Update:  I just found 1000 more photos on two other Yahoo screen names.  Several of you have given me good options, but I still have a lot of unanswered questions, so if anyone has already made the migration, please let me know.  Thanks!

Does anyone use Yahoo Photos?  I’m in the unenviable position of having to make a decision about what to do with thousands of photos I have uploaded on Yahoo.  Recently I received the following email:

Dear Yahoo! Photos user,

For some time now, we’ve supported two great photo sharing services: Yahoo! Photos and Flickr. But even good things come to an end, and we’ve decided to close Yahoo! Photos to focus all our efforts on Flickr the award-winning photo sharing community that TIME Magazine has called “completely addictive.”

We will officially close Yahoo! Photos on Thursday, September 20, 2007, at 9 p.m. PDT. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to move to another photo sharing service (Flickr, KODAK Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish, or Photobucket), download your original-resolution photos back to your computer, or buy an archive CD from our featured partner (for users of the New Yahoo! Photos only). All you need to do is tell us what to do with your photos before we close, after which any photos remaining on Yahoo! Photos will be deleted and no longer accessible.

Of course, we hope you’ll join us at Flickr (you can even use your Yahoo! ID), but we also realize that Flickr may not be for everyone. In the end, we want you to find the service that’s right for you, and we hope you take some time to learn more about your options before making this important decision.

Please give us your decision by Thursday, September 20, 2007, at 9 p.m. PDT. After that time, any photos remaining in Yahoo! Photos will be deleted. Click here to make your decision, or review a list of our frequently asked questions.

Thanks for being a part of the Web’s largest photo sharing service we hope to see you over at Flickr!

The Yahoo! Photos team

---

Now the only reason I started using Yahoo photos in the first place, is that years ago, sites like Kodak Gallery and Snapfish didn’t let you have your own personal URL.  With Yahoo, I could just have people go to http://photos.yahoo.com and find my pictures.  It was easy.  Plus there were no passwords and you didn’t have to sign in, which made it even easier for my elderly relatives.  I’m leaning towards moving them all to Flickr, but if I do that, I’ll have to pay for a Premium account.  I don’t mind paying, but I’m wondering if it’s worth it?  What would you guys recommend?  I have accounts with all the services listed above, but use Kodak and Flickr the most.  I only get one shot at this…so I want to make the right decision.  I literally have thousands of pictures on Yahoo.  (3,709 to be exact):

 

 

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows By J. K. Rowling

The dedication of this book is split seven ways.

To Neil

To Jessica

To David

To Kenzie

To Di

To Anne

And to You

If you have stuck with Harry until the very end.

Though it’s not officially released until tomorrow at midnight, I have the link to download the entire book now.  If I told you where I got it, I’d have to kill you.  So, let me know if you want me to email it to you. –Carey

P.S. Oh, and the last page tells you whether he lives or dies

This entry will self destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2…..

I went to walk Roscoe today and brought my new camera as I was taking him to the park in Beverly Hills.  Unfortunately when I went to take photos I had left the damn SD card in my computer!  Oh well, it’s not like I won’t get another chance.  Tyson met me at the park and we went to dinner.  On the way home, I took a different route down Beverly Drive and up Robertson.  I passed a lot of fancy shops that I’d never seen before (you miss so much driving…walking in my neighborhood is so much better).  Since I didn’t have my camera’s memory card, I snapped a few photos with my camera.  They’re not great, but they’re interesting.

I was conducting a web training session at work today, and someone logged on 20 minutes late.  Since I had everyone’s phones muted on entrance, I kept going and told the latecomer I would stay on the call after we were done to catch him up.  At the end of the training session I mentioned my company’s first rate customer support.  “When you call our Support Line, you will never get a recording.  You will never be asked for your mother’s maiden name or your spouse’s shoe size.  You will talk to someone in the United States, not India.”

When I finished the session and everyone left, I un-muted the latecomer and he introduced himself.  “Hi my name is Patel……”

Dohhhhhhhh!

