I'm going to have to get more of these pictures pretty soon...
Saturday, July 26, 2008
«Caturday: Proceed to Bendin' My Brain»
Friday, July 25, 2008
«Cruise Ship Watch: Norwegian Pearl, Silver Shadow, and Westerdam»
By now I must be close to having every ship... I've got another one planned for tomorrow, I'll have to look ahead on the schedule after that one to see when the next ship I have to get is. Like a friend of mine said, it's about like a collectible game: "Gotta catch them all!" I wonder if this is what it's like to play that Pokémon Snap game...
Anyway, the ships I photographed today are the Norwegian Pearl, Silver Shadow, and Westerdam. Click an image to view full.
Let's start with the Norwegian Pearl, docked in front of the Ketchikan Visitor Information and Restrooms.
Here's a ship that's not here too often, the Silver Shadow. It has the highest space-to-passenger ratio of any cruise ship.
Here's the Westerdam, taken from the Thomas Basin boat harbor breakwater.
«YouTube Bike Thief»
So just how easy is it to steal a bicycle, even if it is locked?
bike thief
That's right. They stole their own bike, some methods were quite bold. The police, however, drive right past the thief and head for the camera man instead. The only concerned citizen helped, rather than reported it.
Granted, unless someone was specifically out to steal a bike they wouldn't be carrying those tools. And a lock is still better than nothing at all.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
«Cruise Ship Watch: Spirit of Endeavour»
One small cruise ship for today's Cruise Ship Watch, the Spirit of Endeavour (no wikipedia page). By one ship, I mean one ship I haven't yet photographed for the Cruise Ship Watch series. There were 5 cruise ships in total for today; the Golden Princess, Oosterdam, Statendam, and Sapphire Princess, along with the Spirit of Endeavour. Click the image to view full.
Here's the Spirit of Endeavour docked in Ketchikan, Alaska with the Golden Princess in the background.
«Premature Zombie Apocalypse?»
Response to Why?? on Escape Hatch. It is recommended you go read that first.
Ok, you're back and have read that post on Escape Hatch? If you didn't, that's your problem now...
I really need to pay more attention to the random little things and commit them to memory. It would make for more interesting blog posts. But here's a few "why's" I can remember...
Yesterday I received some Magic: the Gathering cards that I bought on eBay. The envelope they came in was about half covered with a bunch of random 4 cent stamps. It looked like it came from a foreign country (but really it came from Nashville, Tennessee). Why did the seller have so many 4 cent stamps laying around?
I bought 2 hot apple pies at McDonalds yesterday. There was a sticker on the back side of the receipt tape indicating I had won an "instant prize". I got a pretty good deal really: I spent $1.59 (after tax) and got the two hot apple pies I was buying, a couple of coupons for a free cheeseburger and free sundae (my "instant prize"), and an entry into a $50 drawing. Why, or more importantly how did they put that sticker on the receipt tape? Have you ever tried unrolling something like that and then tried to roll it back up perfectly?
Why does it seem like street lights always go out when you approach them? The night before last I rode my bike up to the cemetery. It's pretty dark around there at night, but there's one street light near the war veterans memorial. Any time I came near it, it would go out. After I passed it, it would come back on. I've had street lights go out when I passed them many, many times before; this is just the most recent example. Why do they do that?
Why do people find graveyards spooky at night? Do they really believe the living dead are going to rise out of the ground and begin the zombie apocalypse ahead of schedule? I mean seriously, everyone around you is long dead and six feet under. There's nothing to be afraid of except perhaps tripping on a tombstone.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
«The Problem with Bicyclists and Red Lights»
In all 50 states in the US, bicycles are legal road traffic. In the same respect, bicyclists by law have to follow the rules of the road. It's illegal in most states to ride a bicycle on a sidewalk, including Alaska (in a business district, anyway). This is a law that is not very well enforced or known about, as I see plenty of bicyclists on the sidewalks. Really, I don't know how they do it with all the trees and power poles in the way; there's places that you can't even walk on the sidewalk around here. Well I for one ride on the roads.
