The nice thing about writing this blog is that I have 100 percent control over what goes in it (the downside, of course, is that I can't blame anyone else for it).

I get to decide which pictures show up (read: the flattering ones) and which ones don't (read: the ones in which my arms look like bloated watermelons).

Of course, I'm not the only one out there taking pictures. And I have no control over any of those.

You know what I mean. We've all been victimized by the Facebook bad-photo-tagging phenomenon. We've all seen three-chinned, lazy-eyed, stupid-grinned pictures of ourselves show up online thanks to the kindness (evilness) of friends. And we may have used "remove tag" once or twice.

It happens. We should be better trained to spot those roving cameras and know how to handle them.

Last Thursday, local photog Samuel Cousins was out at Velvet doing what he does: taking multitudes of photos. He did a nice job capturing the event, the fashion show, the dancing, etc. [view them all here].

I failed to bring my own camera that night (too consumed with making sure my skirt wasn't tucked into my pantyhose to remember to bring it). So I'm thoroughly appreciative of this nice pic Sam snapped of some friends and I hamming it up a wee bit for the camera.

This picture is good for the memories.

I'm similarly appreciative for this photo==>

It's good for teaching me how to stand like a moron in a photo.

Ah well, can't win 'em all. But I can refuse to include the third photo (in which my arm does, in fact, look like a bloated watermelon). It's my blog, dang it!

[In case you missed the previous reference, see all of Sam's photos from Velvet X on Flickr]