News Blackout... Or "Blackout News"...

Or even "cab elk no stu w" which the online anagram generator insists is proper English.

Yes, I'm sat here in my cold, dark and drafty room, in almost complete darkness. I'm not complaining though, I've got my hangover water, and my Admiral's Pie. So I'm in a generally good mood today.
Why am I sat in complete darkness? Well it's to do with this Earth Day thing. The general idea is that major cities around the world turn off all unneccessary electric lighting and equipment from 8pm-9pm local time. It's one of those symbolic gestures, though I daresay it should amount to a pretty cost saving for the cities as a whole.

I joined in, turning out my lights and all my electrical appliances (excluding the computer, obviously) not because I believe that humankind is going to singlehandedly destroy a four and a half billion year old planet, but because in general I approve of green technology, as long as it doesn't negatively affect me. This despite our (soon to be ex) government's policy of taxing anything not-green into oblivion, regardless of the fact that other much larger much more polluting countries have no pollution legislation or interest in energy efficiency whatsoever.
I've always seen our country's stance on climate change as being like the cat that stands in the bear's path while the lion sits idle, but nevertheless, I approve of symbolic gestures in general, so here I am, in the dark.

So what did I do today? Actually, and in a manner that's completely unlike me, I woke up at 4am, rolled over, went back to sleep, woke up at 07:40 and got out of bed. I left for work nice and early, taking the opportunity to have breakfast on the way to work, I relaxed when I got at work, had my cup of coffee and everything - it's been a pretty laid back and easy going kind of day. I worked. Well, I sat in my chair, mumbled and stared at my screen, so officially I worked, which when your boss isn't SUPER hot on facts and figures, is pretty much the same thing.

I came home to discover that one of my ebay presents has arrived - I got paid on wednesday so I went on a (random but inexpensive) spending spree, ordering a few little odds and sods that I kinda wanted. So what arrived today?
A lens reversing ring (ebay item). Yay, go me. Basically it's a piece of metal with a screw thread on one side, and an F mount on the other. It cost me four quid ($8 at current exchange rate). For a thin, lightweight and almost insubstantial piece of metal.
I felt kinda taken for a ride, until I actually put it on my camera and gave it a go.

Well, it definitley does the job. Wow. If only £4 could go as far as this little piece of kit in every job.

Just a little note to tell you all that I accidentally closed firefox while typing this - thank feck for automatic backups!

This thing has given my camera capabilities it didn't have before, it has essentially taken the place of a dedicated macro lens costing over a hundred times as much, and while a dedicated lens might produce better results, I don't have £400 to kinda spend on something I won't use that often.

But yeah, I came in from work, opened my package, and started playing around with the camera. Out come the gems collection, and hey, out come the photos. It's a decent piece of kit my camera as I say about 8 times a day. Light goes in one end and decent photos come out the other.

So here's my camera set up with the lens reversing ring - notice that you can hardly see the ring itself, but how all the lenses are the wrong way round on the camera. Notice how the huge lumbering hulk of a camera is focused on a tiny little jewel parked next to a ruler, the sole purpose of which is to highlight its tinyness.

I figured that for macro photography, the best subject was my gem collection. the little yellow thing in the photo is an 8mm citrine. Under the power of the lenses though, it became so easy to turn it into something spectacular.

Well, kinda spectacular, see, one of the bitches about lens reversers is that the lens has no connection to the camera, so there's no autofocus, there's no apeture control (at least not from the camera's point of view) in laymans terms, once you put a lens on the wrong way round on a camera, the camera can't help you - you're on your own and the photos you take, you take without help from the camera's focus or light sensors.

I took one photo as a kind of reference guide, just to show you how small these stones actually are. Here, you can see how tiny this stone is (Yes, the ruler is incredibly out of focus - one of the problems with macro photography is that when you're taking photos of really small things, you lose all of your depth of field - this basically means that it's impossible to get more than a tiny area in focus).

Once I'd got the practice in, I started playing around, got a few more gems arranged together and took a few photos until I came up with some good results.

This was the best I think. The largest stone is only 10mm across, the smallest only 4mm. Those lenses sure do a good job of capturing all the detail.

Well, now Im off to spend more time on my computer, and start my *holiday*. Okay, I spose I'd best explain.

CHAPTER TWO

I had to go to hospital on tuesday. Hmm where to start. The beginning I spose, the beginning is always a good place to start. Well skipping a load of random rubbish, I've got to go to hospital to have my jaw operated on, remember?

So we finally find this place. It's down a backstreet - sure this's the center of Britain's fifth biggest city so there are a lot of backstreets, but I was still kinda worried. The other buildings, as if in a cartoon, seemed to lean inwards at the top, the traffic was non existant...

