Taking part in Wordless Wednesday. I have posts in my head – just gotta get em on here.
I took this while at Carrickalinga last week. Was good to get away even though we had a bit of a holiday house nightmare.
On 1 January this year I started my photo a day project up again. I’d thought I might do some sort of theme but I haven’t come up with one so it’s still a photo a day of something.
Even though it was only just over a month since I finished my last one it feels like a lot longer and I’m still getting back into the swing of remembering to take a photo a day.
I find I’m still sticking mainly to the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone but want to try some other apps along the way.
Other than that my days have been pretty busy with stuff (ambiguous I know). I’ve still to re-find my writing mojo. It annoys me that I’ve lost this particular purpose. I know they say just to write and I’m tossing up whether to go back to the model I started a few months ago, ie posting up my photo each day and saying a few words or more about each one.
What say you?
Late last year I got to see a demo of the upcoming Skylanders game which I immediately knew that my son and I would enjoy as we’ve been Spyro fans since he got his first gaming console.
We received a copy of the game and have enjoyed playing it. Of course to get more out of it you need to buy more characters and we have bought one three pack and my son got another three pack for Christmas.
Of course he got some Christmas money and he’s itching to spend it on some more characters, in particular, an air one like Whirlwind because we don’t have that element yet.
However, this is proving quite hard. It appears as though many people got this game for Christmas and as soon as the shops opened after Christmas rushed out to buy more characters and there just aren’t any around that I can find – in Adelaide anyway.
I thought I’d try to buy online and even that’s proving hard. While normal retail prices are $15 for one character or around $29 for the three pack, prices on e-bay are proving quite different, ie more expensive. I refuse to pay that.
I don’t know if this is a ploy by the game’s makers to up the demand for these characters or whether they just didn’t anticipate the demand.
So until we can get our hands on more characters we will wait out this until more are available.
So far we have Spryo (magic), Gill Grunt (water), Trigger Happy (tech), Drobot (tech), Stump Smash (life), Bash (earth), Chop Chop (undead), Eruptor (fire), Flame Slinger (fire).
My favourites? The ones that can shoot, ie Drobot, Trigger Happy and Spyro and even Gill Grunt. The others, as you upgrade their abilities do some pretty cool stuff although I’m not a huge fan of Stump Smash yet. And it’s handy to use characters that can move a bit more quickly sometimes like Spyro and Drobot.
I’ve been going through my photos and posted a few to Flickr that I took with my Project 365 in mind, but didn’t quite make the cut. Or they’re photos I just took anyway. Here are a few of them.
One of the things I miss about not going out with The Surfer any more is the proximity I had more regularly to the beach. Plans are afoot – albeit long-term plans – to remedy this though. So photos like the one above probably won’t feature as much in my daily photos when I kickstart that again.
This is Monty in my car boot. I jokingly told (well gestured because she’s deaf) her to hop in and she did. I was quite surprised because while it’s not that high off the ground I didn’t realise she was still agile enough.
Now, of course, I didn’t put the boot’s lid down and drive off but as you can see I did take a photo. She looks quite content don’t you think?
Here’s another one of Monty. I have to fatten her up as she’s lost four kilos since she had her last vet’s checkup a year ago. And that’s a fair amount of weight for a dog that only weighed 22kg to start with. The vet said that ‘we have arthritis in our back legs and we might need some medication to make us feel better’. I swear, that’s how she spoke. I felt like telling her that she could talk about the dog, not us. We don’t need medication, the bloody dog does ok? She also kept calling Monty ‘him’ after I’d more than once referred to ‘her’.
This medication would have cost $47 per month. I’ve decided to go the natural route and give her glucosamine powder and fish oil. This way she won’t feel left out with what I take for my sore knees!
Monty, despite her 14+ years, still loves to come for walks with us and she potters around the oval while we’re there. Someone the other day commented that she takes shortcuts across the oval to catch up with me.
I notice that she’s constantly underfoot too. She follows me EVERYWHERE. She never used to follow me around quite as much. I don’t know if it’s because she’s hard of hearing and has to have me in her sights now. While it sometimes becomes annoying I know I’ll miss it like crazy when she’s not doing it any more so I put up with it.
As I try to sort out playlists on that iToy contraption of mine I’ve been creating a favourites list. Last Wednesday saw me dancing around the kitchen to some of it. Sometimes JJ and I will crank up the music’s volume and have a dance together and occasionally I’ll do it myself. It makes me feel really good, and it’s good exercise. Here’s a few of those tunes (if viewing this via RSS and can’t see the clips below click through to the site).
What songs would you add?
I’ll bet you have trouble staying still when listening to/watching this clip.
