In case anyone is curious:

I have noticed an increasing tendency for my friends to refer to me by my surname (to the point where in a couple of cases people I’ve met recently have to ask me what my first name was, after a couple of weeks). I am getting a little fed up it.

I prefer to be refered to by my first name – a legacy of schools where everyone was constantly refered to by their surname, and far, far, far too many Sherlock Holmes jokes. And given the amount of my social interaction that happens on LJ, I figure that my old journal name probably wasn’t helping. And then I happened to notice that the previous owner of alasdair had deleted and purged their journal.

So, now that I’ve finished doing the dance of joy, I’ve had it for my own.

I find that I really am pleased out of all proportion about this. Everybody celebrate!

PS. If you didn’t know I prefer to be called Alasdair, or Al, you do now. I am not the Great Detective’s sidekick. Please attempt to remember this.

No, I Really Will Shut Up About This Camera Soon, Honest.

So the first photo that I know for damn sure my other camera couldn’t have managed has just gone up on electricana.  It’s not anything earth-shattering – just a little exercise in light-bleaching, but I like it.

But more importantly, I have a question for those of you that I spend time around.  Up to now, I’ve largely restriced myself to taking photos of things, rather than people.  But now, I have a camera that’s rather better able to cope with things like being indoors, and I would like to start taking more photos of people.  At some point, yes, I’ll probably get around to trying to arrange actual proper shoot type-things with anyone that’s interested, but for now, what I want to work on is just catching people as naturally as possible (and yes, I accept that people will instintively pose a bit when there’s a camera about), and generally being the irritating bastard at the party who won’t stop taking photos – I really don’t have much feel for getting people’s “best side”, so I figure I’d better develop that a bit before I move on to wasting anyone in particular’s time.

But I know a lot of people don’t like be photographed, and particularly, don’t like having photos of them put on line.  (God knows, I’m one of them, hence the hiding behind the camera myself.)  And while I’m happy to give assurances that no-one will see anything I think is less than a vision of pure loveliness, and will never make anything available to the general public without the specific consent of the parties in the photo, I do want to put them on-line in some manner – I don’t like working for an audience of none.  So I figure the least I can do is give everyone that I’m likely to photograph a chance to weigh in with what they’d prefer.

My current plan is to create yet another photojournal, one specificially for photos of my friends, and friends lock it so that only people I actually know will see it, thus saving me from feeling like I have to get permission for every photo – they won’t be completely public, after all.  If there are ever any photos of people I want to put on electricana, I will ask specific permission for that, unless you tell me I don’t need to.

I hope that was all slightly clearer than mud.

So, a poll.  Please, if you think I’m likely to be pointing a camera your way at any point, tick the appropriate boxes.

Recovery

Finally. Back up and running. Now all I have to do is wait for several days worth of e-mail to come crashing back in one go. Assuming that the various servers that owe me mail haven’t given up on sending it entirely, that is. If you’ve sent me mail recently, and I haven’t got back to you in the next day or so, than for god’s sake re-send it. Even if it’s just trivial crap – I want to be sure that everything really is working properly again…

Attribution

Apparently, song lyrics are Not Acceptable. Too easy, or something. But I’ve not really had much to say, the last couple of days, because, well, not a lot has been happening. Bits of me are turning interesting shades of purple and yellow, after getting knocked down. Spot of mild concern on Tuesday when I spent most of the day feeling nauseous, and therefore wondering if I’d knocked my head harder than I thought, but aside from a tendency to wince if I bang the wrong part of my body against something, I’m fine.

I’m getting irritated by having to wait for my new toy, though. The camera attatchement has arrived, but the rest of it? Of course not. Maybe tomorrow. Then I reall do have to start looking to a re-design. One that’ll handle photos as well. Yeah, then I can bore you with inane and dull pictures to go with the words. It also means I have to get non-blogger-powered version of this ready sooner.

Speaking of the words: A couple of people have asked what some of the unattributed quotes on this pages were from. They’re not from anything. They’re original creations, by me, generally things that leap into my head that demand to be set down quick. I stick them here because I have no idea what to do with them. If I use someone else’s words here, I’ll credit them, thanks.

Stormbreak, I found a spine for, and I’m currently writing up a proposal based on it.

Nightclubbing, I have no fucking clue.

Happy now? :)

Technical Errors

What is it with my domains lately? Black-Ink.org has been gypping me about for the last week or two, and god only knows how long rain-street.org has been down for. Still, things appear to be back to how they ought to be. And I’m finally going to get around to doing something interesting with rain-street in the next week or two. No, honestly. Just got to sort out a design that pleases me.

Integrity

Things that don’t rock today: e-mails like the one I have just received (yeah, serves me right for making it easier to drop me a line from this page). Because I quite like the person in question, I shan’t quote them verbatim, or publish their name or e-mail address. I am kind like that. They’ve already had a private mail in response, but I tend to operate on the assumption that if one person actually says it, then another bunch are thinking it.

Gist of the e-mail: They like Sequential Tart but think that I was just recommending my friends articles. Their contention was that I was just being nice to my friends, and my recommendation of ST was debased as a result. So full disclosure: I’ve known Lee Atchison on-and-off for years, on-line. I have never actually met Lee and look forward to doing so in San Diego this year. Lee has been very helpful in providing hosting and assistance for Ninth Art. I like Lee.

Back in January, I described Andrea as “intelligent, attractive, and generally pleasant company”, having only met her a few times. I’ve since got to know Andrea better, and I remain more than happy to stand by that. In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have read the review (because the link to it didn’t mark it out as being a review of Nick Cave), but I went to the concert in question with Andrea, she sent me an early draft of the review to read, and I wanted to see what had changed between that draft and the final version. I like Andrea.

I don’t recall ever having had any contact with Katherine Keller. She’s been described to me as a decent human being. I am entirely prepared to believe this.

My point, though: None of any of the above matters. Not a bit of it.

I said it the other week: I don’t say things I don’t mean. I certainly don’t pay insincere compliments. It’s a revolting fucking habit that cheapens both the person giving and worse, the person recieving the compliment. It’s a rotten thing to do. Likewise, when I link to something on here, and say that it’s worth your attention, I mean it. I don’t mean “You should be looking at my friend’s work”. I don’t mean “I think I ought to be paying my mate a compliment”. I mean exactly what I say: I think it’s worth your attention. You may not agree, which is fair enough. If you’re reading this even semi-regularly, I’m sure you have a fair idea whether you like the same sort of things I do, and can make your own call about whether or not my opinion is worth listening to.

If all I wanted to do was pay my friends compliments, I could do it much more easily that by posting on here. I have their e-mail, phone numbers, and other means to get in touch. Doing it via a blog that they may or may not read seems like a pretty fucking stupid way to do it. Besides, I try and assume that they’re not reading, as much as I can. I’d be a fool to say that the knowledge that a few people I know read this doesn’t affect what I say here, but that means I tend to ignore certain topics entirely, rather than water down what I would have to say on the topic. But I certainly don’t alter what I write in order to please them or anyone else. This is my rantpoint, and if I’m not honest in what I write on it, then what’s the point of having it?

I No Longer Look At Logs

On another note, I am slightly frightened to discover that there are people finding this site when they search for the site I linked to a while back for people with a fetish for legs in plaster casts. There are several such queries in my referer logs. Eep!