced intonations to the area media.
In the words of my father, “It’s cheaper to fire the coach than the entire team.” As true as that statement rings, I’ve got a different idea: how’s about we [as in, every single person who ever speaks about St. Louis’ NHL affiliate] leave the baggage of last season behind us [as in, the team, the city, the fans, the media]?
I’ve been racking my brain pretty hard lately, and I’ve still not come up with a memory of reading an article or seeing a news/sports report that doesn’t mention the the latter half of last season: how we [as in, the team] overcame a sloppy start and steamrolled straight through to a magnificent entry into the playoffs. As the Blues stumble at home, our [as in, everyfuckingbody] collective memory grows rosier and fonder. So to those tenderly reminiscing about “the good ol’ days” of last Spring, I say: Who gives a fuck?
New season. New start. Hell, new fans! We [as in, everybody except the team] need to quit guilt-tripping these boys into thinking that they’re letting us down by not realizing some nonexistent “potential” that dangles above them, carrot-and-stick style. What began as a perfectly normal rough patch has somehow angrily morphed into some sort of self-fulfilling monster of a prophecy: we [as in, the team] won’t win at home, the point of “can’t” having long since been passed.
So to those still shopping for New Year’s Resolutions, how about this one, ripped straight from the 12 Steps [as in, one day at a time!]:
New year. New attitude.
Let’s go Blues!

“Falling Slowly” / Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová [The Swell Season] (2006)
I can’t remember where I heard this song, because I don’t think it was at the Oscars. Or was it? Anyway, please do enjoy:

I don’t even know these people anymore.
Yet, I grew up here. Somewhere along the way, I assumed that my food routines paralleled those of my family. But now – today – I was shocked to discover the state of a kitchen appliance that, in my own kitchen, has always held a place of esteem:
the toaster.
As I prepared my morning meal today, I was appalled to see that the toaster, that most glorious of cooking devices, was covered in not just a fine layer of dust but a thick, horrifying quilt of it. It was as if a sewing circle of dust mites had pieced together a little toaster cozy. It was disgusting, and all I could do to stop myself from vomiting directly on the kitchen counter.
After thoroughly bathing Toaster with a clean damp cloth in warm sudsy water, I gently placed him back on the counter. Lo and behold, I found that his cord had a maximum length of approximately 4 inches, thus greatly limiting his placement during the preparation of breakfast. After arranging the coffee pot, knife block, sugar and flour containers, and that one old nasty ashtray that holds keys that don’t go to anything anymore, I was finally ready to allow Toaster to fulfill the destiny that he had been prevented from achieving for so long.
This is when I noticed the broken dial.
As it was impossible to adjust the level of my rye bread’s toastiness, I was forced to pull up a chair and keep Toaster company while my breakfast crisped within him. I murmured encouragements as I used a wooden spoon to force the up-down-lever-thing into the “up” position, revealing still-soft bread.
After seven-or-so tries, a goldenly delicious piece of toast arose before me, ready to be adulterated by shitty “squeezable” grape jelly from a plastic container (bleh!). But before I assembled my breakfast, Toaster needed to be returned to his home.
And this is when I realized that the entire fucking toaster became red-hot with use.
Okay. This was getting ridiculous. No other toaster I’ve used or owned needed to be handled with potholders after cooking one lousy piece of bread. This, combined with the broken dial and fucking short-ass cord? Fuck you, Toaster. Now I see why no one ever uses you, you little piece of shit! I just want a goddamn fucking piece of toast and now I have blisters on all five fingertips and almost electrocuted myself when you nearly fell into the fucking sink. I see how it is, you sneaky motherfucker: “Oh, poor little me. I sit in the corner of the kitchen counter and nobody loves me. Julie, will you love me? Will you? I promise to cook your toast perfectly and I swear I won’t cause you bodily injury!” Like some nasty old man who cons the hot lady nurses into giving him a sponge bath, this Toaster fucking used me, man! Shit.
Some breakfasts just aren’t worth the heartache.

Today’s song is also brought to you by Memories Of Things Past:
“Rise” / Josh Rouse (1998)
And no, I can’t find a link to an audio version (but Google “josh rouse rise lyrics” and you’ll be directed to an iLike.com link), so here’s the lyrics:

Think I’m gonna pass out
Think I’ll just lay down right here
Would someone turn the light out?
I’ll cover myself with a jacket, I’ll still
Catch the last ride on a Brooklyn train
30 years old and nothing’s changed

Spent hours on a landline,
Hopin’ you would find time for me
Showed up at your door, it was a scene
I was so sure,
You would be free
I should have caught a ride on a Brooklyn train
30 years old and nothing’s changed

And I’ll rise to greet you in the morning… time
And I’ll rise to greet you in the morning

Tried so hard to ignore
All the feelings I have for you,
They won’t leave
I’m so crazy
How I wish you would come around
And we could meet
So catch the last ride on the Brooklyn train
Meet me on a corner and I’ll entertain

And I’ll rise to greet you in the morning… time
And I’ll rise to greet you in the morning
It’s an honest thing, and honest things they last

I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
From you…

I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
I think they’re gonna come and carry me away…
From you… From you… From you.