Ah, the joys of outsourcing:

Presidential Bird Shit, Cute Kids, Toxic Toothpaste, Honor Killings & Texas Dildos

Outsourcing Pollution and 5 Foot Whale Dicks

A Terrible Tragedy Hits Home – Days 1-3

 

My friend Billy, from college, called tonight and we talked on the phone for 2 1/2 hours.  Don’t you just love those friends who you only speak to a couple of times a year, but are able to have such great conversations with?  It’s so great to have that kind of friendship that allows you to just pick up where you left off.  Anyway, Billy called for some travel advice (I recommended Buenos Aires, Iguacu Falls and Rio for his next trip with his wife).  As it often does, our conversation drifted to our college days.  He told me that he had recently run into the ringboy from his wedding, a charming little boy (now grown) named Matthew Deufel, who apparently vividly remembered me playing with him at the wedding.  I had a hard time believing this little kid even knew my name let alone had memories of me from that long ago, but Billy insisted he did.  (What a nice honor!)  While we were talking, I pulled out some old photos I had taken of the wedding and scanned them.  Mind you, these are about 17 years old!

Me and Matthew

Matthew Deufel

Billy & Janet

I have such great friends.  They’re scattered all over the world, but I really treasure the time I get to spend with them.  There’s my wonderful group of “New Year’s” friends that I’ve written about.  There’s Daniel who I wrote about yesterday and who visited this past weekend.  Two months ago, it was Marc who came to visit my home for the first time.  He’s another friend that I don’t talk with often enough, but when we do, it’s as if we never skipped a day.  Then there’s Diane, and Mike and Hugo…the list goes on.  There are also people who pop into your life after a long long time, like Melissa and allow you to reestablish old friendships.  That’s what’s great about the Internet.

Billy’s kids are really into soccer, and in honor of Beckham’s first game playing for the LA Galaxy, and the fact that we saw Victoria “Posh” Beckham in Beverly Hills last weekend, I thought I’d post these pictures of Billy’s kids with some famous soccer stars.  Can you name them (without mousing over the links)?? 

  

And, just so my European soccer snob friends know I know:

Song of the day

 

 

Song of the day

We had a great time this weekend.  It was the first time that Daniel and I got to spend any quality time together in a long time.  His wife and 3 other kids were in Illinois visiting relatives, so Tori, his 14 year old came along for the ride (from Phoenix) with their two dogs Niña and Abby.  Tori’s current crush is Peter Wentz from Fallout Boy, so we basically did the Peter Wentz tour of LA.  Peter’s favorite cupcakes, his home in the Hollywood Hills, his (future) star on the Walk of Fame, his billboards, etc.  We also went to Venice Beach to take in another gorgeous LA sunset.  We drove past the “Kwik E Mart” but the line to get in was over 2 hours long!  Saw Transformers last night.  I hated it…Tori loved it.  (Probably because of Shia LeBeouf, who actually did a good job).  I just put all the photos in a slide show on yesterday’s entry and am posting some of my favorites here.  I hope everyone had a good weekend.

Boy at Grauman’s Chinese Theater

Daniel’s in the nerd gang

A relatively clear day in Los Angeles

An LA institution, Thai Elvis at The Palms

Beverly Hills

Caligula?

The guy in the middle is named Musashi.  He’s a famous Japanese fighter who was getting stopped everywhere by Japanese tourists.  Thanks to Kim85 for the ID!

Harry Winston diamonds are two girls best friend

A not so comforting sign when taking the dogs to the off leash dog park!

Abby the devil dog, LOL

 

Sorry I’ve been so lax about responding and commenting these past few days.  I’ll catch up after Daniel & Tori leave. 

Tyler and I were going to go see Harry Potter tonight, but it was sold out all night, and I didn’t feel like fighting the crowds anyway.  I really didn’t have anything planned this weekend and had resolved to clean out my closets and do piles of neglected laundry, but calls from two Daniels changed all that.

After I got back from walking Roscoe, my best friend Daniel called.  We’ve been friends for 20 years.  We grew up about a mile from each other, but didn’t meet until after college.  He lives in Phoenix now and is a high school teacher, married with 4 kids.  We don’t get to see each other that often due to his….well that’s another story.  Suffice it to say I was thrilled when he called tonight to say his wife was out of town and he and his oldest daughter wanted to drive to LA tomorrow and visit!  I’m so excited that he’s coming.  So much for laundry and closets.  Now I HAVE to go buy a new camera in the morning!!

