Year: 2008
Photoshop Disasters
One of my new favorite sites is Photoshop Disasters, which features actual commercial photoshop work that is bad or stupid. Check out, for example, this ad for Elizabeth Arden lipstick, where they’ve gone to the trouble to hire Catherine Zeta-Jones, and then photoshopped away all her actual facial features. Or how about this impossibly thin… Read more
New! Big! Photos!
As the resolution of computer monitors creeps up, the visual size of pixel-dimensioned page content has been shrinking, and web designers have been tweaking pages to compensate for the changes. For example, when I first started posting my photography on this site, I would size the images to have a maximum dimension of 400 pixels.… Read more
No More Tobaggan Slides in Cook Country Forest Preserves
Cook County Forest Preserve District is tearing down the last of the toboggan slides: The last toboggan slides in the Cook County Forest Preserve District will come down despite an impassioned plea to preserve the historic attractions enjoyed by generations of city and suburban residents. The Forest Preserve Commission approved contracts Tuesday to demolish the… Read more
A Few Thoughts About the Sean Bell Shooting
I haven’t really been following the trial of the four cops who shot an unarmed Sean Bell outside the strip club where he’d just had a bachelor party. However, a few things seem worth mentioning. First of all, the fact that the cops fired 50 shots is vivid and horrific, but I don’t think it says… Read more
Nosocomial Blues
It all started when my 88-year-old father’s home care nurse came to visit and noticed that his left foot looked infected. He has diabetes—meaning an infection in an extremeity could be serious—so she got some kind of medi-car service to take him to the emergency room at the local V.A. hospital. The ER there operates as… Read more