Anyway the point being, bicyclists should ride on the roads and are bound by the same laws cars are. The problem with that is the traffic lights do not detect bicycles. It's a bit unfair; we have to follow the rules of the road, but at the same time the road doesn't acknowledge us. There's a coil of wire embedded in the pavement that acts like a metal detector. A bicycle doesn't have enough metal to be detected, so the traffic light never changes for us. I can see this being a bigger issue in the future when car bodies are made of a nonmetallic composite, and engines are made of ceramic (and there will be cars like that someday).
Many times I've had to sit at a red light and wait for a car to come up behind me before the damn light will change. That can take a while at night. Sometimes I end up taking a right and turn around somewhere down the road. The pedestrian push-button is usually not within reach, but that works in the few intersections that it is. Sometimes I wish a bunch of bicyclists would sit over the sensors at a red light and just let the cars back up behind them. Maybe that would get the point across...
I grew up 14 miles North of town, so I didn't have any traffic lights or busy intersections to deal with. I'm getting a little more use to city riding, but I still have trouble with left turns. I'll sit there on the right shoulder waiting for a break in traffic in both lanes. I usually end up having to pass my turn and continue on to an intersection with a street light, turn onto a side road, turn around and go back to the light, and go back the way I came on the main road so I'm in the correct lane to make a right turn to my original destination. It's a real pain and sometimes can take me nearly a mile out of my way. I think I need to start getting more aggressive and pull into the center of the lane when I'm about to do a left turn, stopping traffic if necessary. I'm legal road traffic, after all. That's what hand signals are for.
Do any of you ride a bicycle in town or city traffic? If so, how do you deal with it?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
«More of the Hopkins Alley Shack»
I changed some very minor things in the way lists (both ordered and unordered) display here. I fixed the ordered lists so they display ordered numbers as they should; before they were indifferent from my unordered lists. I didn't change the unordered lists much at all, just a minor spacing tweak so they'd line up better if they are used alongside ordered lists. I also cleaned up a little in my master CSS file: it's now a whole 1,001 bytes smaller.
I took a few more pictures of that historical piece of crap shack on Hopkins Alley yesterday, just for you... I couldn't just leave it at that single picture. I did a little digging and I found that in 2007 it was assessed at $15,100 (links to a pdf). There's no way it's gone up to $99,900 in value. Click an image to view full.
I scanned the ad I saw for that. I wasn't joking when I said the asking price was $99,900. I outlined it in red.
Here's a picture I took at about the same angle it shows on the ad.
Here's the other side of the shack. You can see how rotted and unstable things are.
And here's the [sarcasm]beautiful[/sarcasm] view the building has. Actually, it's usually not that good even, because the Kubota trackhoe isn't usually there. You know, I wouldn't have trusted the strength of the dock to support that thing.
Monday, July 21, 2008
«Motivational Monday: Originality»
I wonder how he got the boot on his head that far?
Sunday, July 20, 2008
«Star Trek Experience Ending»
As the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was named: All Good Things... [...must come to an end.]
The Star Trek Experience in the LasVegas Hilton is going to close. There are no current Star Trek TV shows and interest is falling off. There is a movie due to come out in May 2009, but I don't have high hopes for it. Could this be the end of Star Trek?
I'm what you would call a Trekkie. It's sad to see this happening to Star Trek.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
«Caturday: Hostile to Your Family»
Magic Missile is a spell from Dungeons & Dragons, if you didn't get the reference.
Friday, July 18, 2008
«Tales of Mere Procrastination»
Some days are exactly like this...
Tales Of Mere Existence "Procrastination"
Thursday, July 17, 2008
«Clothes Hanger Bracelets (and Photos)»
There's a few pictures I took on the 14th of this month. Click an image to view full.
