My thoughts on last night's final primaries, and the speeches given in their aftermath? A single meta-quotation suffices. Oliver Cromwell, to the Long Parliament, and more famously requoted by Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain:

You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

[source]

Or, in lolspeak:

Git, kthxbai? Srsly.

I'd been threatening to do something like this for months, and finally got around to it.

Admittedly, this photo is slightly inaccurate, since I had a trim shortly thereafter:

Amy, photo by Suzan
at Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia, United States by domesticat.

I was ready for a change, and when a co-worker with very curly hair showed up with a great cut, I asked her for her stylist's name: Bobbie. I scheduled an appointment before I could change my mind, and even as I walked in the door of the salon, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

She was skater-punk and tattooed, and had a simple, tousled, comfortable-looking haircut. We talked about what had gone right -- but mostly wrong -- in prior haircuts. I showed her my driver's license photo to give her an idea of how much my hair curled when handled well. I mentioned that I was looking for a change, but had a family wedding in a month and a half, and needed to make sure that I was salvageable by then.

A question arose from last night's conversation. I've been surprised to learn that a few of my friends have been fascinated by my Travails of the Fountain Pen™ and would be interested in giving a fountain pen a try.

Are you one of those people? Let me know in the comments. I might -- just might -- have a plan. So far I've given pens to two people, and instance #3 is in progress. Last night's conversation makes me wonder if there are more of you out there than I realized.

I finally remembered to add gravatars to cat.net. Logged-in users only, though.

If you don't have one, you can make one very easily at gravatar.com.

If you do have one, then look to the right and find the "my account" link in the right sidebar. Edit your info, scroll down to the bottom part of the page, and check the option that says 'Use my gravatar in comments.'

I hauled myself out of the house on a gorgeous, clear Father's Day and drove to the eastern side of Huntsville for an afternoon of photography.

Photos after the cut, so as not to make my entire front page explode. Full set is available on flickr as usual.

My two favorites:

The good news is that my retinas are okay. The bad news? None really; my vision is stable for the second year in a row and my eyes are fine. I'll call that a win in just about any playbook.

I had a scary incident a few weeks ago. The vision in the central portion of my right eye blurred and began to do what I can only describe as 'sparkle.' There was no pain and no other change, just an area the shape of a crescent moon in my central field of vision that was strangely prismatic.

It went away that same afternoon. Geof was right to question my blood pressure -- low as usual -- and there were no side effects.

I was glad to confirm that all was well. Ever since my mother had her cornea transplant thanks to Fuchs' dystrophy, I've been more aware than usual of how fragile my sense of sight is, and how lost I would be without it.

This album is madness and I feel like inflicting it on as many people as possible.

New album: Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals." Adam described it as what happens when all of the music you've liked in the past 30 years gets in a room and has a giant mashup orgy. It's an accurate description.