You may remember me talking about Daniel in this entry about the woman who committed suicide and came back as a cat trapped in our car.  If you haven’t read the story, take a look

Many years ago, my roommate Daniel and I were fresh out of college and living in a small house in Chicago.  We both worked at different banks and we had been sharing a car for a year and it was getting unmanageable.  One day the bank he was working for had a “repo” or repossessed car that they needed to sell to recoup the loan money.  The reason the bank had repossessed the car was that the car’s owner was dead.  Her name was Sarah, and she had committed suicide……IN THE CAR.  Read more…

Daniel & Oreo circa 1995

---

The next Daniel I spoke to on the phone tonight was someone I’ve never met before.  A couple of weeks ago after posting these photos, from the Hollywood Bowl, I got the following email:

Daniel has sent you this weblog from CareyGLY’s Xanga Site!

Personal Message:

Hello Carey, I am a CareyGLY blog reader and I have always enjoyed your writing. I was very surprised when you posted the pictures from the sound of music sing along night at the Hollywood Bowl.  One of the pictures you posted of someone in the crowd was a person I dated ten years ago!!  I am so very surprised that you have become the messenger ; ) Thank you!! Daniel from L.A.

After I received this email I wrote back immediately, and we started conversing about indeed what a small strange world it was.  At any rate, I decided to call him tonight at telepathically the exact time he was calling me.  I invited him to come to West Hollywood and we went to Pinkberry.  It was like we had known each other for years.  We had such a great time.  How ironic that I made a new friend on Xanga who doesn’t even have a Xanga account and just happened to be a loyal reader of my blog.  In fact, all night I felt somewhat at a disadvantage, as he knew so much about me already.  Sometimes Id start a story only to find he knew about it.  LOL.

So, that’s my tale of two Daniels tonight.  I’m going to get a new camera tomorrow, so there will be more pictures of more Daniels this weekend.  In the meantime here are some cell pics from tonight. 

 

Song of the day

 

Guess I have a thing for Daniels

Not much to write about tonight.  I was down in Laguna all day, and then had dinner with Lisa and the boys.  Gosh I miss my camera.  I really need to start looking for a new one.  I’m so lost without it. 

I’m in the middle of reading this really good book:

“Are We Rome?”  The title is fairly self explanatory.  I’ve always been fascinated with Roman culture.  I’ve read countless books on Roman civilization, the Fall of Rome and Roman Catholicism.  I was raised a Catholic and my Grandmother taught high school Latin for 50 years. 

Interesting sidenote:  When she retired, many of her past students raised money to send her to Rome.  She had never been out of the country.  While there, at the Sistine Chapel, she was staring up at the ceiling and she fell and broke her ankle.  It made the front page of the Chicago Tribune when I was a kid.  How weird is that?  Anyway, I digress.

The “fall” of the American “empire” has been predicted for decades.  There are always alarmists who throw up their hands to say the sky is falling.  We must remember though that the Fall of Rome took place over centuries.  America is barely two centuries old.  Still, the author raises some fairly interesting points including our:

• Imperial arrogance
• Military strength and the risk of overstretching resources to pay for it
• The fairness of society and concern for all citizens (i.e. New Orleans)
• Immigration policies
• Moral and spiritual decadence (“why they hate us so much”)
• Privatization of power (i.e. Haliburton)

Now, lest you think the whole book is a diatribe against our current president, the author recently stated:

“I deliberately tried to keep “Are We Rome?” from being a screed against the Bush administration—the characteristics of Rome and America that I focus on go much deeper than the policies of any one President or any one Emperor. And I recognize that America’s role in the world has been substantially to the good—it has shouldered responsibilities that someone had to take on, when often there was no one else. That said, the thinking that lay behind the invasion of Iraq—the notion that we could transform a society more or less overnight, and in the process “jumpstart democracy” in the entire Middle East—was a colossal act of hubris. And it was essentially a Roman act. It was undertaken with America-centric motives, and with little understanding of the people on the receiving end, or of their ability to oppose us. Those haunting words from Velleius—“as if on a picnic”—pretty much sum up our approach to this and to too many other things.”

That said, we still have many things going in our favor.  Sometimes I look at the news though, and I wonder.

