eric nuzum dot com

My dead pixel dilemma

 The photo to the right is a extremely blown up picture of a rock in the middle of the Devil's Den at the Gettysburg Battlefield.

The white dot in the middle? It isn't a ghost. It isn't a led light. It isn't a reflection.

It is a dead pixel.

Shortly after returning from Gettysburg in August, I discovered that my Canon digital camera has one dead pixel, which always registers bright white, located just to the left of the dead center of the lens.

After some investigation, I learned that (when blown up) this dead pixel can be seen in every single photo I've taken with this camera since I bought in in March. Hundreds of photos.

On one hand, it is almost impossible to notice (unless, like me, you happen to take a lot of nighttime photographs). On the other hand, once you've noticed, it is almost impossible to not to notice it, first thing, in every single photograph.

Now, here is my dilemma.

Fixing this problem is actually fairly easy. I call Canon, I send the camera in to them, and they will fix or replace it under warranty. No problem.

Here is the dilemma: our son is due to be born in about seven and a half weeks. So, if I send in my digital camera to have it fixed, what do I do if it isn't back to me by December 22nd?

I mean, as a father, I have very little to do during the birth except hold Katherine's hand and take pictures of the kid. By sending in this camera, am I potentially ruining one of my two basic functions as a father?

The alternative is, of course, to just keep using the 10,999,999 pixels of this camera that do work properly. But then, there will be that one dead pixel in each of my child's baby photos. Then, someday I will tell him about the dead pixel, and then he will go through his entire life noticing that one dead pixel in all his baby pictures.

So what do I do?

Write me and weigh in.

I fucking love Diet Pepsi Lime

nectar of the gods
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I was back in Ohio this weekend visiting my parents and grandparents. Everything was fine and fun, everyone is good.

All that aside--I had my world rocked this weekend.

I was in my parents' kitchen and opened the frig to get something to drink, when a green glowing beacon from heaven caught my eye.

A can of Diet Pepsi Lime.

"Where did this come from?!?!?" I exclaimed.

"Um, the grocery store," my mother answered.

To me--this was crazy talk.

Around the time Pepsi re-designed their packaging, Diet Pepsi Lime seemed to slowly disappear. I have no idea what happened--it was never particularly easy to find in the first place.

But as it slowly became harder and harder to find--I prepared myself for the day to come when I would no longer be able to savor Diet Pepsi Lime. I'd occasionally find a 12-pack here or there, but I treated each one like it was my last.

I had long ago assumed that Diet Pepsi Lime had gone the way of Coke II, Diet Hubba Bubba, Josta, and...dare I even mention it...Crystal Pepsi.

While not enough to keep it in production, there are other Diet Pepsi Lime fanatics out there, as well. As there are even folks auctioning cans on eBay--including one dude asking $10 a can.

But then, I'm in Ohio and this new Diet Pepsi Lime emerges. I went to said grocery and bought five cases and hauled them home. Then, on a lark, I checked online and found this awesome product locator that allows you to find Pepsi products in local stores (who would of thunk such a site existed)--including Diet Pepsi Lime--and there is some at the Giant right down the street in Columbia Heights!

It wasn't until I realized that I can get it again that it dawned on me--perhaps this is a "summer" only product. Of course.

Well, with Diet Pepsi Lime back--I think this is going to be the best summer ever.

Pretty in pink

Pink Rose
Originally uploaded by ~Kim's Picture Gallery~

Last Friday I got a phone from my friend Chantal. She'd received some flowers for her birthday and forgot them when she left for the day. She wanted me to bring them home, then to her place, so that she could enjoy them over the weekend.

No problem, I thought. Happy to do it.

After another colleague dropped the flowers at my desk, I realized that they were pink roses.

Now, while it shouldn't be a big deal for a guy to walk around carrying a dozen pink roses, last Friday I happened to be wearing a bright pink dress shirt, almost identical to the color of the roses.

I'm a big believer in pink dress shirts. I think it takes a man of confidence to wear a bright pink shirt. When they do so, they actually come off looking quite manly.

However, a pink dress shirt...and a dozen matching pink roses? What the heck, I'd give it a try.

I entered the lobby of our building and passed the security guard, who, while pleasant and always smiling, has never said a word to me, even once.

"Loooooking gooooood!" he exclaimed as I walked by.

I stepped out on to the street as a colleague was walking back into the building. He did a double-take (a double-take as in "I just saw a van plow through a group of school children," as compared to a "gee, you just blew my mind in a good way" kind of double-take).

"Wow," was all he could manage to say.

I received two other comments, from strangers, before I'd even hit the corner of our block.

I felt so self-conscious, like those around me thought I was some kind of 2009 version of Oscar Wilde, sashaying down Massachusetts Avenue with a dozen pink roses to mask the unGodly smell of our fair capital.

