This is a running collection of the April Fool’s Jokes on the internet today.

This morning started when my girlfriend imed me to check out my dragon on Pet Dragons - a Facebook application. She told me that I had 14 incoming attacks. I logged in, and this is what I see:

After this, I clicked on a link in my gmail about the iPhone Dev Team being bought out - the article was on Engadget

I surfed my way over to Youtube, where every video on the front page is a RickRoll

Steve sent me an IM with a link to the ZapCam - YouTube Taser on ThinkGeek. It’s a Taser that records YouTube video each time you taser someone. Complete with video!

Following that, she sent me to Gmail where there’s a New! Gmail Custom Time, allowing users to send emails from dates in the past. Google is no stranger to the April Fools joke, having an entire wikipedia article on their hoaxes.

Well, Alex and I have been working hard on his blog. He’s been working hard on the writing, and I’ve been working hard on the marketing and SEO side. For awhile, all of his reviews were kind of dry, but his latest review of the new Simple Plan album marks, I think, a turning point. While it was released on the first day that we had zero hits, I really enjoyed the review. It caught me at the beginning, and had me reading until the end. Granted, it’s not perfect, but it’s a good start.

I worked on dressing up the design a bit, added some black around the sides, and got rid of the graphic up at the title. I think it’s a good look for a rock review blog that doesn’t feel the need to come across as dark and edgy.

Check it out.

Two weeks ago I purchased a 1999 Honda Prelude. It has 145,000 miles on it but is still running pretty well. I had been looking for a car for several months while I was in Taiwan, and also during my break afterwards. I browsed craigslist, autotrader, and cars.com.

I created a list of cars that I was interested in. I called up a lot of people. I had several VW Jettas on my to-look at list, a Jeep Wrangler, and a Toyota Corolla. I took a look at one of the Jettas, applied for a bank loan, and went home for the weekend.

My bank loan didn’t come through.
The Jetta was in pretty lousy shape body-wise. The mechanics all seemed to be working properly, but it was a true eyesore.

Just as I was starting to get desperate, I rode past a dealership near my neighborhood. I had looked through this lot a month before or so, but didn’t see anything I was interested in. This dealership accepts all of the older high-mileage cars that are traded in from the big Subaru dealer across the street. I spotted the Prelude, and took a look.

The exterior was in flawless condition. I’ve seen cars five years newer with much worse paint jobs. There’s only a couple of tiny dings in the hood. Nothing else.

The interior is spotless. The driver’s seat fabric is slightly lighter in color than the passengers, and I guess that it’s because it’s been used more, but it really isn’t noticeable. Really, the biggest complaint I had about the car was the buttons on the radio were worn.

I signed a loan and started the three hour drive back to State College. The Check Engine Light went on. I took it to the dealership and they charged me $70 to tell me it was the catalytic converter, and that I should take it back if the light comes back on again. I was upset that it would cost so much for them to do nothing, but I drove it home.

And the light came back on. So now I have to take it back to the dealership… again. At least I have a warranty.

Anyway, I have a photo album at my site www.earcaraxe.com.

So, I posted recently about a telephoto lens that I had received from my friend Jordan. In this post, I mentioned that I had not been having any trouble with the lens after cleaning the contacts. Unfortunately when I went to D.C. the next day to shoot, I pulled out that lens and it failed on me again. Nothing I did made it work. I called up Jordan, and he said that he has an older camera that this lens works fine with, so he’ll be taking it back…

All is not lost in the land of lenses, however. For Christmas my family gave me a Canon f/1.8 lens for the Rebel. It takes some really beautiful photographs. It’s a really clear prime lens, and when I shoot at 1.8, it looks like a movie. The subject is in focus, and the background is very blurry. It makes for a really cool effect.

Here’s a picture of a stop sign I took with this new lens:

I’ve decided that I want to increase my blog’s visibility. I know that there are a number of strategies for this, but the one that I am about to currently employ is registering my blog with Technorati. I’m going to continue posting frequently, and I want to make sure that I also make blog posts that contain substance and significance. I hope that with Technorati I can reach a larger audience with my blog. Anyway, to check out my technorati profile, you can go here Technorati Profile and you can also check out my company’s blog at EmpWeb.

I was talking with Steph about the Greyhound business. She did some research and helped me find a bunch of links to other bloggers, legal documents, and the Greyhound Media Protocol. Apparently I’m not the only one being harassed. A quick tour of the blogosphere shows that a large number of photographers are also being tormented by security personnel all over the country. Here is a link to the Greyhound media protocol document www.greyhound.com/company/media/mediaprotocol.doc
which specifies what you can and can’t take pictures of, according to their rules. The document does not restrict any photography of publicly accessible areas, which is what I was taking pictures of.

Thomas Hawk was harassed for taking pictures from the street of One Bush Place. A security guard attempted to physically block him from taking pictures, and threatened that he had called the police.

Gerald, over at Baltimore Inner Space was also harassed at a Greyhound station by MTA transit officials, who told him to delete his pictures, show them ID, and tell them his life story.

Anyone else who has had trouble with this kind of a thing, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, and fight them to keep control of what you photograph. I deleted my pictures because I didn’t have a clear understanding of my rights, don’t let this happen to you too.

So, having recently bought my Digital Rebel XTi with Steph, I set out to talk with my friends that I know who are camera nuts. My friend Jordan had a Quantaray telephoto lens (70-210mm) that he could not get working. He believed that it was a problem with lens compatibility with his old camera. He said that if I could get it working with mine that I could have it. I put it on my camera and didn’t have any problems with it the first day. Today I got to Washington D.C. and started taking pictures. When I put on the telephoto lens, sure enough up popped Error 99. I fussed with it for awhile, trying to get it to line up in different ways, and eventually it would work only in the 190-210mm range. Steph and I stopped by a camera store and asked about the problem. The manager at the store said that the electric contacts on the lens are probably dirty, and to clean it with denatured alcohol. When I got to a computer, I looked it up and found this solution on Richard’s blog. I cleaned the lens contacts with an eraser, and it seems to be functioning properly now. Back to D.C. tomorrow for some more field testing though!Pics soon!Quantaray-CN AF1.4-5.6 70~210mmFull BatteryEmpty CF card