Doug’s World

Is nothing sacred any more?

This Doug’s World post was pre-uploaded because Doug is traveling today. Live coverage of the day-to-day tedium of Doug’s life will resume tomorrow from a location in the Southwestern United States.

Has any tourist ever visited Venice without feeding the pigeons? None that I know. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you visited Venice and didn’t buy a bag of corn seed at Piazza San Marco and use it to lure pigeons into dancing on you hands and arms and shoulders and head, then you were just pretending to visit Venice.

It’s, like, the thing you do there. The gondolas, folks can take them or leave them. We left them; maybe next time. But feeding the pigeons, that’s something so fun that we came back multiple days in a row to do it again. Those cute wrinkled little feet grasping your wrist; the way they flutter and flap right into each other, fighting over the grains of corn; the sharp little beaks moving so fast and yet never quite stabbing you. Now that’s fun!

But the do-goodniks of Venice have put an end to all of that. As of last week, feeding the pigeons of Venice has been banned because of the “damage” all the pigeons do to “monuments” in the area. Gimme a break.

BREAKING NEWS: President Bush, upon learning of the threat that pigeons represent to monuments, has asked the Department of Homeland Security to immediately position round-the-clock snipers on the Statue of Liberty. Any terrorists spotted luring destructive pigeons to the area will be terminated with extreme prejudice. The price of freedom is constant vigilance, you know.

Glasses

Doctors have told me for decades that I’d wear glasses eventually, and they were right. But I made it 49 years without, thanks to clean living and a constant focus on taking excellent care of myself.

After getting my prescription this week (20/60 in one eye, 20/70 in the other), I ordered reading glasses, a pair of bifocals for day-to-day use, and a pair of prescription sunglasses. I picked up the reading glasses today (shown), and the other two pair will arrive next week.

Man, glasses are expensive. I had no idea.

Iron Chef Competition

My team at work had an all-day offsite meeting yesterday, and afterward we went to the Blue Ribbon Cooking Center on Lake Union and cooked dinner as an Iron Chef competition. To maximize my team’s chances of winning, I just took pictures the whole time and let my teammates do all the work. We came in second; the salmon won.

I’ve uploaded 45 photos — click the thumbnails below or start here. The first few shots are grainy, and also a couple of the later ones, because I accidentally had my D40 set to ISO 3200 for a while. (Insert ISO one-liner here.)