Halogen work lights!

A bike photographer, Ray Dobbins, describes his simple, inexpensive set-up for taking clear photos with realistic color balance. His secret weapon is HALOGEN WORK LIGHTS. He uses 2, pointed at the ceiling, and apparently this sheds enough white ambient light all around to provide sharp, detailed pictures with relatively accurate color. Obviously I need some of these before I get so frustrated with all my yellow fluorescents that I launch them out the window.

The comments about this page on BoingBoing add some alternatives to the main set-up.

Karito Kids dolls

Every time I'm in Arlington Center, I stop by Henry Bear's Park, an independent toy store that stocks a pleasing array of Japanese food erasers. Besides the erasers, I also like to admire the dolls, especially the Only Hearts Club and the Groovy Girls. Recently, I've been ogling the Karito Kids.

These newcomers to the doll scene are about 22" high, their minimal articulation compensated for by their friendly, engaging faces [they all have slight half-smirks] and high-quality clothes. In another bonus, they span different ethnicities, with slightly different sculpts for each doll. I've only seen Gia up close, but I can attest that all the dolls are cute and very huggable, with a pleasing heft.

There's some painfully hipsterish charity option attached to the purchase of each Karito Kid, but I don't really care because they are awesome, and I want one. They are about $100 each, which is cheaper than your average high-end 1:6 action figure [I'm looking at YOU, Hot Toys Young Indiana Jones] and much cheaper than anything in resin.

Charlie Gibson interviewing a highly unqualified Sarah Palin

As far as I can tell, the entire interview went something like this:

Gibson: [Incisive question seeking specifics about Palin's policies and qualifications.]

Palin: [Irrelevant canned blather full of generalities and evasion.]

Here's the part that really highlighted her evasion:
( Transcript of Gibson asking about invading other countries )

To summarize, this section of the interview goes like this:

( Summary by me )

This reminds me of George W. Bush right after September 11, 2001: jingoistic, repetitive and absolutist.

Cell phone charms: 1:6?

Baseball caps: http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/12_55_3898.html
Lab equipment such as glassware and bottles: http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/12_55_802.html
Classic cameras: http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/12_55_4657.html

My putative Halloween costume

We might be going to a Halloween party this year. If I go, I think I'll be a vampire, you know, like an LHF vampire, only slightly more conspicuous, with...

Black outfit, including T-shirt with a headstone on it
Plastic fangs
IV bag with blood in it attached to pants [vampiric equivalent of a water bottle]
Button with a garlic bulb on it and a line through it [NO GARLIC]
Button with VAMPIRES DO IT IN COLD BLOOD
Coffin purse to carry things in
Sunglasses [or flip-down sunglasses attached to my glasses]
Something to protect myself from vampire killers

The good news is that all of this is easily procurable, except for the IV / blood bag.

I found a blood bag!

Also beautiful gravestone T-shirts with Massachusetts stone designs on them. Or I could design my own.

LHF books to get

Preachers, Patriots and Plain Folks, sold by the Association for Gravestone Studies, covers the Granary, King's Chapel and Central cemeteries in Boston. Chow is buried in Central.

The Log of the Union is a log of a global circumnavigation by Chow's employer, Captain John Boit Jr., in 1794-1796.

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem Village is an educated reconstruction of Tituba's life before, during and after the Salem witch trials.

Food for the Dead is about rural New Englanders' folk medicine against the threat of tuberculosis. Absinthe's corpse was burned in this tradition.