Alien eggs to skullduggery

I found this growing in the back patio garden the other day. I'd never seen anything like it, but Linda assures me it belongs. Personally, I was flashing on the alien egg that created Sigourney Weaver a star and didn't get too close.

Maybe the cube doesn't ride again. I got it cycling through photos and all seemed well. We liked seeing the photos scrolling by. These are the ones taken with a good camera and edited in Lightroom. I knew I hadn't got them all, and figured I'd make another pass at it.

The Apple Photos thing that lives on Linda's computer is a mess. There's 14,000 photos there, with many duplicates and near duplicates. There are several different folders that might or might not be the same 14K photos, or just a subset, mainly resulting from a hard drive failure and recovery efforts. I really should sort it out.

I figured I could scroll through, eliminate some and get it down to a number that would join the Lightroom exports and fit on a big USB drive that the Cube could look at for screen savers. Holy doodle. In the end it was easier to go through and pick the ones I wanted and export them. So many interesting photos I wanted to show people! The actual exporting went quick.

Then the poor Cube choked on the USB. I did a bit of this and that, computer stuff, and as of this writing, it isn't working. I'll lose readers if I continue to talk about that, so I'll change the topic now, and let you know if I get it working again.

Book stores have had a tough go of it in recent decades. Calgary used to have many used book stores, and I used to love checking them out. When I was doing shift work I'd visit during the day when it was quiet, and hit a bunch of them, and grab lunch along the way. I didn't have a particular favourite, but they were all fun to visit. Even the one on 16 Ave that used old National Geographic magazines as support pillars, and I learned to pick a few books off the shelf pretty quick and carry them around, even if I had no intention of buying them. The owner didn't like people browsing for a long time and not picking something out.

Then, in no particular order, publishing and book selling fell victim to various forms of capitalistic excess, e-books became a thing, the internet happened, Amazon dot com, and it's almost tough to find actual paper books now if you aren't a fan of Chapters. I have to mention my current favourite new book store, Owl's Nest Books in Britannia, though I'm surprised they're still with us.

The best used book store for some time now has been Fair's Fair. For a while they had several store fronts, but they've dwindled too. The main one I went to was in Inglewood and what a treasure trove! They looked like they had found a niche.

Then COVID. I bought something from them during the curb side pickup days. But if dealing with that that wasn't enough, they had a major flood. We walked past the store during our Inglewood ramble the other day, and it hurt not to be able to go in. I sure hope they can make it through the other side. Even if they do, a flood does structural damage to old buildings. That one may end up being torn down. Inglewood is going through a redevelopment fit, and that property is a wonderful location. Don't get Linda started on that topic.

I've talked of the difficulties in the publishing industry before. The entire model of selling paper books needs to be revisited, and the writers need a bigger cut of the pie. I think the solution needs to be print on demand, or some variant of that. Someone will figure it out.

Why do I think that? Because there's lots wrong with the digital book marketing model. I've discovered I don't much like reading on a device, and lots of people feel the same way. We like holding a book. We like being able to flip back and forth to check out a previous conversation, or to look at a map. I can remember where on a page a particular chunk of text was, and that's one of the cues I used to find things again.

None of that works well on a digital book. I even looked at the contortions needed to check an e-book out of the library. As a person with more than a bit of experience in dealing with computer interfaces, gathering requirements for them, testing them, training people to use them, I have to say the experience sucks slough water so badly I won't use it. I'm actually a little surprised anyone does.

As just one thing, why are there limited numbers of copies? This is insanity. Build the model around letting as many people check out a book as want it, and keep track of how many, and figure out royalties or whatever on that basis.

But the other thing for me, perhaps the main thing, is that a book is a physical thing. It will sit quietly on a shelf waiting for you. Short of a flood, or fire, or other catastrophe, it will sit there for decades. Sure, the paper will slowly oxidize, but that's a human lifetime. That's good enough for anyone but archivists. A digital copy on your device can go away, suddenly and with no notice, at the whim of some corporate deal maker, or the result of some legal skullduggery.

So back to Fair's Fair. Their Chinook store is open, but I've never been there. The whole Chinook area is one I drive past only when needed. Talk about corporate blight. Still, I should drop in on the store to check it out and buy something. Kitty corner from the Chinook LRT station. Hmmm.

 From the Inglewood walk. Linda says the inner city is a different gardening zone, and plants grow there that won't grow in our garden. Like these Cana lilies. We've had some, and they're gorgeous, but they just barely bloom for us before the frost hits.

Intentional movement.

I'm glad I brought my flower lens. These guys looked so happy, even though they were in a nice planter box in a parking lot beside a railway track.

Railway leftovers. Interesting stuff to shoot, in an industrial way. That's Kelly. Yes, there's a big hat in the background.

We got some peculiar looks as we strolled down an alley looking for old stuff. I was amused at one photographer persuading a model in a lovely red dress to climb over the railing and pose on a sloped roof.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis

Flowers
The white peony out front is fading fast, but even so, the old blooms are still beautiful, and there's lots of shots in the pipeline. Hmmm, maybe the white peony should replace me as a usual suspect. Comments?

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek