Watermark

The Carnival is Coming!

Hey, have you heard...?

We're hosting the Carnival of the Cats this week!

To join the fun, send your catblogging URL to submissions (at) carnivalofthecats.com or (our strong preference)  use The Carnival Submission Form before 5:00 PM mountain time on Sunday.

If you haven't enough to do this weekend, you might drop in on:

Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of the Dogs
Circus of the Spineless
Weekend Cat Blogging

I'm sure you have nothing else to do, right?

Comment Spam

Well, this open-commenting site has been (re)discovered. So, another poll:

[I've no idea why all this whitespace is in here]

Poetry Thursday

My long-time friend Alan, who (as far as I know, but there is probably much that I don't) has never been much of a poem writer or reader, sent me this:

Life (spirit; intellectual activity; etc.)

Exists (operates; achieves; abides; relates)

Between (metaphorically as necessary)

The clouds (steam)

And the glacier (ice)

In the thin film of now (a puddle)

Which is always

Running away

Evaporating

Or freezing solid

Now to explain plasma

Earlier, seeing my worn feeling on the sidebar (which should have changed to hot, but I never got around to it) he sent me this:

Worn:

                Utilized
used until function and design are changed
                Cared for through time and change
used carelessly

implied end state

                Wearing

          ...on the journey

Then I felt better. I felt better having read and thought about the poem, and I felt great that he wrote it!

So here, with his permission, I share it with you.

Snapshot 28 June 02006

  too hot
  to write
  a poem

A picture worth a thousand jobs...

This photo is from Sarpy Sam, who says:

When I put a submersible pump in a well I hang it on black plastic but a few metal pieces are always required. When I put the pump in the new well with the big tank the other day I noticed the place of origin of all the metal pieces and had to take a picture of it. Italy, Canada, Thailand and Taiwan. The hired man said it was an international well. I wondered about American manufacturing. Just found the whole thing interesting. Taken 6/14/2006.

Fabulous Photography

I am feeling distinctly uncreative lately; or as friend Abigail says, intensely inactive. Luckily, others are out there making marvelous things to inspire the rest of us, and I intend (with their permission) to exploit those inspirations this week.

Above is Loren Webster's Nature Montage. He tells us in comments how he did it:

I did it in Photoshop by applying different layers, SB.

I began with shot of a lily, used posterize to emphasize the lines, did one layer of patterns with the belted kingfisher, another layer with an abstract pattern, set the mode to overlay and then played around with opacity until I got a blend that I liked.

I think I can do most of that in Photoshop Elements, and intend to try -- when I'm done being intensely inactive.

FeedFlare

This is a test, to see how things are different after activating FeedFlare for Watermark -- despite all the explanation, I've no idea what to expect. Just a hint to the techies -- pictures, pictures, pictures, please.

Awhile back, I added FeedBurner, then forgot about it. This service runs all your feeds through the FeedBurner feed, invisibly, so that you know how many folks read your various feeds.

When I went in to set up FeedFlare, I discovered that Watermark has 111 subscribers.

Wow.

LATER: OK, what is it supposed to do? Something I won't see?

Quirky Cat Links

And, of course, these:

  Friday Ark
  I and the Bird
  Carnival of the Cats
  Carnival of the Dogs
  Circus of the Spineless
  Weekend Cat Blogging

Have a fun & quirky weekend!

Owen's back!

The Braid

     Why do you resist me?
the man asks. The woman braids
   her hair.

     He touches her shoulder,
the small of her back. It's good
   for you

     to trust me, he says.
The woman frowns at her
   reflection.

     Slowly she unweaves
the braid, lifts her hair,
   begins again.

This poem was posted sometime ago at qarrtsiluni; they ask that you wait awhile before posting it to your own blog -- so here it is.

I just found Poem Road this morning -- another fun project to play with!