simple photography: February 2009

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Rajahstan

We are in Rajahstan about 50km from the Pakistani border and about to visit a medevil fort.
So many photos which I can't upload because no wifi.
All most exotic and rather bizarre.

Arid beige and green countryside with camels, goats and sheep galore and rather brightly colored birds.
COWS aplenty of course, wandering about quite cheerfully.
Dogs everywhere - mostly lying beside the road dead asleep and rather likely to become really dead.... but haven't seen a single cat.
The women wear the most
vibrant and astounding clothes.

Visited the Viceroy's Palace in Bikaner yesterday where a small first world war plane was displayed in the main hall and could have done with a little dusting.
Lots of faded photos of Raj era dignitaries and pelts of tigers on walls etc etc.
Impossible to visit all your blogs - but I would if I could!
Love to all.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Stargate Universe

I have mixed feelings about the casting decisions being made for Stargate Universe. This is just my personal opinion, but I enjoy seeing new actors or actors that are not that well known cast into a role that we then get the opportunity to grow to love. The Stargate SG-1 series had Richard Dean Anderson as the star and I remember him best from MacGyver and he seemed perfect for Stargate. The other actors I did not really know before the series but they ended up being just as loveable and fun to watch. The same can be said for Stargate Atlantis, I was not familiar with any of the actors and they became something to look forward to each week.
They have cast Lou Diamond Phillips for Stargate Universe and all I can think about is the stinker movie Supernova (2000). I could barely stay awake watching that movie it was so hideous. I have enjoyed watching Phillips in other movies and shows so maybe he can pull this off. As well, Ming-Na from ER will be in the show. She is a good actress and I have also enjoyed her work in various shows.
So while it is interesting to have household names being cast in the new series, I will miss getting to know unfamiliar faces and having them become the "new" heroes of Stargate.
If the the stories are interesting and the acting convincing, Stargate Universe should be a hit.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Google dismisses Atlantis Find

I could not resist writing about this article I found in BBC News the other day about the city of Atlantis.

"The Lost City of Atlantis is still lost - despite hopes that Google Earth had located the fabled city on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Observers noted what seemed to be a grid of streets and the outlines of a big city on the sea floor about 960km (600 miles) off the African coast."

Doesn't Google know that the lost city of Atlantis is in the Pegasus Galaxy on a planet named Lantea? The city was most definitely below the ocean, just on another planet.

"Experts had said this was one of the possible sites of the city described by Plato, the Greek philosopher."

Well, Plato may have heard this story from people who heard it from one of the "Ancients" who lived on Earth many, many years before, in hiding from their greatest enemy the Wraith. All these years we thought Plato was so clever in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias when all along these were just hand-me-down stories originally told by these very Ancient Lanteans.

"In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artefact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor," she added.

"The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world's oceans."

You see! This proves my point, you will not find Atlantis on Earth, it is on Lantea!

I was chuckling to myself when I read this article about the lost city of Atlantis and just had to share my perspective on the find or lack thereof. You can read the article here without the science fiction commentary.

GOOGLE

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A Change of Scene

After almost two weeks of concentrating on the ocean, feels like a good time to go in the opposite direction. I am fascinated with slot canyons; they are so awesome to hike through and make great photographic subjects at the same time. Can't ask for more than that. This one is known as Willis Creek and is somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in the Grand Staircase region of southern Utah, a bit east of Bryce Canyon. After 15 miles or so down a dirt road, you park by a little stream and actually follow the stream down into the canyon as the walls grow around you, like Alice down the rabbit hole. There are almost 2 miles of ever changing light and shapes as you follow on down; the stream eventually dies out, at least when I was there. These 2 backpackers are the only other people I saw during a whole afternoon of walking and shooting; they passed by as I was already set up, so I left them in the scene to give a sense of the scale.

Treasure Box Wednesday: Missing Pieces, McCoy, and One Embarrassing Broken Promise

You know, I wasn't even going to go thrifting today.

Really, I wasn't. It was cold, windy... the kind of day when it's easier to just sit at my desk for lunch.

But then I realized the needle on the gasoline meter was heading toward the danger-of-breaking-down zone. And, hey, what's right near the gas station but my favorite Salvation Army?

So I hopped in my car cruising on fumes, and boy-- was I rewarded!

See this lovely little flowerpot?...