Here's a picture of the "historical" Hopkins Alley in Ketchikan, Alaska. The buildings are dilapidated and abandoned, the boards of the street are beginning to rot, and it's just plain ugly. But hey, I just saw an ad... You can buy that run-down shack on piling in the left of the picture for just $99,900 and own your very own historical piece of crap.
Gasp! Ok, who dented the billion dollar ship? Here's a couple of dents in the bow of the Sapphire Princess.
Random pigeon on a piling.
Miniature clothes hanger bracelets... Who would have thought?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
«Safeway Wind Power, Not in This Town»
Yesterday I was out taking a few pictures, and I happened to notice this sign on a Safeway fuel station.
Click image to view full
The island that Ketchikan, Alaska is on has its own separate power grid, powered by hydroelectric with diesel as backup. There are no wind turbines in the system, so it's impossible for their claim to be true that the station is powered 100% by wind power.
Just to raise a stink and see what they do, I emailed their Ethics Hotline, informing them of their misleading and false advertisement. I even included these pictures of the station and sign, to show them I have proof. The pictures were taken on July 15th, we'll see when or if the sign is taken down...
Click image to view full
See the rest of “Safeway Wind Power, Not in This Town”»
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
«Nostalgic Calculator Programs»
I wasn't sure that I'd get that Spirit of Glacier Bay Cruise Ship Watch posted yesterday. Blogger was having issues with uploading images; I kept getting internal error messages. I was ready just to call it quits and try posting it today as my main blog post for the day. Out of frustration more than anything, I decided to try it one last time... And it went through! So I got that posted on time.
Yesterday when I was downtown taking pictures, I ran into Catlin, an old friend I hadn't talked to since we were in high school math classes together (that's why I wasn't around for your lunch break, Trevor). Usually I don't mention names without permission on my blog, but I figured there's no harm with only first names.
You know I have to say, math classes were my most interesting classes in school. I could pretty much ignore the lessons taught in class and still ace the test. That gave me time to discuss theoretical astrophysics with Catlin. Or to write rather unique programs on our Ti-83 plus calculators. I still have a few of those programs. The interesting thing was, the math teacher was ok with what we were doing, he even got into it sometimes.
Heh, I remember one program that the teacher didn't know about... There was this girl that sat in front of us in class, and you could always see her underwear when she sat down. We wrote a program to predict the color of her underwear on any given day. Surprisingly, sometimes it was accurate. If I remember right, it worked off of a pseudo-random number generator. Each color was assigned a number. It would generate a random number, and give certain numbers more weight (more likely to be randomly chosen) depending on how often she wore the corresponding color. Interesting thing about a program like that is the more data you input, the more accurate it gets. So it would get better every day. No, that's not one of the programs I still have. I think we abandoned it when the seating chart was changed.
Now a-days, I don't even remember how to program on the calculator. I've moved on to greater things.
Monday, July 14, 2008
«Cruise Ship Watch: Spirit of Glacier Bay»
This Cruise Ship Watch is a bit unique. Usually I combine all the cruise ships I photographed in a day into one post. Usually I get cruise ships when they're in service and have passengers aboard. Usually I just put up one picture per ship. This is the exception all-around. I present to you, the Spirit of Glacier Bay. Click an image to view full.
Spirit of Glacier Bay with the yellow oil containment boom.
This is the ship I spoke of earlier that ran aground, and it's here in Ketchikan, Alaska for repairs at the shipyard. You can see in the photos, they have a yellow oil containment boom surrounding the ship. It also must be taking on water still, because you can see that the bilge pumps are running.
Let me explain the reasons behind a few of the exceptions:
Anyway, here's the other pictures...
Spirit of Glacier Bay, awaiting repairs at the Ketchikan shipyard.
Water from the bilge pumps on the Spirit of Glacier Bay.
