The Art of Retouching

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Greg Apodaca has worked as a digital retoucher since 1995. He is talented (and plays rock and roll to boot).

Apodaca could make Ernest Borgnine look like George Clooney or Rosie O'Donnell look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. He has some interesting examples on his website (click on the title of this post). It also makes me wonder about the examples he can't show us!!! This is the guy you go to if you need to look scrumptious.
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Color Perception & Optical Illusions

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Square A and Square B are indeed the same color (I checked in Photoshop tm).

Go to this site to see some of their other illusions, and even buy a printed copy if you'd like... (click on the title to link there).
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Helen Thomas Vows To Commit Suicide If Dick Cheney Runs For The Presidency

Veteran wire reporter/longtime White House Press Corps member (and one of my favorite reporters) Helen Thomas, is vowing to 'kill herself' if Dick Cheney announces he is running for president.

The newspaper HILL first reported per promise Thursday. "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself," she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar."Thomas added.

"I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does."
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Follow-up: The Sasquatch Turns Out To Be A Buffalo

Following up my earlier post on the DNA testing of some alleged Sasquatch hair. . .

David Coltman, a University of Alberta geneticist who performed a DNA test on a hair sample, confirmed that it was 100-per-cent bison (Bisons are quite tasty, by the way). '

The sample was found in a bush in Teslin, Yukon, near the British Columbia border where people reported hearing and seeing a large, hairy creature crash through their backyards.
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Gamebox 1.0 - The Movie You've Been Waiting For

Gamebox 1.0 is an apparently unintentionally funny movie about a videogame tester who ends up trapped in a game. It's a thriller diller, with an even flimsier premise than the usual B Movie. Bonus: Topanga from "Boy Meets World" appears briefly in the trailer... Click on the title to see the trailer (you'll need to have the dreaded QuickTime tm installed).
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There He Goes Again: POTUS Gives The Finger To The Press

This is a video of The President appearing to give a pack of reporters the fnger when he thinks he is out of their sight. The video appears to be the live feed from MS NBC. Click on the title of this post to look at the footage.
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Poem: [A flight of swallows]

A flight of swallows
Spins outside the window.

One by one,
The stars turn on

And the yellow sun
Transmogrifies to dusty rose

As it sinks
In its ebbing light.

The moon's in tune,
Stars turn on

And clouds drape
Across the sky.

Snared in the web
Of the Milky Way, we careen

Through space, twirling on earth's axis,
Around the sun, and into the black.
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Updated Index To Original Poems In All This Is That

Poem: A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - Poem: The Prevaricator
Poem: Weather Report
Poem: Your Wooden Leg
Poem: The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Poem: Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
Poem: The Late Excavation (Text And Audio)
Poem: Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
Poem: The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
Poem: At The Acropolis
Poem: When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
Painting & A Poem In The Painting [detail from I Read The News Today]
Poem: The sous-chef is a sociopath]
Poem: James Wright
Poem: Falling
Poem: [Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Poem: Seven
Poem: Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Poem: Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Poem: Bird Poem: Monism
Poem: The Golden Rule Poem: The Countdown
Poem: When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
Poem: AT HILLCREST CEMETARY IN KENT, WASHINGTON, I WALK BY THE GRAVE OF SAM THE GRASSEATER
Poem: Notes On Flying
Poem: Daybreak
Poem: Explosions
poem: Not Past Tense Yet
poem: the glass is not half-full
Poem: It's Getting Crowded Here
Poem: Li Po In Disgrace
Poem: The Clock
A Poem: Love Song
Poem: Bad Timing
Poem: The Killer
Poem: The Absence of Footprints
Poem: Growing Up
Poem: Gone Fishing
Poem: The M.D.s
A Poem - Acrylic
poem: The Marriage
Poem: Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River

The Tussle With Terror

According to The Drudge Report and other news sites today, highly placed sources in the Bush Administration says it is retooling the slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The White House began promulgating the idea that the long-term struggle is both an ideological and a military skirmish.

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the country's top military officer have recently spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism." The global war on terror is about to become a thing of the past.
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The Line of Presidential Succession

The Senate yesterday slightly altered the rules of Presidential succession. Instead of being dead last, the Homeland Security Secretary is moved up to 8th place. The House will likely approve a parallel bill. Does President Hastert or President Rumsfeld sound a little spooky? I still like this succession better than when former A.G. Ashcroft or Security Czar Ridge were in the lineup.

If the House bill passes, here is the lineup, in order:

_Vice President Dick Cheney
_House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
_Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens, R-Alaska
_Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
_Treasury Secretary John Snow
_Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
_Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
_Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
_Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton
_Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
_Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez
_Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
_Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt
_Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson
_Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta
_Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman
_Education Secretary Margaret Spellings
_Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson

Commerce Secretary Gutierrez and Labor Secretary Chao would be skipped, of course, because they were born in Cuba, and Taiwan respectively.
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Sasquatch DNA Testing

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The debate over the existence of sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, an ape-like creature said to haunt the wilderness of western Canada [Jack note, and the U.S. Northwest as well] has entered the world of modern DNA testing. A laboratory will test hair samples that several residents of Teslin, Yukon, say were left when the large, but so-far mythological creature made a late-night run through their community in early July.

University of Alberta wildlife geneticist David Coltman, who agreed to do the tests as a favor to a colleague, said on Monday that scientists have cataloged the DNA of nearly all large animals in the Yukon such as bears and bison. "So we'll compare it to all of that, and if it doesn't match anything, then it's potentially interesting. . ."

Click on the title of this posting to link to the Reuters article. . .
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Painting: Self-Portrait No. 7

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