One look at that ornate beaded pottery, and I had a good feeling about what it might be. I popped it off the shelf, turned it over and...

Voila! The real McCoy! I had that in my shopping basket pretty fast.

I got a good laugh from the following notepad...

Fans of The Office will know which character this little "While You Were Out" pad is supposed to belong to. Do you think Corporate should be made aware that Ryan is either reselling or outright donating Dunder Mifflin corporate merchandise? :)

I got these Araroc pink cups and saucers-- still with the stickers on, for half price!...

I have a number of pieces to this set already, but it's always nice to find different ones. And while they're not actually Depression glass, the pink is the same shade and they do work well with real Depression pieces. I was pretty excited. Especially at $0.50 a piece.

I also got recently a cheerful tin which will be perfect for wrapping gifts in for friends who also like vintage...

Oh... and this is the part of the post where I have to confess to you all an ugly, ugly truth.

(Deep breath...)

You know how I'd promised to you all at the end of 2008 that I was going to try not to buy any more vintage lamps?...

Well... um... did any of you actually believe me?...

I'm so embarrassed. (Well, maybe only a little because, y'know, I still really like the lamp.)

And with that, my head hanging in red-faced humiliation, I must take my leave of you today. I know, now none of you will trust me on anything ever again, because of my shameful lamp indiscretions...

But I hope you can see your way past it to forgive me... perhaps in time.

If you missed Sunday's posts, on toys and other children's items vanishing from Goodwill thrift stores, click here.

Otherwise, I hope you can manage to get over the breach of trust enough to check out The Thrift Shop Romantic again on Sunday. Cheers, everybody!

Treasure Box Wednesday: Missing Pieces, McCoy, and One Embarrassing Broken Promise

One look at that ornate beaded pottery, and I had a good feeling about what it might be. I popped it off the shelf, turned it over and...

Voila! The real McCoy! I had that in my shopping basket pretty fast.

I got a good laugh from the following notepad...

If you missed Sunday's posts, on toys and other children's items vanishing from Goodwill thrift stores, click here.

Otherwise, I hope you can manage to get over the breach of trust enough to check out The Thrift Shop Romantic again on Sunday. Cheers, everybody!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Sod the rubber sword

“Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood”
Mary Hirsch quotes

I was looking for an appropriate blood related quote, which was both humorous and poignant, for this latest blog post title. I finally decided on "Sod the rubber sword" after coming across the above quote by Mary Hirsch. I thought it would make the point, that I am making a point by drawing/donating blood this coming Friday, with a dash of humour.When else would I get to write something like "Sod the rubber sword"?(don't answer that). Whilst I say with confidence that I am donating blood on Friday, I could of course make a holy show of myself by puking or fainting or both. At least that would make a fun post and you could mock me at will.
Its especially important to me because of the mumborg and her current defective status. She had reached normal Hb levels on Saturday and wasn't expected to need anymore blood. Unfortunately these doctors like to change their minds more often than a whore's knicker elastic breaks, so on arrival at visiting time today, she was hooked up to another bag of the red stuff. Also the wound is still leaking and they have decided to open it up (well open it more) and have a look/rummage/poke. This involves an operating theatre, blood, superglue and some sticky back plastic, well maybe not the sticky back plastic. So as she is losing blood on Friday, I should hopefully be giving it, the circle of life continues, in its weird bloody way.

“Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood”
Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.

I am sure good old Frieddy was being all deep and meaningful, but sometimes it just sounds like a load of old pretentious bollocks.

The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito.
Author: Austin O'Malley

Mine better not get into a fool! I would be exceptionally pissed off. You aint putting my blood in no fool, fool.

Erm..... Just go and give some bloody blood! If you cant, ~~then club someone over the head~~, kindly ask friends and family to go in your stead.

Give Blood

India/beyond Jet Lag

Bumpers on a moped taxi.

From the taxi.......

Wonderful looking fruit..........don't know what it is.

Red sandstone tomb.

Monday, February 23, 2009

T-Minus a new graphic novel

I found this info on Space.com about a new graphic novel that talks about the 1960's space race.

"Jim Ottaviani's science-themed graphic novels have covered everything from fossils ("Bone Sharps, Cowboys & Thunder Lizards") to the atomic bomb ("Fallout"), and now he's taking readers all the way to the moon and back. "T-Minus," Ottaviani's new graphic novel from Simon & Schuster, tells the story of the 1960s space race from a perspective that's rarely been seen before, with art from Zander and Kevin Cannon. Ottaviani gave SPACE.com's sister publication Newsarama the scoop on how his story is unique from other tales of the moon landing, and why this seminal event in human history remains important today."

