Inner Solace

Rescue plane.

Doing a lap around the river before the fireworks on Australia Day.  The sky looks blue-ish here, but it was grey and horribly overcast.

{026} Australia Day fireworks.

Didn’t get any lightning shots unfortunately.  Most of the lightning occurred everywhere my camera wasn’t aimed at.  Some of the lightning did wash out a few of my photos though. But sadly I didn’t get anything noteworthy.

Next time I’ll do more research for fireworks photography in advance.

{025} First night out with my new lens.

All I have to say is that I’ve been spoiled by f/2.8 and f/1.7 lenses.

1985 Minolta AF Lenses (by fmajor007)

Pretty pretty Minolta lenses.  The prices haven’t really scaled over the years and some of the lens prices are significantly different.

But given this was nearly 30 years ago, goodness some of those are expensive!

Added note, if only flashes were still $90.

welovephoneography:

Smartphones get smarter with nature with the bamboo Android phone by ADzero.

Camera-wise, it’s to feature a “ring flash,” an exclusive & new camera tech spec not found on any other camera phones.

Just don’t let it near any hungry pandas!

World’s First Bamboo Smartphone

via Droid Life

This device is aesthetically pleasing.  Shame it runs Android[1].

[1] I don’t have a specific objection to Android, but I object to the (lack of) upgrade paths for Android on current devices.

brain-food:

Muhammad Ali x Street Fighter

(via davidberes)

(Source: gaborfitsforbattle)

When I tried to translate this myself, I had to look up the word ウケ [u-ke] (must be a colloquialism). For a moment, I thought my friend was calling her husband “the submissive partner in a homosexual relationship”.

Hilarious, although still possibly contextually appropriate given that he made her broccoli on rice for lunch…

More hilarious was the translation Bing tried to offer. A “Bento UTI antagonist”? I mean, sure broccoli on rice is a bit poor, but that’s quite horrible. Really, what does Bing have against broccoli? Or my friend’s husband, for that matter.

rhodeskc:

One of the many ways a dog is better than a car

Ever since Hammond covered this in Season 6 of Top Gear, where he asked, “What would be more likely to get you to go out with me - this Aston Marton DB9 Volante, or this 8 week old puppy?” I’ve taken every opportunity to follow in his footsteps.  Now, Hammond is a rather good looking chap on his own and has quite the lady fan base, so this is hardly an impartial test. But it does look like fun… and it is.

Last night I pulled in to the apartment complex, and saw two incredibly hot young ladies stretching yoga style in front of the TV in the main communal area.  As in, I expect most guys would rarely approach these two ladies to break the ice, especially in this setting. I headed upstairs, packed everything away, went down in my cycling gear and a thermal vest, and took little dog outside to do her business. When I went inside, I accidentally[1] got Betsy all hyped up, and when she saw these two pretty girls, she immediately wanted to play with them. They saw a cute little puppy that wanted to give them lots of love and right at that moment I saw their expression change to the “awwww, cute puppy” expression, I accidentally[2] dropped the leash and she went to say hello very enthusiastically.

I of course walked over and said hi to them, calmed little dog down a little (“OFF!! NO!!! *whisper* good dog, good girl, just like we practiced”) and said hello. We had a pretty nice chat - it ended up one of the other ladies had a schnauzer-poodle mix, aka a “schnoodle” - and I got to see up close and personal that they were even hotter in person, and remarkably nice too. Even when she headbutted one of them in the face.

This idea has been around for a while. When we were sitting in Bleu one day, Chris and I (plus a few others) hatched a silly idea of a puppy co-op, where the puppy can help the single guys to find that perfect lady for them. Now, we never did that, but it didn’t stop me when Betsy was smaller from taking advantage of that. I would often walk up to the prettiest girls I could find and say, “G’day, I’m Kris and this is my puppy Betsy. I’m trying to get my dog used to people so that she’s more friendly. Would you mind patting her and saying hi to her?” Few could resist the cuteness.

[1] On purpose

[2] Totally on purpose

I <3 this.

One of Eric’s friends in Melbourne had told us this guy he knows (complete douche) was trying to strategise how to pick up chicks.  He was going to try the puppy route because how can a girl resist dogs, right?

You know what he bought? Two of the rattiest of ratty chihuahuas. For $1500 ea.

I can’t remember the details, but I have a recollection that he didn’t actually know how to look after dogs, didn’t know how to train them and was upset by how yappy they were. Also strongly suspect they’re not helpful in his objective either[1].

[1] On a serious note, I actually hope someone reasonable took those dogs off his hands and that they didn’t end up in a pound or worse… I was slightly concerned about the welfare of those dogs.