Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Quickie shout-out
Good thing I wrote that Q-tip post early yesterday. If I hadn’t, you would have had nothing but “Sorry, nothing tonight” to read. Yeah, it was that bad. I was in the ER from 6:30 to 11, and then, when I got home, I had to figure out how to turn a digital photo into a passport-sized photo. If I had been wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, I’m sure I could have done that in ten or fifteen minutes. After 15 hours of almost continuous work*, the best I could manage was a couple of grainy head shots of this grim dude:
Did you know you can’t smile for a passport photo? No, really! It’s a 9/11 thing. From wiseGEEK:
The reason smiling in passport photos has been strongly discouraged or banned has to do with international security measures. Many modernized airports now use advanced biometric scanning devices which contain facial recognition software. Ideally, a targeted passenger’s face can be scanned electronically and compared against a database of legally obtained passport photos. Distinctive biometric patterns, such as the distance between one’s eyes or the shape of one’s mouth, can rarely be sufficiently altered to prevent a match.
The passport photographs used for comparison should ideally be consistent and accurate, with no shadows or reflections to distort the facial measurements. Passport applicants must also sweep any hair away from their faces, place their eyeglasses on the tip of their nose, and face completely forward with a neutral expression. Smiling in passport photos can distort the subject’s eyes and change the relationship between biometric points.
Anyway, since I’m not feeling much like an entertainer tonight, I’m going to turn y’all on to a blog my son found. Thanks, Jake, for finding The Internet is an In-Joke. Check ’em out, enjoy, and wish me a good night’s sleep.
D.
And another shout-out!
Telltale Games (of Sam and Max fame) will be releasing a Wallace and Gromit game, Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventure. Watch the trailer!
*Work at the office and hospital, NOT fifteen hours of work on this photo.
‘Round here (Canada), I heard you couldn’t smile for passport photos before the great 9/11 debacle.
Also, Wallace and Gromit rule. In any format.
Those are the kind of cookies that look WAY better than they taste. Seal ’em in lucite and hope they don’t rot.
I think the photo is excellent. Smiling is overrated.
Those cookies were bought in October 2005, and still look that good today. Still in the original packaging. Even if I wanted to eat them, I don’t think I’d dare.