Ed Kuepper is a favourite musician of mine. I haven’t seen him recently but saw him years ago at a local university with the Hoodoo Gurus. Listen to the lyrics – love em.
Yet another cover version of an older song and I really like how it’s been done. This is a great one to sing along to as well – if you’re into that sort of thing. I might be!
It takes nearly a minute before the song actually starts and it’s a live version, but it’s a great song – a Cramps cover. It’s also somewhat slower than the music above. I saw Nouvelle Vague a year and a half ago at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and I thoroughly recommend them. They were great.
I know I asked above, but I’m asking again. What song/s make you feel great?
JJ had a beach day the other day. They weren’t allowed to go swimming – I guess the safety logistics of that are too much. Instead they had to break up into groups and build a sandcastle. each
JJ brought home his group’s plan the night before and a list of things he had to take.
It included food colouring and sand monsters (aka plastic dinosaurs).
I knew as I handed over the blue food colouring that something would happen but as a parent, I thought, I’ve got to trust him don’t I? I can’t even remember what the food colouring was supposed to be used for and as I had to work I couldn’t witness the sandcastle creations.
I arrived at after school care to pick him up and this is what I saw!
I ‘calmly’ asked what had happened and didn’t outwardly didn’t over-react while inside I was thinking ‘what the hell’. Apparently another kid had taken a bottle of blue food colouring as well and the lids had gotten mixed up. JJ put his bottle with the loose lid into his board shorts and it leaked all over his shorts and his leg.
Something like this would only happen to him.
He was more worried about my reaction to losing all the food colouring. He obviously didn’t realise that I might be more worried about removing blue from everything.
Trying to think of the positives, Iwas glad he didn’t put it in his school bag.
He didn’t argue with me when I asked him to have a shower that evening, and luckily I was able to wash the blue out of everything.
Oh, and his group won the sandcastle competition. It wasn’t the blue food colouring that gave them the edge either, it was the ‘sand monsters’.
As regular readers of this blog will know I recently completed my first photography project, ie a photo a day for a year, or ‘Project 365‘.
I’m taking a break from a photo a day until the new year but maybe I need to rethink the aim of the next project. Maybe I need a theme?
A fellow Flickr contact took a photo a day for a year using the same object in each photo. While I admire that I don’t think it’s for me because I’d be bound to go away for a weekend and forget the damn object then where would I be?
Recently I came across a photographer (Jennifer Sando) who had a photography goal of shooting a portrait of a favourite musician, Eddie Vedder, and used her photography to get noticed to reach her goal.
I’m an up-and-coming photographer based in Adelaide (South Australia) who happens to be a massive Pearl Jam fan. And I would like to take Eddie Vedder’s portrait. (Note that was “portrait” and not “snapshot”.)
I’m very conscious of the fact that Eddie will be doing two solo shows here at the end of March. So I’m striving for an opportunity at that time. Yes, I have tickets.
Until the concert, (which is 84 days away), I will be uploading a black & white photograph every day to spell out the fact that I REALLY want to take Eddie’s portrait. …
She reached her goal and got to take Eddie Vedder’s portrait when he came to Adelaide earlier this year. She wrote:
…this was more than a portrait quest for me. It turned out to be a life-changing journey with major rewards, a big finale, and a new perspective on life.
I couldn’t find anything about what her new perspective on life is. Jennifer? Perhaps you can tell me? I’d love to hear it.
The only reason I know about this project is because Jennifer was at The Gov (an Adelaide music venue and pub) a while ago taking photos one Saturday afternoon of a uke gathering I was at. You can see the photos here.
I think an aim like this is admirable. It gets you doing something you love, to achieve something you want to achieve. Food for thought.
AboutArchivesBlogrollContact meProject 365Reviews & GiveawaysBuilding Lego City Crawler Crane – part 1Building Lego City Crawler Crane – part 2Buying is EziChristmas giveaway – Complete second season of Mad About YouChristmas giveaway – Stupid Stupid Man DVDDoes your wardrobe challenge you?EcoStore products review and a giveawayElectric toothbrushesGiveaway – Complete series of The Ellen ShowGroupon – my experienceHow to pose for photos without showing your double chinI love chocolateLego City helicopter transporter reviewLego Crawler Crane – finishedLife coachingMy last week in photosOzsale bargains and a $50 voucher to giveawayPhotos with the C902 phonePomegranate juice – POM WonderfulReMoooSkylander’s: Spyro’s adventure. And mine.Sony Ericsson phone C902 – first thoughtsSound of Music 45th anniversary keepsakeStargate – Children of the Gods DVD giveawayStep Brothers DVD winnerStep Brothers review and DVD giveawayTV showsVideo on the Sony Ericsson C902 phoneWin a $50 EziBuy voucher courtesy of the Wardrobe Challenge