I got in and handed in my paperwork and they sent me up the stairs - polished, tidy stairs reeking of the unique brand of "clean" that only hospitals (even our MRSA infested hospitals) contain, I worked my way to a waiting room - essentially a corridor that had been squared off with a couple of partitions that looked like they were in the process of being replaced, with a couple of desks and a few chairs shoved in there. No natural light, only the insipid yellowy green light of the hospital's corridor lights. Every now and again, we'd hear a rumble as the lift/elevator/whatever rumbled up past the floors.

I sat there for about twenty minutes, watching random people come in some go off into some bright doorway filled with natural light, in the manner of one leaving purgatory for heaven (I am not religious! It was a metaphor). Eventually my turn came and I was led out of this almost Harkonnen medical waiting room, past rows of clean sparkly dentist's chairs.

I sat opposite a consultant, an austere scary dude in his late forties or early fifties, who I expected to basically ask me in polite terms "what do you want, what are you doing here"
Actually it was a lot better than that, he explained that loads of people request sedatives when having dental operations (particularly ones that involve scalpels being taken to their gums and drills being taken to their jawbones!) so it's nothing to be ashamed of. Besides it's nothing i've not done before.
He tells me that "You won't be under general anaesthetic, you will be sedated. It's a needle in the back of your hand, and it doesn't put you to sleep, but it does make you feel like you've had eight or nine pints of lager". I spose my yooffull appearance must have convinced him this was a suitable comparison. At least I'm young to somebody.
Either way, you're given a nine-can reward for a needle in the hand? I'll have two. Maybe three.

I hope I don't come out of that place drunk.

anyway, he got me in the dentist's chair remarking "don't worry we're not going to do anything today".
Do I look worried? Well, probably yes, but still. Get off my case.

So I took tuesday off, chilled out, got home, chilled out more. Then I had to work four days in a row - which for me is a lot because i work four days a week - two on, one off, two on, two off.
So now I've booked a week off to get myself back to my normal lazy lifestyle. I've got a few more pressies to recieve from ebay, so I can't wait.

And as a final note, my mouse started working randomly today, seems the trouble is in the charging, not in the using. Maybe I can keep it afterall.

Dusty Spring...

And not a Field in sight.

Yes. In the past few days I've been suffering with problems with my camera. I'd discovered some spots on the images that I was taking, but they perplexed me. I noticed that they appeared on some photos but not others. They were definitley spots though and they were annoying the hell out of me.
I took the lens off (sticking the body cap on the camera) and cleaned it. I put it back on - spots still there.
I changed the lens with another one - spots still there.

So I took the lens off, locked the mirror up (so I could see the sensor) and had a look. There was a little dust on the sensor, but it didn't correspond to the dust on the images. I was stumped.

So in desperation, I resorted to doing what I normally do when things go wrong for me - I went off on one and had a go at everyone except the idiot responsible - me. This is a personality flaw of mine and one that I'm trying to remedy.

Anyway, I decided that the first thing to do was to have the sensor cleaned. I didn't want to do this myself though, because the sensor is a smooth shiny precise expensive piece of technology, and if you scratch it, you pay through the nose, ears, mouth and all other orifices to have it fixed. Nikon also advise against cleaning the sensor (beyond blowing dust off with a blower) yourself. The section on sensor cleaning in the manual basically says "Nikon strongly recommend that you do not attempt to clean the sensor yourself, if you do attempt to clean it, you will invalidate your warranty, default on your mortgage, and people will laugh and point at you in the street. Anyway, here's how to clean it". Fair enough, I'll get someone professional to clean it for me. But was dust the actual problem?

It can't hurt to take a blower to it to get the dust out I spose, at which point my mate pointed out that not only did Nikon charge him £90 per camera to clean out the dust from his camera, but it also took them 2 months to get the cameras back to him. (Note to Nikon: I have no proof, I'm just going on what I was told, so don't sue me please! PS: I love your cameras, can I have a free D3X? I promise to do a fair and accurate review?)

"Bugger that" I thought, I'll have a word with a couple of local places to see if they can help. I didn't pay [equivalent at current exchange rates] $1600USD for a camera just to not-be-able to use it for two months. So I sent an email to a local camera place who shall remain nameless:

To: [address witheld]
Subject: Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

Hi there. After buying myself a nice Nikon D200 as an expensive present, it

has taken me a grand total of six weeks to get dust on the sensor. I can't

blow the dust off, and as per the manual, I'm not really willing to attempt

to manually clean the sensor myself.

Is this a service you offer? If so, would you be able to clean the sensor at

the time, or would the camera need to go elsewhere?

