Tvindy

Ancient TV Pics

Recently I got a bunch of old negatives scanned at ScanCafe.They were pictures that I had taken on a very inexpensive camera when I was between six and eight. Today I'll share with you my adventures in photographing the TV.

The image below shows our first color television. If you look closely at the screen, you'll see that the program being aired is The Munsters, with Lilly and Herman in bed.

I have a vague memory of my mother telling me that it wouldn't turn out, because of the reflection from the flash. I decided to try again without the flash, my logic being that one of the two pictures would probably be acceptable. This is the result with no flash:

Clearly the first photo is the winner, although you can still clearly see the contents of the screen in the second, which is the end credits to the Munsters. It is truly astonishing to me how blind that camera was without a flash for indoor photography.

This final photo (of another TV set in the house) was a decades-long mystery to me. The original print was not clear enough or large enough for me to ever be able to determine what was on the screen. It looked like some sort of odd tropical fish. Once I saw the 21st-century scan of it, I very quickly recognized it for what it was. Can you identify the program?

My Grandparents 2

A couple of years ago just before I headed off to Eugene, Oregon for the first time, I published this entry with an old photo of my grandparents in Eugene. They met at the U of O and married while they were still undergraduates there. The only problem with that picture is that it doesn't seem possible to identify the actual location.

Today while going through old family photos, I came across another picture. I think just about anyone from Eugene will have no trouble identifying the spot. Amazingly, both the statue and the building in the background are still there and look exactly the same. Also of note, my grandmother is wearing the same outfit as in the other picture. I don't know who the other person is, but I'm pretty sure it's not my grandfather (unless there's something about him I don't know).

Me

Here's another old family photo. This is me when I was about two and a half. I'm thinking of cropping it and using it as my author pic in October. What do you think?

Me with Pink Hair

This was taken a few years back. It was the first time I dyed my hair pink. Apparently I don't look anything like that, because whenever I show such pictures to people they always argue with me and say that the person in the photos is clearly not me. Even my own mother wouldn't believe me.

Anyway, I've always believed that flamingo pink hair dye can make anyone look more attractive. Everyone should do it at least once in their lives. (I've done it twice; that's just how cool I am.) I'm including instructions, just in case you feel the need for pink hair.

First, it helps to have short hair. You may want to get a haircut beforehand. Then, unless you have extremely blond hair, you will want to bleach it, so the pink dye has a nice light background. I used Jerome Russell's Punky Bleach. You'll probably want to do the eyebrows and facial hair too, so you don't look like a weirdo. (We certainly wouldn't want that.) At this point, I suggest that you leave yourself blond for at least 24 hours. Go out to work or school, meet with your friends, go out in public, and just have fun being blond for awhile. People often find this change alone to be quite shocking. (Little do they know.) To color your hair, use Jerome Russell's Punky Hair Colour #1412. You may want to leave your eyebrows and facial hair blond, since there is such a thing as too much pink. That's up to you. (As if the rest isn't.) Now go forth out into the world and let people see how cool you are.

After about a week, you'll find that much of the pink has worn away, leaving you with blond patches and the remaining color far less bright. Also, by then your roots will have started to appear. At this point, you will probably want to dye your hair back to something resembling its original color.

Spumoni

I was googling for a good photo of spumoni for an Italian presentation. Then I realized I had one of my own. I took this at Buca di Beppo in November of last year and believe it to be the greatest spumoni photograph on the internet.

Wall Art

Back when I was in Muncie and in shape, I would often run along a jogging trail known as the Cardinal Greenway. At one point along the route, there is a mural decorated with children's paintings of animals. This was one of my favorites:

That cow has really pronounced kneecaps! There is also this:

I'm pretty sure the poop chunk is a later addition by another artist, but it definitely adds something to the oeuvre.

More Bugs

Here are some more bugs that visited me in Muncie.

My Grandparents

This is a photo of my grandparents taken many years ago in Eugene, Oregon. That was where they met. More specifically, they were both students at the University of Oregon. They started dating and soon decided to get married. Over break my grandfather drove my grandmother down to his parents' home in southern California in the sidecar of his motorcycle. His father (my great-grandfather) happened to be a minister, and he married them. Then they drove right back to their classes in Oregon as newlyweds.

I'm posting this now, because on Monday I will be driving over to Eugene, over 2000 miles away, to begin a masters program in Romance Languages. Actually, the fact that I am about to attend the same university as my grandparents is purely coincidental. I happen to have visited Eugene once some years back (also for no reason connected to them) and liked it. When I found out that the University of Oregon offered a program in Romance Languages, I decided I had to go. Soon my pic-of-the-week photos will be from Oregon rather than Indiana. Hm, maybe I will have to make a new album dedicated to the neon lights of Eugene.