I totally forget what I was searching for, but I just busted out laughing when I read these suggestions. “how often do chickens lay eggs”, “how often do people die”, and “how often do condoms break” are obviously on the minds of millions of internet users wordwide.  Hey… these are important issues!  Nobody wants to accidentally kill their pet goldfish or have the wrong expectancy for their egg harvesting.  Work, you chickens!  Also, nobody in their right mind wants to die sooner than they have to or have children when they’re not yet ready for them.  Good times, searching Google.  Try starting a basic search the next time you’re bored, and be prepared for laughter.  It’s almost as funny as those hilarious pet videos on youtube that we all love to pass around virally.

This video tutorial shows you a few different ways in which you can select parts of your image for isolation using Adobe Photoshop.  Tutorial by the late Bob Mizerek.  Comment, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for many more tuts and creative goodness.

If you need stock images; every high resolution stock photo, illustration, and vector on our website is now on sale! We are not a huge collection, but there are over 7000 high quality images to choose from. If you need, you can stock up on some art elements or photos that you might be able to use in your designs – we’re just running a crazy last minute experimental promotion for kicks and giggles! Horde up some high res stock imagery at this insanely steal of a price while you still can.

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Recently, I stopped at the local town library to borrow one of the seasons of LOST dvds that I hadn’t watched in a while.  I usually just use the local RedBox, but seeing I was passing by, I figured I’d run in and get all the disks in one shot.  We pay taxes, and that’s what these places are supported by anyway.  Plus, if you return the videos late they get $1 per day per dvd out of you anyways.  Anyway, I was treated pretty rudely by a middle aged woman working there.  I’m a happy go lucky type of guy, waiting patiently at the counter for assistance for a good 2 minutes or so.  The lady was sitting way off to the side, and I presumed she was not working that same area.  She was over at the reference desk, or something.  The fact I was just standing there quietly made her wise-alecky off the bat, when she finally noticed me standing there.

She remarked, “You know… I’m not going to know you’re standing there unless you say something.”

“Oh, that’s okay – I’m not in a rush, no problem”, I replied. It wasn’t a big deal, I mean – I was standing there for only 2 minutes, not 20.  Gosh.  She then proceeded to check out my items, only to notice that I had six dvd’s, and I guess five is the limit per person.  Do you think she was going to let that one slide?  No way, she went to town on me.

“You know, you are only allowed five videos per visit,” in a pretty snotty voice.  I can imagine her getting even hotter with annoyed anger towards me, inside.  I’m thinking, “Oh crap, now look what I went and did.  I poked the sleeping lion with a stick, and I’m the one wearing T-Bone steak underwear.”

“Oh, no problem – my mistake.  Here, I’ll take this one out – I’ll be right back, let me return it back to the shelf so you guys don’t have to later.” I know how much of a pain it is to return library items to their places.  I used to do it when I volunteered there.  So I ran it back, and then returned to the desk.  Ding round three.

“You know you have a late fee due on the following items…” I’m pretty sure they didn’t have my face up on a wanted poster in the back room for this violation.  I didn’t have the cash on me, so I asked if I could pay it next time.

“Yes, you can pay it whenever you’d like.”

In the meantime an older woman that looked like she was around 85 butts in, “Are those DEE VEE DEE’s?”

“Yes, they are,” I responded.  By this point I’m thinking to myself, “Good lord… what am I in the twilight zone or something?”  Little old lady goes, “I have one of those machines and I don’t even know how it works!”  I just smiled.  I’m usually a conversationalist but seeing that I was just trying to get in and out of my encounter with miss thang, I didn’t engage.

The librarian checked my items out, and then proceeded to explain the expiration date and late fee arrangement on the items, yada yada, talking down to me like it was the first time I had ever visited a library.  I killed her with kindness at that point, even more – “thank you very much.  You take care now.”  The look on her face was so funny.  It’s like she was thinking, “Why is this guy being so friendly to me, after I just treated him like a piece of crap?”  Kill people with kindness the next time they are rude to you.  It will either A: piss them off more, B: confuse the heck out of them, or C: change their attitude around entirely.

The whole time I was standing at the counter, not being attended to, I was actually waiting patiently for another librarian I was friendly with, who was in the back room talking on the phone.  I used to work at this same library as a volunteer, back when I was younger.  The library director even knows me, and we always chat it up when I bump into him.  I wonder if this new grumpy lady would have treated me differently if I had started name dropping?  I just got a kick out of how irritated she seemed.  It was like straight up DMV employee or postal worker syndrome.  You have to give people the benefit of the doubt, because they could be going through some really tough time in their life.  You never know what you’re about to experience when you’re dealing with the general public.  I’ve worked those customer service retail positions for years, and believe you me, I could probably write a behavioral psychology book just on the people I’ve met.

