The month ends, and we close the first half of the year, with the one-hundred-third kitty seen along Alabama Street, somewhere between boundaries Adams and Lincoln, since the series‘ start in October 2016. My wife and I came upon this fine feline on June 15, 2024.
I used Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to capture the Featured Image and companion. Vitals: f/3.4, ISO 50, 1/125 sec, (synthetic) 230mm (digital and optical zoom); 10:34 a.m. PDT. The other is same but ISO 40, one-minute earlier.
As I write, the first Presidential debate, between presumptive candidates Joseph Biden and Donald Trump, is underway. For now, my intention is not to watch. Later, I will start with clips and possibly peek at a recorded version through which I can fast-forward and pause. The live event promises to be pure poison.
Or stated differently: Various manifestations of elder abuse. Seriously? You ask. Yes, Biden for his sheer presence and demand to stand and be mentally present for 90 minutes or so. Trump, for the abrasive handling by the hostile CNN moderators.
For three days last week, we watched seemingly good personal belongings appear along an alley in my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights. The frequent deposits of stuff seemed like someone being evicted or the result of some relational breakup.
Night before, police cars filled the same alleyway, and a helicopter circled about with bullhorn blaring about the search for a five-foot, seven-inch white male. Could the events be connected? Unconfirmed local gossip put the gent inside a convenience store, where—armed—he was apprehended the following day, about when stuff started stacking up.
Neither I nor my wife looked back with much regret when we escaped the Apple socialist computing lifestyle and adopted Android smartphones and Windows PCs. Can you say freedom?
In December 2022, I bought Surface Laptop Studio for me. Config: 14.4-inch touchscreen (2400 x 1600 resolution); quad-core 11th-generation Intel Core H35 i7-11370H processor; 4GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics; 32GB RAM; 2TB SSD. She got Surface Laptop 5. Config: 13.5-inch touchscreen (2256 x 1504 resolution); 12th-generation Intel Core i7-1255U processor; 16GB RAM; 512GB SSD.
Happy Caturday! We venture beyond boundaries of the neighborhood for yet another honorarian. This fine feline is the thirty-second member of this esteemed group, joining: AI, Boo, Buddies, Chill, Coal, Comber, Cotton, Envy, Esther, Fancy, Floofy, Guapo, Liberty, Lonesome, Jade, Mona, Moophie, Mousy, Ninja, Oliver, Too, Promise, Queenie, Rascal, Raven, Sammy, Shakey, Tag and Tig, Timber, Tom and Jerry, and Tula.
For cautious, stealthy movement along an Arizona-Texas alley in North Park, the cat earns nickname Pussyfoot. I used Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to capture the Featured Image, which is composed as shot. Vitals: f/3.4, ISO 32, 1/640 sec, (synthetic) 230mm (digital and optical zoom); 10:55 a.m. PDT, June 12, 2024.
The crazy thing about San Diego is the way flowers, plants, and trees grow. Anywhere. Everywhere. Unexpected places. Along an alley across from fencing where grapes grow, I passed passion fruit today. That’s two different neighbors’ fence lines.
I initially whipped out Galaxy Samsung S24 Ultra for a shot of four fruits lined up. But busy bees brought my attention to the flowers, where luck delivered good-enough composition and a bee in flight. What’s not to like about that?
I haven’t been on the bleeding edge of technology for a while, but here we are on the precipice ready to fall off. This afternoon, UPS delivered Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, which I ordered on May 20, 2024, when Microsoft and its OEM partners announced ARM-based Windows laptops packing Qualcomm chips.
Oh, I will review this beastie, and for a couple reasons: I am heavily invested in the Samsung ecosystem, and Qualcomm is a local company (here in San Diego). Out-of-box experience: Outstanding. Display: Superb. Keyboard: Tactile and responsive (contrary to reports from some professional reviewers). Performance: Sportscar, compared to my Surface Laptop Studio. Battery: Too soon to say. Trackpad (okay, so far, but needs more use). Applications: I will let you know about native vs non-native.
From Yuki (left), we go to her housemate, Mr. Norris. I met both kitties, and their caretaker, on June 7, 2024. Penelope used to live at the same place, but she died last year at age 22.
The Featured Image comes from Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Vitals: f/3.4, ISO 32, 1/190 sec, (synthetic) 230mm (digital and optical zoom); 2:49 p.m. PDT.
Where once lived beautiful tortie Penelope, who passed away last year at age 22, two new residents can be found. Meet the first of them, Yuki—and, yes, that is her real name.
We will introduce you to her housemate, Mr. Norris, in a forthcoming profile. All three kitties’ home is about a block from our old apartment within the West side of the neighborhood.
Yesterday, I dropped by Best Buy for a quick looksee. My local store, in San Diego’s Mission Valley district, is undergoing changes that started with remodeling last year—or, gasp, was it 2022? Oh, how we lose track of time. Regardless, a dramatic change greeted me.
What can best be described as an Apple mini-store occupies some of the space once dominated by Microsoft, Surface devices, and OEM laptops. The newer setup is all about digital lifestyle, with all-Apple devices gathered together in one area. If there was space being made for Windows Copilot+ PCs packing Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite and Plus processors, I couldn’t find it. But nobody could miss all that fruit-logo fare.
When I was in high school, my cousin piqued my interested in a Dutch novel published in 1968 that debuted in 1973 translated into English. Every few months, over the past three years or so, I looked for a copy to buy, but prices are generally exorbitant; the book is out of print.
Where Were You Last Pluterday? by Paul Van Herck is satirical science fiction at its comically cringiest. The absolute absurdity of American politics and cultural currents triggered my curiosity about how-true-to-life had the hilariously nonsensical story become. Something about our reality of the absurd was once science fiction. I had to know: How prescient is the 50-year-old-plus novel?
This afternoon, my wife and I happened to walk down Madison, in our San Diego neighborhood of University Heights. As we moved East, in the direction of Texas, near the corner of Alabama, I regarded identical statutes of youngsters playing a musical instrument. Someone had put them out between sidewalk and street, on the grassy strip where grow plants.
I escorted Annie home and returned with Leica Q2 Monochrom, which produced the Featured Image. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/2.8, ISO 200, 1/1250 sec, 28mm; 4:41 p.m. PDT.