Nothing like a distraction to help cure insomnia. The web is full of distractions. What’ll it be first? Facebook? Flickr? Maybe I’ll just go through my neglected RSS feeds. I start from left to right.

Facebook is the new high school. I was never that popular in high school, nor am I popular on Facebook. Some of my friends 249 “friends” are — you know, the ones who were popular in high school. I like when I post a link to a political story or an interesting photo or a funny YouTube video, I rarely get a response. Yet, one of the populars posts the same damn thing, and people seem to fall over themselves to be the first to offer a bon mot, a snarky response, or some other slithering obsequiousness. Facebook changes its interface every three days, too. You’d think this would be for the better, but it usually amounts to what the campus IT guys call an “upgrade” — you know, something that helps them as administrators but makes the system worse for its users.

Flickr is not much better. I have less “friends” on Flickr, and they are a more gregarious community. However, the “photographers” who seem to get the most attention are the ones who post pictures of their lovely lady lumps. I might even go so far as to say that the most popular photogs on Flickr are young women self-portrait artists who don’t mind showing their boobs. They don’t even have to be good photographers to get a lot of comments. My favorites are the ones who try to analyze a technical proficiency that’s not there: “Excellent composition and attention to details.” What they really mean is “Nice boobies!” Even serious photogs turn into Beavis and Butthead when boobs are involved. Yours truly is no exception. Flickr used to be about growing as a photographer; now it’s about looking at boobs.

One could learn a lot about me by seeing my RSS feeds. I use Fever as my reader of choice, installed at Jhary.com. Fever allows me to prioritize my feeds into “kindling” and “sparks”; the former are the essential sites I want to read, while the latter are supplemental and only influence what’s hot — i.e., what’s being talked about the most on all my feeds. While it’s expensive, I’ve been using Fever for almost a year now.

I usually begin my RSS perusal with technology news, like what’s up with Apple and Ubuntu. Since the iPad is coming out at the end of the month, it’s interesting to see what the lovers and haters have to say. There are plenty of both offering praise and condemnation for a device that hasn’t even come out yet. It looks like it might be bigger than the iPhone. I usually include Boing Boing, Slashdot, and LifeHacker as part of my tech browsing.

From tech, I look to photography, from Canon rumors and new equipment to advice about being a better photog to equipment reviews. Next, if I’m still awake, I check out what my favorite car company — Mini — is up to on Motoring File, and I might look at a couple of motorcycling feeds.

Yes, I have feeds on politics, arts, literature, and other news, but I generally don’t read these when I’m trying to fight off insomnia.

Last night I found something interesting on LifeHacker: 750 Words Clears Your Mind. It suggests a simple site, 750 Words, that encourages you to write 750 words a day. Now, I gotta say, I’m prime for this suggestion, having just met some great writers at the Crossroads Writers Conference, like Jack McDevitt. Now, I’ve never fooled myself into believing I was a writer, especially a creative one. Yes, I took a creative writing class as an undergrad, making Dr. Cole suffer through all my awful sonnets and short stories, but the only thing I really learned is that I’ll likely never write a novel. Still, it is a dream of mine. I’d love to write a series of science fiction novels.

Thsi is where 750 Words comes in: “The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.” Well, the 750 Words web site is not taking any new accounts at the moment, but this entry is my first — up over 800 words by now. When I asked Jack McDevitt how many pages he writes a day, he told me six, about 1500 words. But, he’s a real, working novelist.

Maybe if I just get in the habit of writing, I can get better? At least it will give me something productive to do when I’m insomniac.

While we all still like Flickr, we need more than what it seems to be able to offer. So, check us out.

On a related note, I’m still not sure my main photography site works very well. I might just ditch it, and make my Zenfolio account my gallery. Let’s face it: people are only going to hire me by word-of-mouth. I don’t have to advertise my photography services on a web site. Having both grlucas.com and photos.grlucas.com might just be overkill. Any thoughts?

Finally, I ran into Virb. Looks better than MySpace.

This photo is by Mark James, and shows the Executive Board at Mailer’s house on the last night of the conference. I’m on the bottom left. See more photos from the 2007 Conference. And, if you have a Flickr account, make us a friend.

I also found a cool blog right here on Blogger that deals with Second Life: Fashion Victim. I ran into some of Stephanie Misfit’s photos on Flickr, and her stream led me to the blog. Not only is it imaginative and fun, but the information is useful for negotiating SL — or at least making your avatar look good. Thanks, Stephanie and friends.

“Some Upgrades” Originally uploaded by jhary.

This is JJ yesterday after a couple of upgrades.

Thank goodness that Autumn was around for the shoot: one of my flaws as a portrait photographer is that I don’t give good directions, like “lean forward,” or “take you hand out of your pocket,” or “get down on your knee.” I guess I need to think in terms of story: what are these photos about and how do we best communicate that with the composition. Something to always consider, I guess, and something I will work on in the future.

Thanks, A, for introducing a bit of narrative into the otherwise random shots of a couple. We make a great team.

My Pizza Crust

4 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour (King Arthur)
1 2/3 cup of warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast

Add all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly until the dough begins to form into a sticky ball. Cover and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Continue to knead until the dough is velvety smooth, adding flour when necessary, about 20 minutes. “Wetter” dough seems to yield better results. Put the ball of dough in a greased bowl, and put the bowl on the top rack of your oven. Pour about 4 cups of boiling water into a glass pan on the bottom rack of your oven. Let the dough rise for about an hour.

Turn the dough out onto a floured countertop, and form into a ball. Divide into four pieces (or fewer if you desire thicker crust or larger pizzas). Form each piece into a smooth ball, oil lightly, and place in a covered bowl. I like to keep at least two balls in the fridge for up to a week. They get a bit sour and even better after a few days.

The balls should rise in the fridge for at least 24 hours. For the impatient, you can leave one ball out (covered) to rise for immediate use. Press out into rounds; I like a French rolling pin for even, thin crust. Cover with your favorite toppings; I find the less I use the better the ‘za.

I bake with a stone: you should put your oven on its highest setting for at least a half hour (my oven goes to 550°). Baking time varies on oven temperature, about 8-10 minutes.

Note that you cannot use the same amount of table salt as a replacement for the sea salt above—sea salt is much less dense.