If you like graphic novels this one ought to be very interesting and it is told from the perspective of scientists and engineers.

You can read the interview HERE.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

London Details/Kentishtown and Bermondsey Street

London moggie.

Tasteful window.

Shop where they printed our bus passes.

Books about London.

A throwback shop which hasn't altered since the 1950's.

Victorian tile work outside a pub.

The Hope Chapel lit up for the Sabbath....

...across the road from the Drinkers Paradise and the betting shop.

The Garrison gastro-pub where I ate bangers and mash.

And the walk back to London Bridge Station under the arches of the railway.

A Nice Day by the Ocean (part five)

Sunset and beyond. Bringing this one day sequence to an end, I was debating if I should include this top one or not since it is pretty much the same time frame as the last post and fairly similar, but I guess it's different enough to be worth a look... and the sky is rather nice. The second shot was literally an afterthought; walking back to my car to head home, I still had my camera and tripod over my shoulder and for kicks decided to stop and shoot this last view which is well after sunset. Reviewing my "digital negatives", it was a really dark exposure and I had no intent to even process it, but with some spare time the other day I started to play with it and was fairly happy in the end, if only because it puts the whole setting for the previous shots in some perspective and adds just a touch of civilization at the end. Looking north toward the settled part of La Jolla Cove... you can see some high rise condos and the lifeguard station off there in the distance.
I was also able to work on some texture studies/abstracts of the rock patterns in between these other shots, but will save those for another day and end this series here... time to move on. All in all a very productive afternoon. Wish they were all so.

Toy Story: Children's Merchandise Vanishes from Local Thrift Stores

Stepping into the toy section of the local Goodwill thrift store, shoppers quickly discover the shelves are empty. No longer do dolls, puzzles, games, and action figures fill their surfaces in jumbled reverie.

But far from Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Cowboy simply being off on exciting adventures, this toy story, unfortunately, has a much sadder side. It's a tale of new government regulations for lead testing on children's products. Of difficult decisions for resale shops. Of a loss of much-needed sales for thrift stores. And the absence of treasures for the children who shop them.

The Consumer Product Safety improvement Act of 2008, to go into effect February 10, 2009, (but now has a partial one-year stay of testing and certification for certain products), was designed to prevent the US sale of children's products with lead content of more than 600 parts per million. (Consumer Product Safety release: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09115.html . Citizen Times article: http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901250348)

Thrift store and resale shops were left hanging about how this applied to them until recently, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission stated resale shops and thrift stores would be exempt from testing lead and chemical content. But those shops are still asked to avoid products likely to have high levels of lead.

In a January 30th, 2009 Pittsburgh's Tribune Review article, spokesman David Tobiczyk for Goodwill of Southwestern PA is quoted as saying, "While we are exempt from testing, we're not exempt from the ban on selling children's products that exceed the lead limit. If we don't test it, we can't sell it, if we don't know about it. People will have to throw out (children's toys and clothing)." (Tribune-Review article: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_607068.html )

A USAToday article on the topic indicates that testing is prohibitive for these organizations because of its cost-- as high as $400 for a small item. (USAToday article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-08-toys_N.html )

While Goodwill's web site doesn't indicate that it no longer accepts toys, the Goodwill in Monroeville, PA, is not currently carrying children's items. And a Thrift Shop Romantic reader in the state of Indiana has indicated that her Goodwill Thrift Stores, too, are not stocking toys and other items for kids since the February 10 deadline.

The Saint Vincent de Paul thrift stores and Salvation Army thrift stores of the Western Pennsylvania area still do seem to be selling the children's products-- but for how long, we'll have to see.

So my suggestion for folks looking to donate these items in question is to contact your local thrift store prior to donating them, and find out whether they are accepting toys and kids' clothing and what their policies are.

I'd be happy to list that information here on the blog, for others' reference, if anyone would like to share the policies in their region.

Child safety is, of course, an important concern. Yet, the new regulations thrust resale shops, crafters of children's products, and even individuals hosting yard sales question what this wide-reaching policy means to them.

Somehow I am left with the feeling that childhood just lost a bit more of its innocence.