«Cruise Ship Watch: Carnival Spirit and Sapphire Princess»
Two ships in today that I haven't previously photographed, the Carnival Spirit and Sapphire Princess. It's actually quite amazing how many ships go through Ketchikan. Before, I've always figured it was the same few ships over and over, kinda like the Norwegian Star has been this year. However, since I've been keeping track for this series, I've realized there's a ton of different ships that come here.
And yes, the Norwegian Star was one of the ships in today, again. Seems like that ship is always here. Click an image to view full.
Carnival Spirit, docked in Ketchikan and unloading passengers. It had just arrived about half an hour before this picture was taken.
Sapphire Princess in Ketchikan, Alaska.
«Motivational Monday: Caps Lock»
ALL CAPS IS ANNOYING. DON'T DO IT!!!1111!!ONE11!
Oops, sorry...
Ever notice how the last part of license agreements and privacy policies are always in all caps? Why is that? It just makes it more difficult to read; and they don't need to be any more difficult to read than they already are.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
«Spirit of Glacier Bay Repairs»
Flooding Forces Grounded Cruise Ship To Reroute
The Spirit of Glacier Bay had to go to Wrangell for emergency repairs. It didn't even make it here to Ketchikan for repairs. It's a small cruise ship (like the Spirit of '98). Last week it ran aground in Glacier Bay, the place it was named after.
From another news article, it looks like they've patched the crack in the hull well enough to get it here. I had missed taking a picture of it on May 13th for my Cruise Ship Watch series; perhaps I can get a picture of it in the shipyard, lol.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
«Caturday: Laptop Pwitty Wet (200th Post)»
I don't know... I just don't want every Caturday to have the exact same title. Oh, buy the way, this is post number 200 for my blog.
Friday, July 11, 2008
«Musical Taste: Evanescence»
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
A series I started a while ago, I haven't forgotten or completed it. It's an on-going series. In it, I basically give example of music I like, one band at a time. (With he exception of number 8, I did that one a little different)
So this one is dedicated to Evanescence. The videos are official music videos.
Evanescence - Everybody´s Fool
Evanescence - Sweet Sacrifice
Evanescence - Lithium
Thursday, July 10, 2008
«Human Mirror»
Improv Everywhere, the same group that did the Frozen Grand Central and Food Court Musical have made a human mirror aboard a train. They had identical twins sitting across from each other.
Human Mirror
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
«Search and Page Edit»
I've added a search box at the top of the sidebar. I'm using the Google Custom Search feature. I can include whatever sites I want, or the entire web. I chose to make it search only my site. I figured you can go to Google if you want to search the entire web. Before, if you wanted to search just my site, you'd have to type in the following along with your query in Google.
site:http://mastermarf.blogspot.com OR site:http://mastermarf.googlepages.com
Now, you can just type your query directly into the search box in the sidebar. If you think I should change it to search the entire web, feel free to say so in the comments.
On a different note, here's a nifty little thing I ran across, copy the code below.
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0
Now paste it into the address bar and hit enter. Looks like nothing happened? (Well, ok, the colors of links will change to your browser's default color, in most cases blue.) Try to edit the text anywhere on the page like you would in a word processor. Pretty cool, eh? You can do this on any web page. The site I found it on said it's been tested to work in Firefox and Internet Explorer. So if you are not using one of those it may or may not work for you.
Of course, you're not actually editing the page. You're not going to be able re-write my blog and expect others to see your version; unless you take a screenshot that is. All you're doing is editing the text in your browser's memory. When you refresh the page it will restore the original text. I had better not see any Master Barf screenshots now...
This just goes to show that you can't trust screenshots; even if they haven't been edited in Photoshop.
See the rest of “Search and Page Edit”»
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
«Noir»
One flash animation that seems to haunt my random thoughts is Mr. Happy Face. Oh, look... Someone put it on YouTube. So now it can haunt your thoughts as well.
