little lost robot

This weekend the wife and went down to Myrtle Beach for the South Carolina AP Awards. Hours before the ceremony we found ourselves feeding the disgusting catfish in the pond at Broadway at the Beach. For only a quarter you get to see hundreds of fish and water fowl battle over cheap food pellets, dropped from the grubby hands of somewhat loving tourists.

I used the nifty, new video service on Flickr to embed the following video clip. It’s a perfect way to share the occasional, short videos shot with digital cameras along with your sets of still photos.

Later, in a different spot we fed the fish again. This time baby ducks joined the fray, fighting for food [video clip]. I can only describe it as: sad-awesome-disgusting-rad.

Our thrilling, whirlwind tour through the Southeastern states ended this afternoon with a brief stopover in Atlanta (aka: “the obligatory visit to Ikea”). New Orleans was fun, but I think I would’ve enjoyed it more back when I was in my early twenties and drinking all the time. I’ve noticed a trend in my vacation photos over the past few years. I’m taking less and less shots of myself in disturbing poses with historical statues, and even fewer photos of friends engaging in pub shenanigans (a good St. Patrick’s day word).

So when coming up with a photo to epitomize this weekend, it was a draw: either a photo of the obnoxious bachelorette party (and their 6 foot inflatable penis) that seemed to be everywhere we went, all the time - or - a photo of Anne Rice’s house taken on our carriage-ride tour. There’s really no in-between.

Anyway, I kinda feel awkward about even taking a photo of Anne Rice’s house, but it was part of our tour and I took photos of every random landmark along the way. I feel better knowing that I’m not one of the hundreds of folks that drove across town with the specific intent just to photograph the house (all $23 million dollars of it). There was another Anne Rice house on the tour as well, and I think it was the one that Trent Reznor (or was it Marilyn Manson?) might’ve owned for a while. Having plenty of time to daydream during my six hour drive, I imagined starting up a New Orleans tour just to show off rock-n-roll landmarks. From where albums were recorded to notorious places, like where Dennis Hopper trashed the cemetary while filming Easy Rider. Of course, for all I know a tour like that already exists.

That’s what I heard from a bunch of thuggish teens last night in the New Orleans French Quarter last night as I passed them on a darkened street corner. I’ll admit, it was clever. Although, I had no witty retort - I just raised my obnoxious mixed drink towards them and kept going. I heard them a moment later, further down the block, shouting “Chi..chi…Chia!”

I was sternly reminded by my pal Akili, a New Orleans native, to stay where all the stupid tourists are. It was a long drive to Orleans from South Carolina, so much of our wandering ended up being in the evening. I decided to prepare for a future blog post about being pickpocketed, so I snapped a photo of my camera with my digital camera, and then snapped a photo of my digital camera with my camera phone.

This morning I realize that taking out my possessions to snap photos of them only draws more unwanted attention to said items. Anyway, it hasn’t all been shady, and I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of the city this weekend. More updates later!