Category: Daily

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3.14 And A Piece of A Pie

Everything is in there, somewhere

Job – as expected, I haven’t gotten jack shit from the yearly review, but it’s mostly because I’ve been there less than a year. So no hard feelings. I’d say the good outweigh the bad still in this situation. There will be a real talk next year and it’s probably going to be “make it or break it” kind of a deal

Entertainment – watched the first season of Happy! – damn, that was one funny shit they’ve made. Pretty hardcore with dark humor and poking fun at almost everything – from Die Hard to My Little Pony. Loved the show.

Next thing I watched was the Triple Frontier – a Netflix movie. Honestly – I wasn’t impressed. I don’t know why, but the whole movie just didn’t strike the chord with me. It’s not that there’s nothing happening, it’s just not the stuff that’s happening doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up in my head. And with the cast – I sort of expected better characters, less cardboard, and more meat and bones.

Photography – hasn’t shot anything new yet, but edited the fuck out of previous shoot I’ve done. Also, started sorting through the shoots I didn’t edit last year, so there’s more material coming up. The thing is now instead of one or two images per look I am picking several – and that takes a lot of time to edit. I almost feel like I am pushing myself to shoot better images out of camera, to save time on edits. Let’s see how this Sunday’s going to pan out.

As I was figuring out the phpBB for communities I’ve been testing Facebook integration. Unfortunately, phpBB isn’t going to cut it – the FB integration is very rudimentary and probably isn’t going to work in the long run. I mean – I am still pretty good with technology and I still couldn’t figure out how to log in. I am pretty sure the target audience would be at a loss. With that said – a VERY NSFW picture.

don’t even try… ah, who am i kidding
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Sunday, Monday – Who Cares

When it’s almost 3 AM – which day is it, really?

Job – so it’s been a weekend and I was doing something else. In the meantime, the company is “trimming fat”, so I guess it should start exercising 🙂

Interesting read from one of the guys I have been following. He’s not bad and he’s preaching some smart stuff, but as all the people who have something to sell, he’s selling too hard. I understand, he has to – and should probably learn from him. However, the point he’s making is that the overall economy is moving towards selling cheap shit on Amazon and doesn’t benefit anyone except Amazon. While I agree that selling on Amazon does benefit Amazon alone, I doubt we’re already reaching the point where everyone’s a Besos slave.

However, he’s making a good point on cheap labor markets are stealing and copying shit. He states: “Anything that could be stolen and faked – will be stolen and faked”. 99% of the shit that is being faked is luxury items where you’re not paying for quality or craftsmanship – you’re paying for brand that represents quality and craftsmanship from far away past. So I am not worried about that.

He then arrives (via a couple of logical steps) at the point that virtual “world” or “virtual reality” has a larger capacity then the actual real world. I am not arguing with this point, however, I am not sure what kind of economy would exist in the world where every single provider would want to print their own money. Also, see – lootboxes. Good luck with creating economy there.

Life Drama – I had about an hour of spare time today, so I went back to chat people up on Facebook. Some of the groups refreshed some of the members, so it was fun. Old farts showed up in a couple of topics, but I happened not to clash with anyone – which was surprising. But it did get me back to the feeling of wasted time and constant interruptions. So I’ll probably stay away from it for a while longer.

Photography – almost caught up with the latest shoot (damn, I had a lot of material from it) and forced myself to work on a pinup poster from June last year. Yeah, that whole “asshole of the year” award. Surprisingly the model was extremely nice about it, so I feel even worse. Usually they just lash out at me and I shut them off, but this one was the exact opposite. So I guess I’ll have to finish them all soon.

Absolutely safe for everyone
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It’s Almost Wednesday, So It’s A Post

Start on Tuesday, so the title is legit

Job – things are progressing in a weird and uncomfortable way. Should probably start looking around for a spell, at least I’ll know where I stand. Too bad I’d have to start going to some office or something – kinda like this working from home thing.

On the other hand, I don’t think I have time to have my own career to stagnate for another couple of years. I mean – it’ll probably recover at some point, but we’ll see where we stand way sooner.

Life Drama – not much is happening there. I kind of started recovering from all the shit that was happening between 2015 and 2019, so that’s a good thing. Start noticing this when you have time and desire to do little personal projects or just fix things around or do some exploration. Should start reading them books, I guess.

Photography – also, drama. One model thought another model thought wrong, so she have her a piece of mind. Which the other one returned. And I almost ended in the middle of it. Thankfully, that shit wrapped up real quick and I was able to avoid participation. We’ll see if this comes back in any way, but for now – it’s over. In the meantime, I am slowly editing some images here and there and actually enjoying it again.

