Black Rubber Bat

So the Murakami story in the New Yorker, entitled "A Shinagawa Monkey," is just a little bit sub-par. It almost feels like a story by someone else, whose assignment in class was to "write like Haruki Murakami." It's got those very Murakami elements in it and is amusing and pretty well-written but it lacks something. He doesn't quite pull it off here, IMHO (that's internet-speak for "in my humble opinion.") But I encourage you all to read it for yourselves and post comments with your responses. That's your homework.

In other news, most days a large black rubber bat hangs by a string from the faucet in the bathtub. The bat belongs to Joe. Today I went in to take a shower and found the bat was not on the faucet but moved to the side. I proceeded to actually place it back over the faucet and felt greatly relieved to have it back in place. Either I'm losing my mind or I'm just really attached to the bat. If I ever move out of here I may have to take it with me or find a suitable replacement. It's a really cool bat.

Speaking of the child, I took some photos of the children that I later bench-pressed (see the first posting) last week, and just got some prints back yesterday. They are now scanned and uploaded. They can be accessed at http://www.gwleigh.com/joe or from the Photography main page. I'm very happy with them so be sure to check them out.

Since I've mentioned a short story and photographs, why not make a shout out to a song which I think is totally great? It's called "Fuleteame el Tanque" and it's by Bimbo. It's a Reggaeton song and if you haven't jumped on the Reggaeton bandwagon yet, this may be a good time to start.

Some pretty great enhancements to my website are planned in the coming 12 days. Why 12 days? Because that's the time I have left in my free Dreamweaver trial, so I want to have things pretty well set before I enter a long period of not being able to update easily. I plan to find a way to get a full copy of the program but it may take some time. But anyway, I've finally figured out how to center my pages in the browser. And beyond that, I'm revamping the photography portfolio to be much easier to navigate and simpler to approach. I'm also going to add many more links and organize them into sections. Some film examples will, hopefully, also be forthcoming. That's just a very time-intensive process, getting them compressed properly and all that on this little laptop of mine.

And I've commissioned my sister to do a tub squid graphic. Any complaints about the lack of a graphic, therefore, should be directed to her. I'll also work on one but odds are I'll like the one she does better. She's been doing some very cool drawings lately and if she ever gets around to scanning them properly maybe some will get posted here.

I've got two job prospects in the works and one is in a fairly advanced stage. I'm just waiting to hear. The prospect of having an actual income is great, but it does leave me a little worried. After all, with a full-time job, when am I going to be able to spend five weeks in Australia or three weeks in the Amazon? Full-time work is not geared towards extensive travel. Yes, we all know this but for me it's a hard realization to come to. The solution I guess is to find a full-time job that requires extensive travel, but not the kind to business meetings. Any ideas?