Mr. Happy Face
There is an old series of flash animations I watched back in the day that comes to mind every now and then. Salad Fingers, set in a post-apocalyptic world after some "great war". The main character has gone insane (to say the least)... The first episode is a little off, at least more so than the others. They're not available on YouTube because of copyright infringement, but you can watch them from the website.
This one is one of my favorite flash animations, deep in the realm of noir. If you don't smile like the rest of the crowd, you're punished. There's a lot of hidden meaning in this video.
Smile!
Monday, July 7, 2008
«Cruise Ship Watch: Seven Seas Mariner and Ryndam»
Two ships in today that I have not photographed before for my blog, the Seven Seas Mariner and Ryndam. Click an image to view full (I wounder how many times I've typed that phrase now).
The Seven Seas Mariner coming in to dock. If you look closely, they don't even have any lines to the dock yet. You can also see a bit of turbulence from their thrusters at the rear of the ship.
The Ryndam docked in Ketchikan, Alaska.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
«Caturday: Said Curiosity is Inadequate»
Caturday in July, imagine that.
... but will have to do for this week.
Friday, July 4, 2008
«Happy Independance Day»
For the rest of the world, happy Friday, I suppose.
The fireworks in town last year were canceled due to weather. They were going to fire them off on New Year's, but had to cancel then as well, also due to weather. Today it's overcast and drizzling. I think the wind is more of an issue than the rain, however. I don't know that I'll even be in town to watch the fireworks anyway, even if they don't get canceled again.
I'm not all that into the Independence Day celebrations. It's a bit crowded, and the parade sucks every year. They space out emergency vehicles throughout the parade and they blare their sirens. No shit: they drown out all the bagpipe players and other music being played, making the entire experience annoying rather than enjoyable.
My dad usually avoids town like the plague on the 4th of July. Although he's been talking about going downtown today, after the parade. Just to walk around and see what's going on. If he does, I'll be with him.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
«Cruise Ship Watch: Golden Princess, Spirit of '98, Statendam, Oosterdam, and Diamond Princess»
Like I said in the last Cruise Ship Watch, there would be 5 ships in today that I haven't photographed for my blog. Well, I decided to stay in town so I could get them. So here are the Golden Princess, Spirit of '98 (no wikipedia page), Statendam, Oosterdam, and Diamond Princess. Click an image to view full.
Let's start with the Golden Princess. You can also see the Spirit of '98 in this picture.
Here's the Spirit of '98 up closer, with the Golden Princess towering in the background. The Spirit of '98 is just a small ship, carrying only about 100 passengers. 
The Statendam, you can see a couple of buses for size comparison.
The Oosterdam docked next to the Ketchikan Visitor Information center.
The Diamond Princess docked in Ketchikan.
«Pictures From Tuesday»
I took a few pictures around town on Tuesday. The Volendam wasn't the only thing I photographed that day. I walked around on some of the more obscure boardwalks in Ketchikan. As always, click an image to view full.
Here's Edge Cliff Way. I didn't walk down it, but that dead end sign is for, you guessed it, the stairway.
I found this pattern in a landing on a brick stairway. Looks like a heart. It's at about the same location I was standing when I photographed the Volendam.
What ever happened to fire engine red, anyway?
Here's Main Street. Every town has a Main Street, right? What's that you say, not every town has a staircase for their Main Street? To be fair, there is part of Main Street further down that's for cars.
Speaking of staircases, check out the entrance to this house. I'd hate to haul a new refrigerator or furniture up to that house. Or just the groceries for that matter. Like I've said before, this town was built on the side of a mountain.
Here's a salmonberry. They're like raspberries, but more tart or sour. I ate it after I took the picture. These bushes are everywhere around here, quite invasive.
This picture was taken from an obscure boardwalk that overlooks the "Newtown" part of Ketchikan. It looked poorly maintained, and only went to the charred remains of a burned down house. I have no idea what the boardwalk is named.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
«Reflections»
I may not have 1,000 posts yet (this one happens to be number 188), but I still have reflections of my own from time-to-time.