I didn't even want to imagine what my subway ride home was going to be like.

I immediately hailed a cab (and had no trouble being noticed) and paid $11 mostly for the ability to ride home alone.

The irony of this was that when I went to Chantal's that night, I forgot the flowers. Oh well.

My new office...with a view of the Capitol

view from my new office
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

This week I moved offices. My new office is about twice the size of my old one (which isn't saying much, as it was very tiny). I'm on the same floor, but on the front side of our building, which is a big deal.

The view out my window couldn't be any more different. Instead of watching bums defecate on the sidewalk and the comings and goings at the (now defunct) Korean brothel on K Street, now I get to look out at the hustle and bustle of Massachusetts Avenue.

But the best part: my office has a view of the Capitol.

Well, technically.

The picture above and to the right (click to enlarge) is the view out of my new office window. Look just to the left of the center of the photo. You'll see a church steeple. Slightly to the left of that steeple is a pointy thing rising above a long flat roof.

That "pointy thing" is the Freedom Statue on top of the Capitol building.

 Here is an enlargement with the statue peaking above the roof (click to enlarge).

(The red circle was added by me--the Capitol isn't glowing or anything.)

Now, the building with the flat roof is the General Accounting Office (GAO), which prevents me from having a full view of the Capitol dome. The GAO are the folks that tell us how much of a debt we're running, how soon Social Security will implode, and how screwed-up our government is. So my vote: let's dispense with the buzzkills at the GAO, demolish their building, and improve my view!

So, there you have it--my office has a Capitol view.

Perhaps I should have been a real estate agent.

No dressed crab before bedtime

Old_Phone
Originally uploaded by pumax84

It's 5:47 am. I just woke up from a dream that disgusted me so badly--I had to get up and take notes.

This dream was centered around an act of kindness: killing my friend Matt.

This dream is remarkable for two reasons. First, I never, ever remember dreams. So the fact that I can wake up and remember any part of it is unusual. Second, well, I'm sure you'll figure that out as we move along.

In this dream, I was just about to electrocute Matt, at his insistence.

For some reason, Matt, who is a very balanced guy, wanted to commit suicide. In his second example of questionable judgment, he asked me to help him. Unfortunately, I have no idea what Matt's reasons or rationale were for wanting to depart this mortal coil. Whatever it was, it was convincing/compelling enough that I agreed to help him.

My idea for how to humanely help Matt end his life? Electrocute him though a phone line (along the lines, I guess, of the old wife's tale about the dangers of talking on a phone during a lightning storm).

So anyhow, I got all MacGyver with a tunafish can, a knife, and a Christmas light timer, all tied together with wire and plugged into the phone line and a wall outlet. In this scheme, I would call Matt, leave the phone line open (with Matt holding the phone on the other end). I would then plug in the Christmas light timer and set it to turn on in a few seconds.

Matt and I were handling the logistics over an IM conversation:

Me: "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Matt: "yes"
Me: "Are you holding the phone up to your ear?"
Matt: "yes"
Me: "Goodbye, Matt."
Matt: "Goodbye, Eric."
[Pause]
Me: "Okay, everything is set...you have 11 seconds to change your mind."

Then 11 seconds pass, the timer turns on, there is a flash, a puff of smoke, and then stillness.

During this time, my wife and friend Simon just happened to be hanging out watching TV while I am ending Matt's life.

"That's it," I said. "I think he's dead."

I typed into the IM conversation:

Me: "Matt? Matt? Are you still there?"

Nothing.

Now let me explain two things here. First, big surprise, this would never work. I'm sure that some fuse or protection between here and New York City would trip when 120 volts of electricity was racing towards Matt's ear, that is assuming the charge would ever even leave my house. Second, Matt doesn't even have a regular phone. He only has a cell phone. So basically, I'm assuming that my tin can and cutlery fueled surge would make it to New York, up through an appropriate cell tower, then streak across the sky towards Matt's phone, killing him painlessly and instantly.

Regardless of the laws of physics involved, I started thinking of the laws of man involved.

"Did I just commit manslaughter?"

"Hey man, I didn't see anything," Simon said. "Your secret is safe with me."

I started to clean up all my MacGyver stuff to hide the evidence of my involvement. Then I remembered the IM conversation. Poor little Matt was sitting there dead, with a charred cell phone next to his head, and there was his computer, detailing the entire event in an IM window, ending with me saying, "Matt? Matt? Are you still there?"

You'd think that I would wake up feeling sad that my friend Matt was gone (of course he isn't gone, but you know what I mean), but I wasn't thinking about my feelings for Matt at all. I was kind of disgusted with myself for not stopping the action in the middle of events and saying to Simon, Katherine, Matt (via IM) and myself, "What the fuck is this? This suicide/manslaughter/act of compassion makes no sense."

