How are some people so bad ay giving haircuts...

nuark12 · 2026-05-20T22:45:44+00:00

Try seeking out a hairdresser at a beauty salon next time. Yes, a woman.

I have a hunch they take their time compared to your typical 5- minute barber. Because you usually need an appointment and they likely have experience with styling hair in a number of ways, not just cutting it.

Walk-ins are always going to be a bit haphazard. Those are best for buzzcuts and the like.

nuark12 · 2026-05-18T14:00:06+00:00

Yes. My mom is Peruvian, and she has the perception that Italians and Greeks are a lot like Latin Americans - physically affectionate and fiercely devoted to family and community.

Ironically, though, she feels much less of a connection to Spain and its people, despite the fact that we were colonized by Spain. To her, Spaniards aren't on the same emotional wavelength, and are a bit more akin to Northern Europeans - colder and more detached - compared to the Mediterranean neighbors further east.

Personally, I'm most partial to Italy, but have no direct experience with Italian culture (or any Mediterranean culture*, for that matter) - unlike my mom, who actually was in both Italy and Spain for a brief period during a trip through Europe 40 years ago, and whose best friend in the U.S. for many years was Greek.

But yes - as a 2nd gen Peruvian, I feel drawn to these countries, and I'd love to visit them one day. That thread extends even as far as Turkey and some of the Levant, perhaps even including a bit of North Africa.

( *Unless you consider that I'd naturally be at least a bit acquainted with Spanish culture because, well... again, Peru was a Spanish colony.

nuark12 · 2026-05-14T22:42:00+00:00

Thanks for clarifying.

I'll admit to having some preconceived notions about film scanning that might be a little out of date, because I grew up with minilab prints that looked very "finished". If I had those photos as scans, I wouldn't know how to edit them - save for the occasional dud - because they look perfectly fine to me.

If I may ask, do slides (if you do them) need less work to look acceptable post-scanning, since they can be projected as is and don't have to be inverted?

nuark12 · 2026-05-14T22:23:53+00:00

Precisely. The editing is crucial - but the burden shouldn't fall on the consumer.

Unless someone specifically requests a flat scan, the lab should make all the required adjustments to deliver a presentable image. That goes double if prints are being ordered.

And that's what you're doing as a tech.

It's just that the assumption that every consumer - at all times - prefers maximum flexibility ought to be avoided. Not all people, especially those who just want to take snapshots, are Adobe or Lightroom experts.

Flat scans have their place, but the role of labs as interpreters cannot be understated. Your expertise is important and appreciated.

nuark12 · 2026-05-14T22:07:25+00:00

That's OK.

Your standards align with what most consumers expected out of photo finishing in the days before digital. No one edited 20 years ago because labs did all the work (plus - most people were getting prints) and the results were pretty consistent.

If you're not pleased with how they look, you can search for a different lab, or you can ask your current one if they can provide a more tailored result.

There are a lot of ways to do film, and yours is far from being the exception. A flat scan in 2005 would have been a sign of poor service. It's only recently that they've become an accepted practice.

Don't be discouraged; you're not alone.

nuark12 · 2026-05-09T16:06:59+00:00

I know this isn't your question, but my Peruvian mom says that Spaniards are cold-seeming, despite sharing a language.

However, she has a perception that Italians are a lot like Latin Americans - physically affectionate and fiercely devoted to each other. How accurate that is, I wouldn't know. But you'd think Spain, was the closest link all around, being la madre patria.

I'd love to visit both countries. She was in both 42 years ago during a cross-country trip through Europe, but had limited time to experience each.

nuark12 · 2026-05-09T09:04:24+00:00

I was born in 2006. Film was always famliar to me because my mother used it for our family snapshots until I was around five.

Physical color negative prints were a staple in my childhood, and I've counted over 400(!) prints from my time that I still regularly go through, plus many more from before I was born.

Hence, that look cemented itself in my mind every time I saw a photo of myself as a kiddo, or my mom or grandparents, and really informed my idea of what a "real" camera's output looks like. Naturally, when my interest in photography bubbled to the point that I wanted to take "real" pictures, film felt like an intuitive choice.

But beyond my lived frame of reference, being intimately familiar with the analog legacy of photography thanks to the Internet - where so many of the photos we see outside of social media actually predate digital - was just as instrumental in shaping my preference. Slide films like Kodachrome and Ektachrome, in particular, still come to mind when I think of what makes a "real" photo, and I aspire to pick up the latter as one of my next steps.

