Things that make me go "hmmm...."

Look at the picture above.

What do you see?

Now look at the picture below.

The one at the top featured in yesterday's (January 4, 2007) 3:01 p.m. post.

The second one almost did.

Why is that?

Why would I choose one of these seemingly identical pictures over the other?

Very simple — to me.

The lower one has a 1-pixel-wide contrasting border.

That's the original.

I noticed the border just as I was rechecking the post for the umpteenth time before putting it up.

And I groaned as I always do that I'm saddled with this perfectionism that won't tolerate that 1-pixel border around pictures, such that if you looked back closely over the past year's posts you'd be hard-pressed to find one.

Before that I wasn't as particular but once I realized bookofjoe looked cleaner without the contrasting borders I eliminated them as a matter of style policy.

That sort of finicky — some might say ridiculously so — attention to detail is hard-wired into my approach to things.

Good for an anesthesiologist — but a royal pain in the butt for a blogger putting up eight illustrated posts 365 days a year.

Contrast me with Clarence Darrow, who as a boy had to work in his father's chair factory and was assigned to paint the chairs.

You can always tell a genuine Clarence Darrow chair by the fact that the bottom is unpainted: young Clarence so hated his work that he expedited it via that shortcut.