Perhaps there is a very good reason I don't remember dreams.

On Sundays I Ride My Bike

This is probably a longer story than I have time to fully explain here.

Back in 1987, I decided it would be fun to create a person--an eccentric artist--then create a body of work for him, and then market him to the world, pretending to be his personal assistant. I have no idea what drove me to do this.

The artist (a reclusive writer) was named Mulvane S. Winfield.

It went surprisingly far. Most of the activity surrounded a nonsense story with stick figure drawings called "Cows Go Moo." It featured a bunch of farm cows that revolted against their human oppressors. There were heroes and villains. It had a love story in there, too (for the ladies).

I sent out a few review copies, and both Option and Spin wrote articles about it, over two hundred people sent me cash through the mail to order copies, and I even got a query from Crown Publishing asking about publishing it as a book.

Again, this was a stick figure story book, copied and stapled at Kinko's, about a group of anamorphic cows.

For Mulvane's big follow-up, I decided I'd try a collection of comic stories (all sans plot lines). So I got a hold of a handful of people in Kent who were illustrators or artists, convinced them to participate (for free), and sent each of them a pointless story to illustrate.

Only one artist, Dave Schall, ever sent anything back. So the project died, as, eventually, did all my Mulvane related activities.

But there was still Dave's illustrated story.

The original is sitting down in a box in the basement, but yesterday I was cleaning off a hard drive and found some scans of the panels, so I put them up for your enjoyment.

Here is the story:

Story by Mulvane S. Winfield. Art by Dave Schall

Oh, and by the way, I never told Dave, or anyone else involved in this nonsense, that Mulvane wasn't real.

Merrily we sing

Original Bad Santa is still bad
Originally uploaded by DanCentury

Once a year I re-post this story, because I enjoy telling it this time of year. It first appeared on this site five years ago.

Ho ho ho.

The mystery of the moped-riding dude with no legs

no wings...just legs
Originally uploaded by spareorgan

Sometime after moving into our neighborhood, I began noticing this guy riding a moped around all day long. He was kind of hard to miss, if for no other reason than his riding style. He doesn't stop moving for any reason.

I've never seen him come close to hitting a car or a person--not even remotely come close. But he's like a shark or something. You know how sharks supposedly die if they stop swimming? Well, the moped guy seems to have a similar aversion to stopping his moped. While I do recall seeing him stationary once or twice (chatting with people he knows in the neighborhood), all the rest of the time he darts through intersections, zips up alleys, and down streets--at 6:15 am, 11 at night--all the time.

After I got used to him zipping by, I noticed two other unusual things about him. First, he never wears a helmet. Given his desire to avoid basic traffic laws, you'd think he'd be more concerned about covering his head with something other than a bandanna. He is not.

The second thing is that he has no legs, from at least the knee down. I know this because he always wears shorts. He does have thin metal poles with blade-like feet on the ends. I have no idea if they are functional or if he can walk, as I have never seen him off his moped.

The "no legs" thing just adds to the weirdness of seeing him tear ass around the neighborhood all day. I mean, I can't help but wonder if his lack of legs is somehow related to his driving habits. He is a two-cylindered enigma.

This past week I'd realized that he hasn't been around for awhile. In fact, I can't remember seeing him since probably mid-October. It's strange--something that you are so used to seeing every day, sometimes multiple times a day, yet when it's gone it takes you weeks to realize.

Anyhow, his sudden and complete disappearance has made him even more of an intriguing mystery to me. Where did he go? Did he stop riding for the winter? That makes no sense. I remember seeing him out there in a rain with a blue poncho, puttering around Petworth. I can't believe he doesn't have the grit to handle some colder weather.

Maybe his moped broke and he needs someone to start up a fund to repair it? Maybe high fuel prices finally got to him? Maybe he was in a terrible accident (or another terrible accident) and now has no arms either.

Maybe he goes south for the winter, like a migratory bird, and spends his winters driving around Sarasota or something.

Having our own no-legged moped speed demon made the neighborhood feel a bit more special. I miss him.

A dedicated radio professional

Packing

The first lunch Katherine ever packed for me
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

"Boy, I want your wife to pack my lunch," one of my co-workers remarked. I don't blame her--and at the rate we're going, it just might happen.

I'm not quite sure what is going on, but apparently my wife Katherine has decided that it should be part of her evening routine to pack my lunch.

This is coming from a woman who, before last week, felt pushing four buttons on the microwave was too much work.

Several days this week I've been sent off in the morning with a little bag filled with precisely measured and portioned deliciousness.

The picture at the right is from the first day. The second day contained hand-made stuffed mushroom caps and hard-boiled eggs--placed in Japanese egg molds so they ended up being shaped like flowers.

Who knows, this might die next week. Until then, think of me when you are eating that terrible turkey sandwich.

So there.