“There I was, down to my last K-Bar and knee-deep in grenade pins…”

I spent almost two hours last night trying to find a song. I only knew some of the lyrics, and the repeated name “Mr. Jones”, and how it sounded. The only memory I had of the song was that I saw Milo Binder (obscure) perform it as a cover live at a Rhino Records show in about 1989. It turns out it’s a Bee Gees song. Fortunately, it’s “New York Mining Disaster 1941” from Bee Gees 1st, which is a pop classic that I should have remembered. Searching for “Mr. Jones” of course brings me results about Counting Crows, NOFX, and Bob Dylan in about that order.

I meant to do a lot of photography today but the day started real slow. I’ll shoot some late afternoon stuff and try to get started earlier tomorrow. Maybe a combo hike/photo in the Upper Bay.

Can anyone point me to a guide to using the Camera RAW format? I really like the idea of controlling all the white balance etc. but when I do so it all gets washed out when I try to prepare the images for the web. I have no idea whether what I’m trying to do is impossible, or I’m just messing up.

I only have one ticket to Paradise.

The Death Clock was kind enough to tell me the hour of my passing, which is September 26, 2037. This would make me the same age as my father when he died. Has a nice literary completeness to it, although I’m not a huge fan of the well-made plot. I’d like a twist.

Saw Jason C. last night. He’s now a successful business guy in a suit. When I first met him he always had a painful job of some kind, mostly food service. For example, he worked at a rental yard where the cars were so bad that at least one of them spontaneously caught fire in the parking lot.

We were discussing one of his previous bad jobs, which was at the Rainforest Café. For those who are unfamiliar with this chain, it is a crappy theme restaurant that pretends to be a jungle. The waiters are all “guides”, you’re on an “adventure”, and there are pseudo animatronic creatures that make noise and move around. It’s a cacaphoneteria of hokey sound effects. People bring young children there who go into panic attacks. The gorilla breaks down a lot. You spend $100 for 4 people and get sandwiches. You get the picture.

Anyway there’s a huge aquarium there which stretches around part of the restaurant and is full of various colorful fish to amuse the kiddies. Hey Timmy, Nemo went by again. On this particular night, the pump-o-tron that keeps the aquarium circulating properly crapped out and there was a sudden, violent overflow of aquarium water and aquarium residents. Cold fishy water and an assortment of fish were deposited on tables, causing a shrieking mess of frightened children, angry adults, and desperate sea creatures.

The weird part, according to him, was that only that little part of the restaurant even noticed. The sensory overload of fake birds, fake gorillas, fake elephants, yelling children, and the reservation PA was able to blot out the Fishpocalypse completely while they ran around arresting escaped fish and apologizing to everyone.

Speaking of fish, the Sexual Concierge himself is working for a fish biologist right now. He’s convinced himself that because he’s a star employee there, this guy can get him the “hook up” to get into UCI Medical School so that he can learn all about fish science. Since he doesn’t yet have his associates degree even, you can’t get into public colleges with a “hook up”, you can’t go to medical school without finishing your bachelor’s first, and the UCI Medical School does not teach fish science, nobody has any idea what he means.

It turns out that the girl with the odd accent at D’s really is Irish. She’s just spent about the last year in France mostly speaking French and her accent got strange. She’s one of five young women who are touring the world on the cheap, staying a few months in each country. Right now they’re all stuffed into a 1 bedroom apartment at the Coronado and they all found jobs on 17th St. they can walk to. They just stay as long as a temporary work permit in each place and then move on. They’re all in their early 20s, very pretty, very enthusiastic, multilingual, and well-educated. She’s apparently a singer, too. In short it’s the pilot for an Aaron Spelling TV show, except for the fact that they have no money and are living in a tiny box off retail jobs. As I drove home two of them were running happily through the sprinklers on 17th in their backless summer outfits looking perfect. It was as beautiful as an ad for an unmentionable health product.

Fiftyish hippie band that sounds like a tepid, sleepy Crosby Stills & Nash imitation: bad news.

That band covering Roxy Music: EMETIC.