Happy Halloween, friends! In honor of this, the spookiest day of the year, I present to you the absolute scariest video I have ever seen. Ever. Seriously. Turn back. Ok, here you go. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Last night (er, Monday night) Amanda and I went to see The Be Good Tanyas at The Independent. It was a great show, made even greater by the fact that The Independent lets you take cameras inside. So armed with my fastest lens (50mm f/1.8), I took a bunch of shots during the show, and I was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out. Here are some of my favorites: guitars, reflection, the band. For more shots from a fellow Flickr-er, check out this set.

For all the Californians in the house, today is the last day to register for the Nov. 7 elections, so git on it!

A poll, for all the men-folk who frequent this site.

Suppose you are walking down the hall at work to go to the bathroom (number 1.) On the way, you run into a friend of yours and start chatting. After a minute or so, it becomes clear that he is also on his way to the bathroom. Do you:

a) Continue to the bathroom, and continue the conversation while the both of you "do your business."
b) Continue to the bathroom, and stop the conversation while the both of you do your business.
c) Abort, and pretend you weren't going to the bathroom.

I'm just curious, because for women, it's a little awkward when you're having a conversation when you enter the bathroom, but at least we have walls between us, which have the side effect of tending to halt conversation anyway. But for men, you're just standing there next to each other. Seems like it could be awkward.

In other news, I'd like to start "thinking outside the box" when it comes to photography. I think I'm okay at taking "nice" photos, but I've realized that "nice" photos aren't always what I want to take. Sure, it's nice (woo) sometimes, and I'm not about to stop taking remember-the-event photos, but I'd like to start trying to think about photography as art, not just a way to capture a moment. Since joining Flickr, I've found a lot of photographers (as well as old friends) who are inspiring me to try to stretch beyond my self-imposed limits. So goals are: learn more about post-processing, try shooting in RAW, set up shots, new angles, new subjects, new light, new photos. We'll see how it works out.

Oh, I am a bad, bad, sister. But through the magic of time travel, I will now go back 1 day to October 19 and say....

[imagine me doing the "doodoododo" thing from Wayne's World]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

To my best most favoritest (and only) sister. Hope you enjoyed your day off!

My unconscious fear of missing photographs of important/cute events seems to have returned. Last night I dreamt I was walking down the street and I happened upon a box of puppies. No, really. It was some sort of donation box where people could drop off their unwanted puppies and kittens. On the side, there was a sign that said "Can hold up to 50 puppies or 100 kittens." I reached in and pulled out a pomeranian puppy, and I tried to use my camera phone to take a picture of me holding the puppy. But for some reason, my camera phone kept giving me error messages, and I couldn't take the picture. Later, I opened up the box and found a bunch of 3-inch-long kittens.

In non-dream-related news, I went to another yoga class this Saturday. It was more challenging than the first one I went to, but still fun. This weekend I also put up several random pics on my flicker site.

For those of you not "in the know", before this year, I had gone a fairly significant amount of time without having a teeth cleaning. When I finally did, the dentist gave me the dental smackdown, and informed me that I had horrible gums, and I would have to change my non-flossy ways, lest I live a life of gumming pre-chewed food. This was followed by two "deep cleanings", which involved novacaine and a lot of digging beneath my gums with scary dental equipment, after which I was sent home with an antibiotic mouthwash and instructions to floss twice daily. Which I totally did. I had another appointment 6 months later, and apparently things had improved, so I was able to reduce to flossing once daily. W00t. Still not satisfied with the state of Sha's Gums, though, my densist scheduled another appointment, which I had this Tuesday, and she said I still have bad gums, at least in my back teeth. Apparently daily flossing will no longer cut it (and I do floss every day, and I mean actual days; not the lying-for-dentist-every-day), so she told me to buy a proxy brush, which is one of those little pick things with bristles on it to clean out the enormous gaps between my back teeth.

I relayed my sad story to Jon at work, and he informed me that he had the same issue (i.e. good teeth, bad gums) and said that he bought a Sonicare tooth brush, which really helped him. So I made the trip to Target, dropped $100 (!!!!) on a friggin' toothbrush and some Listerine. If my gums aren't BEST EVAR at my next appointment in January, I may actually cry.

In unrelated news, at 5:30 this morning I was woken by the sounds of Spanish-language talk radio (complete with laugh track!) echoing throughout my apartment complex. This was no ordinary radio, though, this was total 100-decibel-cranked-up-to-eleven- *intake of breath* waking-up-everyone-and-their-mother-or-in-my-case-dog radio. After some investigation I went outside (carrying my cellphone for self-defense) and discovered that the sounds were coming from the Taco Bell parking lot, with which we share a wall. I briefly considered calling the police (there have to be noise codes in Mountain View), but decided I was too sleepy, and spent a minute or two trying to figure out if I knew how to say "TURN OFF YOUR DAMN RADIO" in Spanish, but instead put in ear plugs, and tossed and turned for about 30 minutes before getting back to sleep. Yo Quiero Sleep.

Fun Factoid: The guy who plays Deputy Garcia on Reno 911 was the voice of the Taco Bell Chihuahua. Apparently he made enough off of that ad campaign to buy a house.

Had a good weekend:

• Found out that in Zelda: The Minish Cap, only the castle is evil after you get the 4 elements, not the rest of the town, so I still got to run around and do a bunch of the side quests. Sweet!
• I had some free time on Saturday while Enzo was being groomed, so I drove up to Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno and took some photos. Not particularly happy with any of them except the panorama, though.
• Found a new dog walker for Enzo, and they had their first walk on Sunday, which went really well. Even Enzo can make new friends!
• Spent Sunday afternoon with Amanda and Rahul at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which is a free annual bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park. It was fun, albeit crowded, and the Blue Angels flew overhead a few times, which was neat. The weather was also mysteriously beautiful, which was...mysterious.

Edit: Here's a picture of Enzo that his new dog walker took, and OMGMYDOGHASTHEBIGGESTHEADEVER!!

After telling Rahul about a heated argument I witnessed at work. I'm red:

I'd like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Rahul to the Wide World of the Intertron. Hopefully he'll update his Blogger journal more often than his Livejournal one. So welcome, your fatness. Enjoy your stay.

[Edited with correct link. Thanks, Jan!]