Posted another shibari picture on Reddit and got a couple of responses from people wanting to do the scene. Not sure how I feel about it.

But i feel good about this picture
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Random Wednesday Wake Up

Because I was too busy yesterday. And day before. And before…

Job – things are churning on, as always. Demo, calls, emails. Calls, emails, demo. Occasional talking-to to little old me, because why not.

An interesting thing is that now I am starting to see and understand how so many startups got underway so quickly – and why they were so easy to catch on. I knew why it happened, I didn’t have a chance to actually experience that “a-ha!” moment until recently. Basically, it’s that well-known fact that large companies are too big to innovate and smaller and more agile (in a common sense of the word) player comes in and – kaboom! – disruption. It’s actually a very healthy fun to see how exactly these large companies cannot innovate because they’re so large. Also, apparently I’ve been living under a rock and didn’t hear about Disney buying Fox until yesterday. So what I think is happening now is companies willingly turn themselves into these huge dinosaurs, slow and easy to prey on.

What would be interesting (to draw technology analogy here) is if companies go the way of micro-services. A company willingly chop itself up into small pieces, fast and agile enough to compete with disruptors at every step of the way. Now, this would be interesting. Globalization resulting in micro-segregation. That’s an interesting concept.

The Works – Moved the 12 posts from 2001 (or something) and dumped iDoWriting. Now it redirects here. I don’t care about that old concept anymore, it’s been fucking 18 years.

Also, testing the forum (phpBB for now) to see if I can completely segregate the users to one category/forum. I know the functionality is there, just want to make sure I know how to do it. The goal is to replace the FB groups with something off-FB so that their rules would not apply.

Photography – back to doing shoots. But this feeling of one-night-stand is fucking exhausting. I want people I can rely on. I want people I could trust and do some complex concepts with without wondering if they’re going to ghost me at the last moment. I know I want too much, but still – I want that damn piece of mind.

Rated NC-17
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Drawing A Blank

Have no idea what to select as a title. Drawing a blank.

Job – the beatings will continue until morale improves. Well, it’s about a month and a half until the end of the March, we’ll see what’ll happen then. My bet – nothing major, which will trigger me looking, which will trigger the hostility, which will trigger me looking even faster and round and round and round we go again.

There is, of course, always a chance that someone up there will turn up just a little smarter than usual, but even if they were – why would they bother? I don’t get my expectations higher than usual.

Stargate Atlantis Rewatch – done! That CSI episode (Vegas) always makes me sad. Besides, it’s weird that not a single person from SGC had said – let’s beam down the containment team to pick up the pieces. And rescue Sheppard, while we’re at it. Sad.

Photography and Instagram (somewhat new topic) – decided to try out a few auto-posting services for Instagram. Created a secondary account, bought a subscription at Postfly.io and – kaboom! – it expired the next day. Now I am trying to contact the seller (TheNextWeb) and the Postfly Automation website to get it restored. Obviously no one is responding within reasonable time. TNW has a funny return policy, saying – if you ask for refund via PayPal we will cancel your TNW account and forever ban you on our website. Because – reasons. Will give them another couple of days, since obviously, all interns are busy at the moment and they’ll return your call as soon as they stop jerking off in the bathroom.

Also trying out Later – another scheduling service that allows combining Instagram, Twitter, FB and a couple of others (Google+, anyone?). Looks a lot more professional, will keep an eye out on the sales.

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Saturday Wait, And Sunday Always Comes Too Late

And I need another song to pull the titles from

Since this is Saturday/Sunday kind of post – no job updates. I have, however, spent whole day today doing absolutely nothing – felt really good and I got some rest.

Stargate Atlantis Rewatch – that episode (S5 E15) where Woolsey is being seduced (damn, just writing this looks funny) by an alien AI projection and Sheppard has to run around from Kolya again… I went and checked and it seemed that it’s one of the episodes written by William Waring. To be honest, each episode in season 5 written by him feels just a tad weaker than the rest. Which is kind of sad, because he did 13 episodes of SG-1 before that, so I can see why they let him direct, but cannot see why they didn’t help with the overall quality. Anyway, a kind of weak episode, I don’t buy their motivation to isolate Sheppard – not for a second. Just doesn’t add up.

Photography – I am still stuck on that pinup shoot, I can’t bring myself to edit it properly. It’s fucking annoying as hell, but something about the whole thing just… looks wrong. There’s no “punch”, she’s not selling the look, or selling it wrong… I don’t know.

