I’m Still Alive

Hi again. I’m sorry that I haven’t written anything for some time, but I’ve been stressed and tired.

There are lots of things I would like to share with you. First of all, I would like to share is the fact that I am currently eating ice cream with Valrhona chocolate, bought in the local branch of Whole Foods (note that I am only sharing the fact, not the actual ice cream). Excellent stuff! And I’m allowed to eat lots of ice cream, because of the second thing I would like to share with you, which is that I have a sore throat and that I am on antibiotics.

I would also like to share with you that ‘The Algebraist’ by Iain M. Banks is an awesome book. Anyone who is not prone to nightmares should read it, and should you, as I am, be prone to nightmares, reading a chapter just before bedtime will provide hours of entertainment.

So, anyway.

One of the interns (Ian, Canada) is a camera geek. He went with me to my trip to Staten Island a few weeks ago, and afterwards talked me into buying a decent camera, because he got tired of watching me take pictures with my phone. So this Sunday, we went to Adorama (a shop which mostly employs Jews, and which is hence open on Sundays, but not on Saturdays) in Manhattan, bought a camera for me, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with it. Some samples:

Me during lunch. The important thing here is the brightness of the picture. The pub was really dark and this picture is taken without flash.

Ian during lunch. Again, notice the brightness.

Photo taken directly towards the sun, and still lots of detail.

Again towards the sun, and again surprisingly many details on the buildings.

Full zoom. This picture is taken from the center of Central Park, facing west. Pretty good closeup, I would say. :-)

Zoom on a statue. I forgot to check who the statue is of. Maybe Mozart, maybe not.

Zooming in on a plaque. The plaque wasn’t even readable to the naked eye from where I was sitting.

More zoom. A cute dog some 30m away.

Same dog, same distance. I love this picture. :-) BTW, the skaterthings you see in the foreground are sort of small skateboards. You basically put each of your feet on one of them, and then roll around.

A flower pot in the middle of the road outside my hotel. This picture is taken from my room on the 5th floor.

I’m getting tired, and I still haven’t finished my book, so I’m going to stop writing for today. I believe I still owe you descriptions of Montréal, Staten Island, half of my walk around Manhattan, plus a few tidbits from around the place. With a bit of luck, I’ll find the time to write about at least some of it later this week.

A small observation to round things off: There are at least three different brands of pill against male impotence being marketed on US television. Now, what is important to realise in this respect is that “being marketed on TV in the US” means that you get to see the TV ad every 5-10 minutes. In other words, at least 3 times every 5-10 you’re being told that “It’s allright if you can’t get it up. Don’t worry. Just take this pill. You don’t even have to put in an effort to get it up anymore. Just let it hang. This pill will do all the work for you when the time comes. You’ll never need to think another sexual thought again.” And ads like that are designed to creep into your mind without you knowing about it, and so in effect, these ads are designed to make you impotent! It freaks me out! So I have employed my own counter-measures: I have increased my daily dose of internet porn. For health reasons only, of course.

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