So I’ve got this friend who’s a doctor. A real, honest-to-Allah doctor. She says things like “I’m on call” or “I was doing a procedure” or “I’m a doctor” and I’m like Fuck yes! My friend is a motherfucking doctor!
And while it has taken her approximately 93 years of formal education to reach this Important Milestone, I realized the other day that my personal Medical Knowledge ain’t too shabby, either.
I present to you:



Things I’ve Learned From Watching Doctor Shows On TV And A Few Doctor Movies
(In no particular order)
* Doctors spend many hours looking longingly (or wistfully, or forlornly) outside of patient’s rooms without ever actually interacting with the patient or his family. This is an integral part of what I like to refer to as the Doctoring Process.
* It takes a lot – and I mean a lot – for a doctor to be fired, or even formally reprimanded. I mean, the nurses routinely kill innumerable patients out of compassion; thus, a doctor must ritually slaughter multiple people before the Chief of Medicine (it’s always a Chief of Medicine, never the police) intervenes.
* Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation as taught in Red Cross first aid classes is wrong. Instead, you don’t need to have any sort of leverage over the person in cardiac arrest. Oh, and it’s totally fine to bend your elbows with each compression. And if that doesn’t work, intra-cardiac epinephrine (see: liquid crack cocaine) will always, always bring the patient back – but only after she has experienced an extremely vivid, hallucinatory flashback to an Important Moment in her childhood.
* All doctors in all hospitals are devastatingly handsome or tragically beautiful. These handsome and/or beautiful individuals are supported by other doctors and technicians of average or below-average looks. Significant surgical procedures are awarded to surgeons based on their physical appearance.
* Said devastatingly handsome and tragically beautiful doctors routinely have sexual relations with each other (generally in various locations within the hospital, i.e. “the supply closet” or “the on-call room” or “the bed next to a coma patient”). Remarkably, extremely complicated maps of sexual partners are created without any communication of sexually transmitted infections – unless this is used as a catalyst for beginning/ending a relationship (see: Grey’s Anatomy)
* All great doctors begin with zero (or negative) levels of self-confidence. If you are a new doctor and are confident in your medical decisions, you will immediately kill a patient.
* As a doctor ages, he/she becomes increasingly cranky and/or dependent on alcohol. No exceptions.
* Nurses don’t do shit. It is pointless to learn their names.
* However, when they’re not busy doing nothing, the job of nurses is to illustrate how utterly incompetent the young doctors are (in which case, they know far more than the doctors and regularly perform complex medical procedures on patients, i.e. open heart surgery, in place of a young, frightened doctor).
* Rounds only occur sporadically, when the doctors feel like it, or an interesting case needs to be presented.
* When a patient dies, the best course of action for a doctor to take is to immediately become shit-faced in order to deal with the trauma.
* In order to just avoid a patient’s death altogether, it’s best not to learn the patient’s name or any pertinent information about the patient. Death only occurs after the doctor makes a personal attachment to the patient.
* Doctors only work in three places: teaching hospitals, private clinics that are ridiculously understaffed yet miraculously not overworked (see: the Private Practice clause), or in war-torn nations far, far away
* If a young doctor is the child of another doctor, the parent doctor will always, always have been famous, incredibly gifted, a pioneer in his/her field, and unfaithful to his/her spouse. Also, young doctors always work in the same hospital as their parent doctor.
* Doctors can basically do their residencies wherever the hell they want, unless being placed in an undesirable location is more interesting.
* Contrary to the general public’s belief in “specialties,” doctors are trained in all aspects of medicine, i.e. dermatologists can perform lung transplants and gastroenterologists can deliver babies)
* Medical procedures that are generally performed in hospitals are also easily adaptable to being performed “in the field.” This includes, but is not limited to: setting broken limbs, delivering babies, intubation and drilling burr holes in a patient’s skull to alleviate intracranial pressure (see: the Grey’s Anatomy).
* Any lay person can be easily “talked through” any of these medical procedures: setting broken limbs, delivering babies, intubation using a standard Bic pen and Swiss Army knife (don’t forget to hold it under your Zippo for a few minutes to sterilize it!) and drilling burr holes in a patient’s skull (clean your drill bits afterwards!)
* The average wait time for an organ transplant is roughly 27 minutes.
* CPR is only effective at restoring the heart’s pumping function after the doctor has tearfully given up and ever-so-slowly looks at the clock to call Time of Death. As the doctor opens his or her mouth to speak, the heart will resume beating, at a normal rhythm.



Please note that this list is certainly not comprehensive by any means. I recommend you view episodes of ER, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Three Rivers, Chicago Hope, Mercy and Trauma to learn more.
Or, you know, go to fucking medical school.