On the other hand – the article is up: Male Boudoir Photographer. Feedback welcome 🙂

While on the topic of boudoir photography – I like this picture because it says “tranquility” to me more than anything else. I wish I could get a girl like that again to do the same thing but in the river or a lake or something like that. She’s amazing here.

Rated R
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Friday – I’m In Love

Back to the writing

Job – I’ve got not just one, not event two, but three emails from my boss saying he liked the shit I am doing. I was worried there for a bit until I remembered that during one of the meetings he mentioned that he doesn’t feel well and is on antibiotics. While I do want him to feel better (he’s a good human and a smart guy), I figured this explains the emails. Oh, well, let’s see what the next week will bring.

Stargate Atlantis Rewatch – I still firmly believe that wraith are an evolved version of vegans from Milky Way galaxy. Convince me otherwise!

Photography – editing through the backlog. Posted a couple of updates to Zealus Media – my main photography web site. Almost immediately got this shit from Tumblr:

So, basically, fuck you, Tumblr – says I and deletes the account. Bye, Felicia. Where there is no trust – there is no safety. See the image I posted below, there’s more here.

FUCK YOU TUMBLR
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Thursday – I Don’t Care About You

So even the weekly posting is in jeopardy. Monthlies, start worrying.

Reposting here since the /r/Stargate post didn’t pick up.

This is something I wanted to share with /r/Stargate and see what the feedback would be. I read through comments at a previous discussion and listened to the whole podcast episode. I probably am not going to win any awards here but just wanted to share my 2 cents. Disclaimer: I am just a SG fan, no affiliation with anyone. I am not even from Canada, but I plan to visit it this Summer/Fall.

– studios are large corporations, who excel at corporate double-speak (CDS). TV/film studios are doubly so. It makes sense that what they’re saying and “what they’re really saying” are two different things.
– keep in mind that three things coincided here – wrap up of Travelers and availability of a large creative crew, a downturn in interest in SG franchise (after an abomination of a SG:O, which to my surprise holds a 4.8 star rating for the Stargate Origins: Catherine release and 4.0 for series proper) and a chance to invite Brad Wright to the podcast. If you listened to the podcast – he’s clearly talking over landline phone, so it’s just a schedule window where he can dedicate an hour to participating in the podcast. I.e. – not like a huge convention or event. Just people talking.

– if I can decipher the CDS that Brad is using – he is saying he is a little upset that the studio went ahead with plans for Ronald Emmerich reboot. Dude officially said he wants the SG-1/A/U out of the window and studio was running with it for some time. Don’t know if I remember correctly – there were talks about a three-movie deal that would bury the canon for good. For someone of Brad Wright caliber, it must be throwing piss in his face. I’d remember I was mighty upset too, but I am a sucker for continuity.

– once they have reconsidered and Emmerich was out of the picture (at least, officially) – that’s what he calls “they’ve reconsidered”. Which means the canon is not out of the window, which means the “acknoledgement” of “hours and hours” of his contribution. Which is what he is, apparently, happy with.
– the “we’re talking” can literally mean anything in CDS. It could mean – they are calling him daily, but he purposefully not picking up the phone. Could be the other way around. Could be they’re working on a schedule of meetings to actually sit down and brainstorm what can be done with this IP.

– from the studio management point of view, I think I understand the dilemma. On one hand, the overall landscape of the TV shows has changed. You have Game of Thrones, you have House of Cards, you have Better Call Saul, Orange Is The New Black – huge hits based on original material. And there’s definitely a different mood in those shows, they are more intense, there’s more drama, more of everything, really. And then you have reboots of old top-level shows, like McGyver, Lethal Weapon, Lost in Space, Star Trek: Discovery, that are not doing as good. So the problem is – how to make a powerful show, but not alienate existing fan-base (which is what almost happened with SG:O). How to please existing fans and get new ones invested in the show. It’s a serious problem and someone’s got to solve it. And, to me, Brad Wright is a much better solution than Emmerich – because Independence Day 2 isn’t anywhere near Independence Day the original and because Brad Wright has a lot of experience catering to the audiences that like SG-like shows.

– one more thing Brad had mentioned was that he’s working with many new people in addition to people from Stargate teams. What I think he’s saying is that things have moved on and there’s very little chance we can see same cast/ensemble we saw in SG. Individually certain people can appear, occasionally, but not as a rule.

