Cussedness
The natural cussedness of things in general.
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365
I bought that Canon 40D I was talking about buying, and now I have to actually use the thing, so I’ve decided to try to take a photo a day for a year in order to justify the slightly excessive expenditure. You can, should you feel so inclined, follow my efforts by keeping an eye on the relevant Flickr set. Photography is turning out to be a rather pricey hobby, so I feel like I should commit myself to making a serious attempt at doing it properly. Perhaps I should have just stuck to writing reviews of old public domain novels (but fear not, boredom-addicts, I’m not going to stop that particular activity just yet).
Incidentally, I’m starting my Project 365 today as it is my birthday, and that strikes me as a good time to get started on this sort of thing. Today I am 31, or 11111 in binary, or 111 in base 5, which is very mildly diverting. 31 is also a Mersenne prime, the only known Mersenne emirp, and some other things too.
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Fisheye Madness
I went a bit nuts a few weeks back and spent a slightly silly amount of money on a Sigma 4.5mm Circular Fisheye lens. It is brilliant fun. Here is the slideshow of my Flickr set:
I don’t regret a penny of what it cost (although I didn’t pay full price, don’t worry), but I am now yearning for a better camera body to make the most of what the lens can actually do. And with the standard rate VAT reduction, and a £60 cashback offer on the Canon 40D, I’m not sure how much longer I can resist. Maybe I’ll buy myself a birthday present.
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OCD Of The Day
This is our entire DVD collection sorted into order of decreasing nerdiness (as defined by me) from left to right. I got bored of tidying up the cupboard where they’re usually stored.
I put this image together using Calico, which is designed to automatically stitch together panoramas taken from one point, rather than sets of images that pan along a line like this. The picture has some fairly large mismatches in it, but I’m still quite impressed with the result, considering that the whole process took about fifteen minutes.
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Ich bin in Berlin
We got here by train, an interesting experience, if not one that I can wholeheartedly recommend: sleeper trains could perhaps be more accurately designated shallow-and-fitful-dozer trains, and the facilities for waiting passengers at Bruxelles-Midi are somewhat spartan, so I arrived in Berlin running at rather less than full capacity.
Not feeling up to anything more demanding, we spent the first day strolling along and around Unter den Linden, looking at landmarks and monuments and memorials. Sightseeing in central Berlin seems to tend towards the serious and sobering, you can barely turn a corner without encountering some reminder of grim events past. A visit to the zoo might be in order at some point, I think, by way of contrast.
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Some photos
This is why I’ve been very quiet of late. This and numerous other DIY jobs I’ve finally been forced into completing, because we’re planning to sell our house. I am, frankly, sick of grouting, hammering, screwing, sawing, sanding, smoothing and suchlike.
Here is an out of focus picture of a Great Spotted Woodpecker I saw in the garden a few weeks ago. I was a bit worried about him because I’d not seen him for months, but I suppose he was keeping warm in a tree over winter, sensible chap. I was less worried about this fellow; he’s been thieving from the bird feeder since October, so he’s very well fed indeed.
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Leaves In Ice
I found this block of ice full of dead leaves in my garden. As the ice melts the air bubbles make pretty patterns in the impression left by the leaves.
There shouldn’t really be any leaves in the pool this ice was in, but I’m just not a natural gardener, and I cannot be bothered with tidying the place up. I have recently given up entirely, and decided instead to hire someone to tame the place with a week’s worth of slash-and-burn; it was whilst admiring their efforts that I spotted this effect in the ice. I thought it was rather pretty.
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