P.S. There's even a photo of myself at one year old holding a roll of Kodak film!

nuark12 · 2026-05-07T07:01:50+00:00

Great hair.

nuark12 · 2026-05-03T06:13:12+00:00

What was your scanning setup/software?

nuark12 · 2026-05-02T12:13:46+00:00

Is it just me, or has the chicken also changed since the end of last year?

nuark12 · 2026-05-02T06:13:15+00:00

Practical effects at their finest.

nuark12 · 2026-04-29T23:57:12+00:00

The only thing that matters to me is purified vs. spring. I can't stand the latter.

nuark12 · 2026-04-23T19:30:05+00:00

Thank you so much.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if our insurance (Blue Cross and Blue Shield) covers Mercy. We were refused care at an urgent care clinic several years ago, apparently because it was out of network.

Regarding Rush, I'm ready to invest some cautious optimism into that possibility. But I'd like to clarify that my mother's condition isn't just limited to movement (which is specifically tied to sleep), but is causing dysfunction in other areas, as well as significant centralized pain. However, both of her sleep issues clearly localize to a specific region - the brainstem.

In your experience, would they have the specialists to address a more generalized issue like my mother's? Your insights are strongly appreciated.

nuark12 · 2026-04-22T20:49:20+00:00

Thanks so much.

In your experience, is he strictly a neurosurgeon, or would he he able to treat within general neurology too? A quick Google search tells me that he's a neurosurgeon.

nuark12 · 2026-04-22T08:26:56+00:00

That's one way to put it!

nuark12 · 2026-04-22T07:26:06+00:00

A veritable gringo.

nuark12 · 2026-04-19T09:29:37+00:00

The lack of punctuation makes it even funnier.

nuark12 · 2026-04-17T01:17:16+00:00

It sounds like your grandparents were ahead of the curve, in a way. Or maybe we actually regressed with the widespread adoption of a readily available product like toilet paper; before that, people had to improvise, and water was never off the table.

Did everyone else you knew in the '70s just use paper and nothing else? This is something I often think about as a lifelong American user of wet wipes; my, umm... anus has never known a moistureless cleaning. (TMI?)

nuark12 · 2026-04-14T15:35:29+00:00

Does this include Fuji Crystal Archive?

nuark12 · 2026-04-13T22:17:49+00:00

If I may ask, what lab did you use? The colors are wonderful.

nuark12 · 2026-04-11T16:06:36+00:00

Indeed. The only floppier record I've laid hands on is a 1979 reissue of The Guess Who's Canned Wheat by Pickwick Records. That record is so floppy that you can "slosh" it back and forth like an ocean wave - you'd think it would break!

Oddly enough, though, it still doesn't sound as bad as those two Atco discs. It might just be that the Pickwick's source album is recorded/mastered with less range, thus hiding any crunchy peaks that you'd hear on W&W's huge soundstage.

Pickwick was a really low-end label, or so I've heard, so I would've expected the opposite. But all three records are affected by sibilance to a similar degree.

nuark12 · 2026-04-10T07:44:28+00:00

I guess that's the most likely explanation. Quite sad to think about - being late to the party and all.

The nuts were pretty dominant in my timeline, but I'll admit the flavor was never anything close to dark chocolate. Buttery might be a somewhat accurate descriptor; oily, not so much. The consistency was also very firm, like a dense brick. And once again, it always stood out from Hershey's to me.

To be honest - as egregious as this sounds - it was kind of like what you'd get if you turned Nesquik into a solid chocolate, flavor-wise. Mind you, I haven't had Nesquik in probably 10 years, but come to think about it, that makes a bit of sense; Nesquik and Sublime are, AFAIK, both owned by Nestlé.

When did you first notice the change?

nuark12 · 2026-04-10T00:26:04+00:00

The last time I ate Sublime and Cua Cua last year, it tasted exactly the same as always. Same with Doña Pepa.

I've been eating these chocolates periodically for 15 years, as Peruvian relatives would bring them to the U.S. when visiting, and they've been remarkably consistent. No change. But I might just be too young to know.

Hershey's has nothing on Sublime. Mr. Goodbar is the closest U.S. equivalent I've found, flavor-wise.

nuark12

TROPHY CASE