– and now, the most important question – because everything else could be resolved with enough money, experience, patience, and ass-kissing (just like anything else in the corporate world) – what would the show be about? If it’s a prequel – we aren’t capitalizing on the canon, because it didn’t happen yet but it’s already limiting us should the show run for more than a season. If it’s a sequel, like “20 years later” – then we’ll get either a Star Trek or BS:G, depending on if we’re winning or losing to bad guys. The interesting idea (don’t hate me, I am just thinking out loud here) would be along the lines of the original rebooted Star Trek – where things are positioned in another “dimension” or “reality” so you can start fresh while still capitalizing on the canon. Same way, like ST brought over Spock – new SG can bring over Teal’c or Harriman 🙂 They can even pull a GoT here and consistently kill off characters as they live (and die) through dangers of missions of Stargate Command. Or not. But this ultimately need to feed both the old fans (do not break the existing canon but give me something new and fresh) and new fans (give me something I will like given the current show landscape/competition).

– the last, but not least – SG is one of the very few franchises that has aged well. SG-1 launched 22 years ago yet, despite the crappy resolution of first 7 seasons, you can still watch it today and not be distracted by sub-par special effects or things that don’t make sense to you anymore. Another few years aren’t going to do a significant amount of damage to the property, so MGM can sit on it a little longer and assess more options.

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And Wednesday’s Blue

My fucking back hurts like a motherfucker.

Job – pushing through, although it seems like the more I push the less interest it generates up above my chain of command. It’s a complex product and it takes the time and the patience. And, apparently, while we enjoy the former, we severely lack the latter. At the very least I’ve got good experience, and at most – we’ll actually succeed in moving this damn skyscraper of a product into the market.

Stargate Atlantis rewatch – Broken Ties and the first half of Daedalus Variations. I remember when I watched Variations the first time, it was one of the very few episodes in the franchise when I actually was concerned with team’s fate. I didn’t believe for a second that they’re not going to survive, but the episode as a whole came very close to my pain threshold. Basically, knowing it’s the last season you think that anything can happen. They can pull Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan on any character or put someone on the bus for the sake of wrapping the show (Dr. Janet Frasier, anyone?). Or, you know, replace Rodney from this reality with one from one of the alternative ones. Fun!

Amazon Wishlist – done, go buy me shit! Support your favorite artist photographer. Aside from coffee, that I require to function properly (I can function without it, but you’re not going to like it), everything else on that list is about photography. I promise! And most of it isn’t even expensive. Well, except that monitor thingy. Actually, here’s a novel idea – anyone who’s getting me stuff under $100 gets a custom printed random photo – say 5×7 – mailed to them, under $250 – 8×10, above $250 – 12×18. Random photo. Same way I don’t get to choose what you buy from that list – you don’t get to choose what I will print. However, keep coming back to this blog and you’ll see what you may get in the mail. This shit’s not on Instagram or Facebook because it’s censored.

Uncensored 18+ stuff
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Tuesday’s Gray

Mostly because nothing of significance happens and it’s all just a wall of a gray woosh.

Job – spent some pretty productive hours and learned a thing or two about one of the major technology companies. Can’t say what, can’t say who, but I am flabbergasted. Pushed some buttons, pushed some people. Interesting how some shit’s coming around and around.

Guess that’s why I can’t just up and start writing stuff every day about every day. On one hand I am busy doing things, on the other hand – some (most) of it is boring, some of it is under NDA, and some just my private shit that is so not interesting…

Stargate Atlantis – as I moved to fifth season in my re-watch, I had an idea. Wraith are just next iteration of predatory vegetarians. We have vegans and vegetarians who don’t eat meat, fish, eggs, whatnot. Then we have some who only consume sunlight. Obviously they die out rather quickly because their bodies aren’t equipped with necessary mechanisms to consume sunlight as energy. That’s basically what Wraith have – a mechanism to consume a “life force” (energy) but not from the Sun – this would have made them true vegetarians, but from other life forms. And this is exactly what makes them predatory.

Home IT – my desktop started staggering today, which is pretty fucking unexpected. So I went straight into Task Manager… and holy crap – I’ve got Chrome eating up 30% of CPU time and about 4GB of RAM for six tabs. While Firefox sits at 15% with 3GB of RAM running twice that many tabs open, half of them – Gmail and Outlook email accounts, which is pretty heavy. As a first approximation experiment – kicked the Chrome off and loaded same tabs in Firefox Developer, just to keep the two browser picture. Both CPU and RAM consumption immediately dropped. I’ll run similar test tomorrow with MS Edge, but it kind of doesn’t make sense as they’re moving to Chromium anyway. Still, pretty indicative how shitty the Chrome have become – practically an IE 6.0 all over again.

Practical idea – instead of Patreon, OnlyFans and other crap – just run the Amazon wish list. You like my work – buy me something I need to continue doing my work. Speaking of work – today’s Instagram picture.

Uncensored