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This week's Photo Friday challenge is: Self Portrait 2010. I immediately thought of the gangster shot we did when we made our visit to Dorothy at the beginning of the year. By no means did I do this shot alone, but I was a big part of the creative setup of the shot.

The pseudo shotgun in my hand is from a Hallowe'en costume some years ago. The coat and hat are regular attire. We're set up on the bridge in Dorothy with a generator, and two White-Lightnings. The first is behind me, at full power, aimed straight at my back to separate me from the darkness. The second is on camera right with a super tight grid where I was thinking of a 'caught in the headlights' look. The photograph is only cropped, as I didn't even have the desire to edit out the extension cable you can see running across the ground.

Google has changed the world in which we live.  They have brought about a lot of great technological changes in the web space, and continue to give away their servies (mostly) for free.  Google suggestions isn't anything new; basically they take what you've typed into their search so far, and help out with the most common searches they service.  The results move between gut splittingly funny and downright scary.

When I started off with "Where do I find..." apparently a lot of people are looking for real vampires and Chuck Norris.  Some real fun can be had with proper nouns and the word "is".  "Apple is ", "Microsoft is ", "Firefox is", "Ford is " or the pluralized "Cows are", "People are" or "Politicians are " can each give up a short laugh, and keep one entertained for some time.  If I punch in "Wes is " (include the space) I find that the two most common searches are "Wes is a douchebag" and "Wes is legend".  Thankfully the legend returns more results.

Unfortunately, the crowd sourced suggestions show us how dumb a lot of people really are.  Punching in "Monkeys are" will give you the top two suggestions of: "Monkeys are made of chocolate" and "Monkeys aren't donkeys".  Still not convinced?  Place "What do I do when " and "What do I do if " in the search bar and have a look at what you get told.

It's been a while since I have left my impression upon the internet, and as a result quite a bit has happened that I think warrants a mention. These events are so spread apart, and random that I figured that I would roll them out in stages. Actually it has nothing to do with the content, I just wanted to put up more pictures.

As Thursday marked the start of the weekend, we had an excuse to hang loose and have a little fun on a school night. A company that Sonja uses placement services through was having a customer appreciation night, which seemed like the perfect place to mingle with strangers and have some fun. They put on a mock casino and it was a good time.

To start with, you are given $60,000 in funny money that you can spend at any of the gaming tables. I was at first looking for the Craps tables, as that is really my game. It only took a couple or rolls to figure out that I didn't want to play anymore. For the sake of simplicity, they removed all the bets but a subset of the Line bets, and no-one bet on don't pass, thus there was really only one bet. Adding to the simplicity was the fact that everything paid out 1:1 so it was a losing scenario all around, and I decided to find a Blackjack table instead.

I learned after a while at the table, that the gambling was the second fastest way to make more of the funny money. I discovered that you would make much more moola from smoozing with the people who had it. Utilizing both methods, we managed to get our hands on $420,000 of the coupon grade money.

Finishing off the night was an auction of the donated prizes, using the funny money. It was a nice departure from the usual door prize drawing, and because of an active and funny auctioneer it was rather entertaining. We held out for a 'Romantic Night at Home' package which included smelly things, a bottle of liqueur and a fondue set. Not bad for a nights festivities.