Mess of the Damned

For lack of anything better to do, I started playing around a little bit with Faces in iPhoto.

Generally I don’t like iPhoto. Like iTunes, it forces you to drink Apple’s Kool-Aid and let them do what they want with your files. Unlike iTunes, iPhoto doesn’t even offer you the option of doing things your way. You’re forced to import your files into a monolithic database which takes up half again more space than the photo files all by themselves.

Where iPhoto rules, however, is in its unintentional, purely comedic application.

I don’t take many pictures of people. They ruin my photographs of perfectly silent, inanimate objects. I had to dig pretty deep to find pictures of real, living people that I could tag and let Faces do its thing. The results are pure comedy gold.

For instance, I apparently look like a truck tire, Johnny Damon, a dead horse, the Blessed Mother, Steve Jobs, and a young Negro statue. Among other things.

Of course, I am tickled to be compared to Pedro Martinez, Abraham Lincoln, Machiavelli, Queen Victoria, Napoleon and the Coliseum.

Unexpected hilarity. I need more of that in my life.

I am not glad to be back. On several occasions throughout my weekend in Denver I thought about staying. “The hell with it,” says I, “I’ve got nearly a week’s worth of clothes, I’ve got a suit and a tie, I’ve got my computer and some entertainment options. If I can’t stay in Golden I can be in Cheyenne in two hours, Rawlings in four, Reno in ten or so. Maybe I could even cross into California and settle in Auburn or Colfax or down in Sacramento. Too many lovely places to choose from, too many reasons not to go back to dirty Jersey.”

Hah.

Herein a short list of reasons not to come back:

• The air’s cleaner out West – Breathing clean, dry air is a forgotten pleasure after a few hours of inhaling the East Coast miasma of exhaust, unwashed humanity and death that’s called air.
• Driving is more pleasant in the West – Every time I get into the car in the East I think, “We’re off to the races.” Fast starts, exceeding the speed limit, quick stops, no turn signals, impatience at every turn. In Denver I held strictly to the speed limit and – even on the Interstate – was the fastest car on the road. People stop well back of the line at traffic lights, almost always use their indicators and never seem to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere.
• People are calmer in the West – There are some rabid Colorado Rockies fans but nobody yelled obscenities at the large numbers of Cardinals fans in the ballpark. I didn’t see any fights. I didn’t hear any cussing. Just a good, mellow, beer soaked day at the ballpark.
• The sun is brighter in the West – I slather myself with sunscreen most days as a matter of course. I got flat-out cooked on Saturday sitting in the sun for a couple of hours. That delightful combination of cool, breezy air and hot, bright sun is sadly absent anywhere back East.

Man, I wish I got that job on the railroad. I could be somewhere in Wyoming, windburnt and sun scorched drinking a Fat Tire and thanking the Good Lord above that I don’t have to fight harried drivers, rude salespeople, macho barflies or guidos any time soon.