Dear miserable employees of the world… please just try to smile.  It goes a long way.  Cheese up from the feet up! Please lay off drinking your daily six pack of haterade.  I’m not the reason your baby daddy left you, and isn’t paying his child support.  I also wasn’t the one that hit your cat with my Pontiac.  I’m sorry life has dished you such a terrible job, with crappy pay, but that doesn’t make it my fault, is it?  Take a deep breath, remember to be thankful that you still have a job in this tough economy, and try and be at least a little courteous.  You don’t have to bubble forth or even make small talk with me, but that would be fine too.  If you really hate your job so much, try and start taking the steps to find something better.  If you can’t afford to go to school, keep on looking until you find something else.  Let your hatred for your existing position motivate you!  I know that’s what I did – back when I was working my college job.  You are actually in control of your own life, as dreamy and amazing as that might sound.

Remember, kids – if you enjoy your job, be thankful.  If you don’t, you should still try be nice to people.  Turn that frown upside down! The golden rule, and whatnot – it’s pretty legit.  Stick to it, and live a happier life.  Cheerfulness is contagious.  Generally, most people around you will even be easier to deal with, if you just smile.

That’s my public service message for 2010 – maybe for 2011 I’ll talk about the importance of spaying and neutering your pets.  Nah, we’ll leave that one to Bob Barker and Drew Carey.  And watch out for the angry rabid geese.

At the end of each and every year, we always have some fun recaps to look forward to.  Especially cool are the lists of top viral videos we’ve sent around to each other on the internet, when we probably should have been working.  The following were named the top 10 youtube videos of 2010:

10. Rally Driver Ken Block’s Gymkhana Three, Part 2

9. Kimmel Surprises Bieber Fan

8. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Trailer

7. OK Go — “This Too Shall Pass”

6. Giant Double Rainbow

5. Old Spice — The Man Your Man Can Smell Live

4. Annoying Orange Wazzup

3. Greyson Chance Singing “Paparazzi”

2. “Tik Tok” Ke$ha Parody: Glitter Puke

1. “Bed Intruder” Song

Source: December 13, 2010 | TVGuide

Travel can easily wear you out, especially when you’re like myself and don’t get out very much.  Lots of traveling, walking, and an unfamiliar bed are definitely a perfect recipe for wearing down your immune system.  My vacation sort of got a little bit extended due to a nasty virus I must have caught on the airplane on the way home (you’ve got to love recirculated airplane air).  There’s a nasty sore throat virus going around… a friend that lives a few towns over from me said he has the same exact thing. I’m on day 7 of it and was hacking up a bit of blood last night, because my throat was so sore and irritated. It’s basically a constant post nasal drip that just won’t stop. Orange juice burns if you try and drink it. Water is even like trying to drink gravel at times. Today I’m feeling better, but be careful not to catch this thing you guys, it’s a beast to kick. Keep your immune system strong so you don’t get this

This message was brought to you by organic honey throat losenges, vitamin C, echinacea, garlic, tylenol, salt water gargle rinse, rum, listerine, and mucinex

Update:  I kicked the sinus infection finally – had to take Zepac antibiotics just to get rid of it. An entire week of an excruciating sore throat, so sore that I was coughing up blood and having a hard time swallowing plain old water – I finally said ok enough’s enough. I usually can kick anything in 3 days taking plenty of fluids, and garlic, maybe some vitamin C – but this time my immune system couldn’t beat the infection, whatever it was. Stupid airplanes. Finally feel back to normal now.

It’s been an eventful month, but now I’m looking forward to the fall fairs and food festivals here in Connecticut, and shooting the beautiful foliage as well.  We can’t wait to road trip up to Vermont for a day or two in the fall.  There’s a possiblity of squeezing in a camping trip before it starts getting too cold.  Summer went by WAY too fast!

This is a summer thunderstorm rolling through the neighborhood on a muggy, humid summer evening. My wife caught multiple bolts of lightning in this clip. In the background you can hear our stressed out beagle dog panting and walking around the room. I was trying to catch some still shots of the lightning on my Canon 40D at the same time. The best display of lightning is around 00:38 of this clip if you want to fast forward to the best part Enjoy

Out of any other area of the US, New England probably sensationalizes the weather and forecast the most.  A few days prior to this we had a rash of tornados that popped up around the area, causing multiple downed trees.  Driving through a local town we spotted sights like this:

Not cool.

Below are some screen grabs from the video, as well as a few I crappily captured hand held with my DSLR.  To do lightning right, you need to have excellent timing, a slow enough shutter, and a sturdy tripod.

Graduation time is fast approaching for high school and college students.  Many of them are thinking how they will even afford college.  Will they be able to get help from their parents? Or,  maybe some help from the government through financial aid?  Will they need to take out loans that will come back to haunt them once they are done with school?  Be smart when choosing your educational path.  Debt can stab you over with many pains, so be very careful when planning out your education.  I can’t stress enough how thankful I am for paying my way though a state university with a part time job working nights and weekends.  If you are a high school senior, be sure to apply for all the scholarships or grants that you can.  An extra $500 -1000 from smaller or local scholarships might not seem like much, but they will add up over 4 years.

Timing is everything… I think I might be a little late in the year for this image, but nevertheless it was a subject I wanted to cover.