---

Speaking of news, here are some stories that recently caught my eye:

Methane Gas Accident Kills 5 on Virginia Dairy Farm - On a Mennonite farm someone fell into a manure pit and another person tried to rescue them by jumping in. Then a third person tried to rescue both of them, and then a fourth…  You get the picture.  Apparently the 6th person got the hint.

Nineteenth Century Harpoon Found in Live Whale - A 50 ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt – more than a century ago.  (Am I the only person surprised by the fact the whaling still continues on this planet??)

The Japanese Female Body Plate Gone One Better – In more weird Japan news the practice of serving sushi and sashimi on a woman’s body has now turned to “Operation Table” eating.  So maybe it’s not just America that’s falling.

 

Daniel Radcliffe and Freddie Mercury Share Stylist! – Dirty Harry Potter??

What’s Really Inside Red Bull – Meat, Sugar, Caffeine and Bile!

 

A Cats Only Exclusive Retirement Community – A new concept in life long care for your cat after you can no longer care for them.

HIV Positive Toddler Banned From Pool – A story that could only come from a trailer park in Alabama.

---

Song of the day

 

  

One of my guilty pleasures, as far as television shows, is Smallville, though if I met you on the street I would deny it. The acting is incredibly cheesy,  but the production values are excellent for a weekly television show.  That said, I rarely get to watch it, but I had about 5 episodes on my DVR from months ago, so I decided to watch them and they were really quite good.  I love the fact that the show stays true to the original comic with minor exceptions.  I’ve been a Superman fan since I was a kid.  I loved the mythology of Superman before I even understood what mythology was.  When I started reading the comic books in the 70′s, I was struck by how seemingly modern Superman was.  I still have many of my old comics, including the bicentennial edition from 1976.  When I discovered a batch of Superman comics from the 40′s and 50′s at my grandmother’s house as a kid, I thought I had struck gold.  I read them cover to cover and was so impressed how Superman changed with the times.  In the 30′s he fought Al Capone and organized crime, in the 40′s he helped sell War Bonds and defeat Hitler, and in the 50′s he ushered us into the post nuclear age.  He has always fought for ”Truth, Justice and the American Way“.  Though as a child I didn’t quite realize the extent to which he was used as propaganda.

Japanazis??

After seeing Superman Returns last year, the one thing that bugged me about the movie was the fact that they changed the “Truth, Justice and the American Way” tagline to “Truth, Justice and all that stuff“.  I remember thinking that changing that phrase was sacrilege to the mythology of Superman.  Couldn’t Bryan Singer have kept the original line in the American cut, and changed it in the international editions, or better yet, not changed it at all?  To me Superman is the quintessential American hero, and in the post 9/11 world we need his mythology more than ever.  There certainly aren’t a lot of real role models for kids to look up to.

A.C. Grayling wrote in “The Spectator” that,

“As a nation caught between the terrifying George W. Bush and the terrorist Osama Bin Laden, America is in earnest need of a Savior for everything from the minor inconveniences to the major horrors of world catastrophe.” 

I couldn’t agree more.  Unfortunately, as an adult, I know that Superman is not that Savior.  How I long for that childhood naiveté.

Superman has been compared to a Christ like figure.  In truth I wish we could see him as a more progressive hero in the 21st Century secular world.  I wonder if Bryan Singer was thinking that when he changed the tagline?  If so, I wish he could have come up with something better than “All that stuff”.  How about, “Truth, Justice and an end to Tyranny”?  I think this distinction in important because it relates to how the rest of the world views America through its movies and television.  I wrote about it in a previous post entitled “America’s Most Influential Export, that talked about the world wide popularity of “Desperate Housewives” (except interestingly enough in China).

Anyway, the movie is halfway decent, if you grew up with and appreciate the mythology (just like those who appreciate the Star Wars mythology).  And the show, laughable acting aside, is a nice escape for real Superman fans (and teenage girls looking for eye candy).  Coincidentally, I was surprised when I scored 100% on this silly “Which Superhero Are You Quiz” and found out that I am Superman.

---

Which Superhero Are You?? 

Superman 100% Batman 70% Catwoman 70% Spider-Man 65% Green Lantern 65% Supergirl 50% Wonder Woman 50% Robin 50% The Flash 45% Iron Man 45% Hulk 40%

Like Superman, Carey Anthony is mild-mannered, good, strong and he loves to help others.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

---

Song of the day