Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Some of you remember that I used to travel with a small photo album of heavy modification photos. This was back in the day when almost all my photos were film and then scanned — before digital cameras became the norm or even affordable. Today I picked up a little die-sub printer so I could put that album back together for the Argentina trip.

It was a bit of an ordeal getting it — first I picked up Canon's Photo Dock mini-printer, which is supposed to work “with or without a computer”, and came with a USB connection. So I figured that it would work “with a computer” but it turns out that's just a confusing way of saying that it works only when directly connected to their camera. The USB connection? It's just a pass-through so you still download the pictures. You can't send a picture from the computer to the printer at all!

Wasted time. So I returned that, and picked up Canon's model, which looked like a better printer anyway, and was a lot cheaper both for the printer and the media. Unfortunately the store had lost the power supply for their remaining model, so it meant a third trip to another store to finally get it. I've got it installed now though and the output is very nice so I'll have my album back together shortly.

That said, Rachel is morbidly sick right now — in bed with a fever and all the rest of the influenza symptoms that polite people don't talk about. My stomach is a little rough right now but I've been putting a lot of effort into staying healthy, controlling what I eat and drink, and so on… but if she doesn't have some kind of radical overnight recovery the trip will have to be scrubbed, which sucks, but bigger things are on the horizon so fear not.

On the way home from getting the camera I bumped into Kerri/Slug who some of you know so I thought I'd mention that she's on her way to New Orleans, like all good lost souls are, at one point anyway. Hope she does better than our good friend and ACLU lawyer, George Hanson, who was beaten to death before getting to Mardi Gras. But I suspect she's tougher than George.

Got a letter from my old friend Lara in Hong Kong, who I've known for even longer than I've been doing BME (isn't that crazy). That's her in the newspaper picture with the Lotus Seven above but I have no idea what it says. Anyway, this is an excerpt from the letter:

I went to Beijing for my birthday this year and it was splendid but I hardly ever leave HK and have a lot to do here. It's like the US in a lot of ways and suffers from people blindly wanting material gain no matter what. Our fishermen having been losing money just for their jobs because the sea is polluted and the fish are scarce. Many honest people are at risk of losing their livelihood at the hands of people who are corrupt and have no regard for others.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that this is the US versus whoever, or any nation versus another. Almost all the hardship in the world right now sprouts exclusively from rich people clamoring to become richer, at the expense — and with the effort of — the poor of the world. Unfortunately though, rich people are very good at convincing poor people that they're border defined enemies… of course, at the end of the day, the rich people all deposit their money at the same bank and understand that they are on the same team.

Along those lines, I'll also mention that I got passed on the highway by a silver Porsche Carrera, widened and lowered, zipping in and out of traffic at well over 150 mph — probably one of the most aggressive drivers I've seen on Toronto roads. It was a big heavy-set black guy, and especially for those of you who've been nailed for DWB the license plate will be a gas — NOT STLN