This one is a reflection off of Ward Lake, taken on May 16th, 2008.
Click image to view full
See the rest of “Reflections”»
«Night Rider»
So that patch I put on my bicycle tube didn't hold. Cheap ass patch, I didn't have much faith in it anyway. It wasn't much more than a sticker. So I ended up getting a new tube. So my bike is once again in working order... For how long, I don't know. So last night I finally got to ride my bike at night in town with my new lights.
The headlight (if you can call it that) isn't much more than a cheap flashlight mounted to my handlebars. It doesn't illuminate crap in front of me; but it doesn't have to be a flood light, it only has to make me visible to oncoming traffic. In the rear I have a strobing/flashing red LED taillight. I'm a little more pleased with this one than I was with the headlight. I bet the batteries will last longer in that as well.
There were a few pedestrians that made comments about my lights. One said they didn't even know you could get lights for a bicycle. Obviously they didn't know about the law that states you have to have lights on a bicycle at night. Although as I've noticed, not many bicycle laws seem to be enforced.
In fact, while I was out I saw another cyclist (a) with no lights and (b) riding on the sidewalk in a business district. A police car had just passed.
I was out for a good 2 hours. I rode back and forth from one end of town to the other, up and down the cruise ship docks, and circled the Plaza several times. It's nice to ride in town when the traffic is light. This time of night, most of the traffic is police cars or taxi cabs. The fog kept getting heavier and heavier as the night went on. I finally came back home about 1 AM. It was a nice, pleasant ride.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
«Happy Canada Day»
I know I rarely do 3 posts in a day, but this is a short one. I took this picture out on my adventures today. Happy Canada Day!
Click image to view full
See the rest of “Happy Canada Day”»
«Cruise Ship Watch: Volendam»
I've noticed that the ships are on a fairly weekly schedule. As a result, I see the same ones over and over on the same days of the week. I'm not in town (walking distance, anyway) on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. So I'm missing many of the ships that are usually in on those days. For example, this Thursday there are 4 large ships in and one small one. I don't have pictures of any of those yet. Click an image to view full.
Anyway, here's the Volendam. It was in today and I hadn't taken a picture of it for my blog yet.
Here's the 4 ships that were in. Kinda hard to make them out through the trees. The Volendam (on the far end), Mercury, Star Princess, and Norwegian Sun.
«End of Jury Duty»
Here's how my jury duty went yesterday. It's actually a fairly major trial; expected to go 4 days, 6 felony counts, they brought a judge down from Juneau...
I got there a few minutes before they opened the jury chambers. There were already several people waiting. Once they opened the door, I was the second one to enter the room and sign in. I was handed a form to fill out, asking general information and if I knew any of the involved parties. I knew one of the witnesses, although not well. I went to school with him, but haven't spoken in years.
We watched a video about the role of a jury in the justice system. The video was made in the 70's, someone next to me sarcastically commented "at least they're up to date". The video was a bit exaggerated. They even admitted that in the video itself, saying something along the lines of "the reenactments in the video are extremes so as to make it more clear".
Anyway, after that we all shuffled into the courtroom. The judge asked a few general questions, such as are we all US citizens and Alaska residents. She pointed out we all should be, as the jurors are selected from Alaska permanent fund dividend applicants. (It's illegal for someone that's not an Alaska resident to apply for the permanent fund dividend.) She also asked if there was anyone mentally ill among us. That got a few laughs from people.
I was the first one called to the jury box. I didn't have many questions asked of me from either the prosecutor or the defense attorney. There were a few people that were dismissed because they couldn't be impartial or had emotional issues with the subject matter of the trial. When it came time for the actual selections, I was the very first one to get booted. The prosecutor didn't like me.
So that's the end of my jury duty for the month. I was out just before noon. I wish I would have made the trial, but then I couldn't have said much about it today. At least I got the experience I did.
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