Picture of the day
« Previous Entries Next Entries »The Something Store delivers
Thursday, May 29th, 2008A week or so ago I heard about the latest web-meme: the Something Store. It’s a surprise store asking for $10 and in exchange they will send you something. The gimmick: you won’t know what that something is until it arrives at your door. I caved to my impulsive ways and today two somethings arrived at my door, ready and waiting for de-packaging and personal contents enlightenment.
As you can see the box that arrived is not terribly big. Even my wee EeePC is larger, and both are dwarfed by the 15″ Macbook Pro they alight upon. I immediately rip the box open with the only sharp implement handy.
Obviously I need a better sharp implement for my desk, or at any rate one less dangerous. Note to self: pick up giant serrated blade that will look good on a glass desk.
To help elongate my personal mysterious something experience both something’s came individually wrapped. Within seconds I had ripped into my smaller something, eager to divulge it’s contents.
A box! A tiny black box! Heart contain thyself. The box is constructed from pleather-clad cardboard and proclaims ‘Di Capri’ in embossed silver letters. What could be inside?
Cufflinks! Reasonably well put together and styled cufflinks at that. Luckily blue is my favorite color, and rectilinear forms are my favorite shapes. Worth the $10? For something #1 an enthusiastic yes. But what could the other (and ominously larger) something be?
This is either something fantastic, or something horrific.
It would seem the latter: something horrific yet delightfully soft. Either this is my new lounge wear, or the best white elephant gift for the upcoming holiday season. Worth the $10? For something #2 the verdict is a not so definite perhaps. It should be worth noting that the Something FAQ even specifically calls out the scenario of a feminine something going to a (somewhat) masculine guy so I can’t say I wasn’t warned.
End verdict: the Something Store gets a thumbs up in my book. Don’t bet the farm on them with their specifically random product delivery but for a fun way to blow $10 that’s likely less damaging to your liver than an evening out on the town check them out.
For a few more pictures of the Something Store unboxing extravaganza check out my Flickr set on the topic.
And I still don’t like Zoos
Monday, May 19th, 2008As my parents could attest I never was much of one for zoos as a child. I had set one of my 101 goals to go shooting at the zoo to see if this was still true, and it is. Out of an overly-hot afternoon at the zoo my favorite shot was one that clearly didn’t need a trip to the zoo to take (assuming I could find Bamboo anywhere else in Seattle):
I guess not everyone has to be into zoos. Personally I don’t much find animals interesting. Sure I love Skype and having him around is a blast, but I enjoy his companionship rather than a fascination with his non-humanness. From a photographic perspective zoos don’t really do it for me because of the cages and glass - I far prefer getting up close and personal with my subjects, really interacting with them to get the perfect shot.
Oh well, I had fun, learned something about myself as an adult, and avoided heatstroke for another day. All in all a positive way to spend a Saturday afternoon even if I won’t repeat the experience.
An evening of photography with Alissa
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Although I’m exhausted today thanks to an evening of night photography with Alissa, it was totally worth it. The idea begun ages ago when she pointed out the shadows cast by the wiring shown in the above photo and ended up being one of my 101 goals. Alissa best captured the beautiful shadows better than I did, but I really enjoyed the evening and the shots that I did get.
Time to get more coffee - I’m too old for this whole staying up late thing!
Becoming my father?
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
My sister says I’m starting to look like my father. Looking at this image objectively I have to admit that it’s true. Add a few pounds and a little gray hair and I would _become_ my dad!
Red point
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
A sunset inspired photo from my downtown jury duty adventures last week. This is from a giant wall of red glass downtown. I’m also a fan of this photo of a very different part of the same building but red point is my favorite of the two.
Two Union Square by Aperture 2.0
Saturday, March 8th, 2008I recently discovered Apple Aperture 2.0 and have simply fallen in love with it. It’s hands down the most performant and powerful photo management software out there. Coupled with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (technically the entire Creative Suite) my workflow has been entirely revolutionized. Aperture makes managing a set of 5 photos as easy as managing 10,000. By stacking and grouping photos it’s possible to quickly triage a shoot, find the good shots, and archive the bad shots all with GPU accelerated speed.
Unfortunately I’m come to realize just how unorganized my photos were in iPhoto and am being forced to go on a holy reorganization quest - luckily a not quite as monumental now that I have Aperture to help me out. As a bonus I’m finding lots of old photos that with a little tweaking come out great. It’s like finding rough jewels in a mine, only I don’t have to get all dirty and sweaty - I can just dig away at my desk.
A new entry into my series of Two Union Square
Feeling caught up
Sunday, February 17th, 2008After several crazy weeks I’m finally starting to feel caught up this weekend. Throughout the course of the weekend I’ve completed lots of little tasks and chores that have been slowly building up in my life since my career got crazy (both work to do right now, and finding new work for a few months in the future) everything else seemed to get put on hold.
Having caught up my stress levels are slowly returning to a more manageable level. This is a good thing as my health tends to suffer when I get too stressed out and in a case like this getting sick would only increase how far behind was. I’m starting to get more energy back and feeling more social as a result. Traskpro development may slow down slightly in the coming weeks if I end up being out of the house more when not at work.
I even found the time to take a few photos in the last few days. The above shot of Mike being Mike was taken from joining him, Cyn, and Charlotte at Cal Anderson park for some impromptu picnic play this morning. I’m also a fan of this new addition to my sticker series, and to this shot from the Pink Parasol - a cute little boutique a couple of blocks from my house.
Your Apple ID requires harvesting?!
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
While at the Leopard launch last night Mike picked up an 8Gb 3rd generation iPod Nano for his daughter. While over at their house this morning I was amused to see he was having trouble registering the Nano. Every time he tries to sign in with his Apple ID he gets the puzzling error “This person record requires harvesting.” (click the image above for a full sized view).
While I’m sure it has a valid technical meaning it’s a strange message to show to an end user. It almost makes me wonder - what kind of harvesting is Apple talking about here, a kidney or a crop?
Skitch: reviewed recursively
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
Shortly after putting the finishing touches on my glowing review of Skitch for Gear Live I was fooling around and created this meta-skitch recursive image. Oh the idle joy’s of modern computing! Seriously though - check out the Skitch review, it’s one of those apps that you likely haven’t heard of yet won’t be able to live without once you try it. If you want a beta invite follow the instructions on the review for an opportunity to win one from me. You might also want to check out the Skitch website or my expose-screengrab experiment with Skitch.
“meta-skitch” by sparktography
« Previous Entries Next Entries »