Optical camels

A gloomy, dark, rainy, cool morning, but the rest of the week looks promising.

I’m setting an aggressive pace for myself on this new project that materialized recently. I have until the end of February to write 25-30,000 words, which works out to about 500 a day, but I’m challenging myself to get at least 1000 done most days so I can finish early and will then have the luxury of a couple of weeks for revisions. I have to do a fair amount of reading for the project, too, so I’m trying to do that in the evenings so I’ll be prepped for the next day’s writing. Day 2 and I’m on track so far. This is also one of those projects where I don’t need to write the chapters in sequence, so I’m actually working on Chapter 2 instead of Chapter 1, which I may write next. For no good reason—it was just the chapter that was running through my head when I went to sleep on Sunday night. When my subconscious talks, I listen.

This isn’t a new photograph, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. At first glance it appears to be a photo of camels—and it is, just not the way it first appears. Look closer—the white blobs are the camels; the dark shapes are their shadows. Picture taken from directly overhead at sunset:

So, is Bob (The Unit) going to be a junkie for the rest of the season? Sure looks that way. The episode had a few weak spots, mostly having to do with Jonas’s legerdemain. There’s no way he could have arranged the deck the way it turned out simply by cutting the cards and palm-shifting a few cards. If he had been dealing, maybe. And the bit with the safety deposit box…they were already working on the vault long before the watch before the watch came into play, so there’s no way they could have known in advance they would be able to plant the incriminating evidence. Besides, all Jonas had to do was tell the Russian they had planted it, because he certainly didn’t have time to wait around and find out if it was there or not. A few logical inconsistencies in an otherwise good episode.

What I’m reading: Rick Mercer Report: The Book by Rick Mercer. He’s a Canadian “news comedian” who does rants about stupid things going on in Canadian (and world) politics. He used to do this bit where he’d go to the US and ask people (man on the street, or sometimes politicians) misleading questions about Canada to see how many he could get to display their ignorance about the country. Prime Minister Poutine, living in igloos, stuff like that.