Ryan McFarland

I’m a fan of words and text.  I love signs and textures.  I also like thrift ships and lately have been trying to be extremely thrifty with my use of my money.  So this picture of part of one of the signs of the Office of Thrift Supervision is nice.  Remember my other Office of Thrift Supervision picture of a sign that’s just around the corner?

I saw a string of photos that someone had made using toys, postcards, and money in the foreground of photos of famous places. I’m imitating that with a few pictures in D.C. and also did it one time in Cambodia at Angkor Wat.

DC police work on opening one of the doors of a patrol car.

The white house and a manhole in the lawn.

The Washington Monument reflected along with a pair of mallard ducks.

The Vietnam Memorial.

Lincoln Monument.

Korean War Memorial

The Washington Monument behind the Alaska pillar of the WWII memorial.

Part of the collection of flags at the base of the Washington Monument.

Me at the Washington Monument.

Me at the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. Supreme Court.

Trent Reznor has been angry about the industry for a long time. I don’t know if it is true but a friend told me back in the early 90’s that Pretty Hate Machine was not a breakup album. “Head like a hole, black as your soul, I’d rather die, than give you control” is about his record label’s control over him.

Regardless, Trent has released a 36 song album that is available to download for $5. That comes to under $0.14 per track compared with $0.99 for each track on iTunes. And the music is DRM free so you are not limited in how many devices it will play on or how many times you burn it.

Sounds good right? Even better, he is offering the first nine tracks for free. Just give an email address and you get the download link.

It has been a while since i listened to any Nine Inch Nails stuff but the first minute of the streaming music was good enough for me to try the free download. And for $5 i just might end up buying the whole album. If for no other reason than to show support for the low price and the model he has set.

Today on our way back to town after zipping home for lunch and to pick up Cena we watched 12 deer cross the street. This picture I shot earlier in the week with my cameraphone while pulling out of the parking lot at work.

We went to Seth’s this evening and watched 30 Days of Night. It’s a vampire movie set in Barrow, Alaska during the winter. I’m not a big fan of the horror genre in general but the premise for the movie (and book) is neat. The vampire weakness for ultraviolet radiation is moot during the perpetual darkness above the Arctic Circle. I partially think Seth invited us over because he didn’t want to watch it by himself on a dark Alaskan winter night in his remote cabin. But then again, he knows how much we like to watch movies — especially in his big high definition screen and on a Blueray disc. We brought one flashlight for the walk back to the car. I think he should install remote control lights like these hid boat lights. Right now, when you walk down the hill to his place the lights light up the last quarter of the path. But walking up the hill the sensor turns on after you have already walked that quarter of the path.

Back to the movie… as i said, nice premise. The special effects were pretty decent but a few things bothered me. The Alaska Pipeline is featured in the movie but the pipeline is 200 miles from Barrow. The “last flight” out of Barrow for thirty days? Alaska Airlines flies there daily. Oh — and 30 days? Barrow actually has 67 without direct sunlight. But they do experience a combined dawn/dusk during that time. Finally, the population in the movie supposedly drops from over 700 to under 200 for their 30 winter days. Barrow’s population exceeds Petersburg’s with over 4,000 people.

They make it difficult to type! As you can see, i’m doing a little catch-up on the old blog here today. I have other thingsthat i want to do too - like laundry and a little crafty stuff. But these cats are cuddled up with me. Ollie is on the chair next to me and Hex on the next one. It would be a good time to vacuum the bedroom upstairs too. Sometimes we’re slaves to our cats!

I also have my new electric stove running at my feet! Thank you Cena!

Just hours after warning about the potential for a flood of incorrect attribution of Flickr photos, i received this message on Flickr.

I love your “waiting in seattle“shot!

Hi Ryan,

I am a writer for the popular personal finance & frugal living site Wise Bread. I am putting together an article on passport photos and would love to use your shot as the header. I will of course provide proper attribution, credit, and a link.

If there is any problem please let me know and I’ll remove the shot. I expect it to be published within a week.

Thank you in advance!
Nora Dunn

I actually had never been to Wise Bread until just yesterday when Consumerist linked to one of their articles.

Yesterday I cut some pussywillow and put them in a vase on the counter. Hex liked them.