Would you be able to give me any indication (if you are able to clean the

sensor for me) of the cost involved?

Many thanks!

Cool. Covered all the bases, which was good. They replied quickly too. I was rather impressed.

To: Squid
Subject: Re Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

We sell the kits you need to maintain the camera.

They cost £90.00 and include all bits to do the job.

Regards
Person.

Bollocks. Well they got back to me quickly, which was good. And that's about the only good thing about it. Obviously hadn't read past the first paragraph. Still everyone's only human, so I won't hold it against them, but I didn't have the heart to send an email back saying "listen you idiot, that's not what I asked", because I'm not that hostile a person. Well I am, but as you noticed, I keep the majority of my hostility to myself :). No, really.
Admittedly, my attempts to blow the dust off were confined to blowing hard into the camera (holding it reasonably far from me so as to not get spit in it - that WOULD be an embarrasing and expensive inconvenience) so like I say I'm going to buy a blower and see if I have any more luck with that. But why didn't the dust on the sensor correspond with the spots on the images?

My dad directed me to the aptly named cleaningdigitalcameras.com which gave lots of useful information that seemed to be a toned down version of Nikon's "If you break it you will die but this is how you do it" advice.

As I was reading, I was there with my camera taking reference photos - eventually taking a few photos of a white sheet of paper just so the dust would show up, which it did.
I noted that there were about 6 spots on the image.

All of a sudden, a thought occured to me.
I put the camera aside and took out a spare lens. I held the lens to my eye, holding it like a telescope, and adjusted the distance between the lens and my eye until I got a clear image.
And I knew.

Take a magnifying glass, look through it, adjust the distance between the magnifying glass and your eye, and you will know too.

The lens inverts the image and projects it upside down onto the image sensor! How stupid, how absolutely stupid of me not to realise! This is secondary school stuff that they teach to 12 year olds! The reason the dust doesn't correspond to the spots on the image is because the sensor takes an upside-down snapshot of what's in front of the lens! Up is down, left is right.
Some damn photographer I am, I sell my images (okay, image) online, but I forgot this basic, basic principle of photography!!!

I flipped the mirror up and had another look at the sensor - the dust corresponded exactly to the spots on the image.

CASE CLOSED.

Now all I need to do is go and get the dust out of there. I'll try this rocket blower first, they're supposed to be good. Ignore the "around" bit, that's just for liability reasons.

So.

What else have I been up to? Well, since my last blog, not much. I came home last night, had my chips as usual and then went to sleep. I woke up at 10PM. Rolled over, grunted and snorted in the manner of the half-asleep and next thing, it was 00:00am. So I got up, chilled out for a couple of hours, spent some time on the computer, read about a few movies, etc, war of the worlds, signs, poltergeist etc, then stuck the TV on and went back to bed.

What followed was a four hour long series of nightmares that literally involved me sitting upright in that manner people with nightmares do, and nearly cracking my head on the cupboards above my head. I mean the dreams were GOOD, but they were of BAD stuff. You know, like my response to really bad events and stuff.

I spose I played prey too much as well, because that featured in it too, kinda.

Sooo, my nephew's present is due to arrive tomorrow PM, at which point we can go and get it assembled, and maybe I can get back that £30 my sister owes me - seriously, I'm skint.
My nephew's coming over tomorrow which will be good, he came to see me tonight, the lil fella, and I was asleep most of the time :(.

Still, I'll do my best to make it up to the little guy.

Anyway, I'm off to drink vast quantities of beer, and go to bed at stupid o clock. Hope you all have a nice night, and a nice bank holiday weekend.

Very sparkly...

So, I'm sat here, chilling out in the new recreation room at work.
I have to say, for a company that used to have an astronomical turnover rate and very low morale, it's impressive. I'm sat on one of four new computers, with LCD monitors and mostly unfettered internet access, while across the room, my colleagues are either sat chatting round tables, watching the huge (easily 35"+) flatscreen tv on the wall, or playing on one of three Xbox 360's against the back wall.
There are sparkly chairs and cappucino machines, cool blue accent lighting, new carpets, striking blue/white walls, and decent first-floor/second floor (the floor above the floor on the ground) views out over the car park and the wildlife reserve, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is actually a pretty decent place to work.

Which is, I suppose, fairly subjective. Every job has its pros and cons, and I spose this is at the moment, the biggest pro the building has going for it. And while the rec-room is slowly increasing in popularity (it's a bit of a badly kept secret at the minute, no company wide newspoint mention or anything) work is proceeding on getting the rec room downstairs to a similar standard.

Which I suppose is important, because you have to bear in mind that as with any call center job, while you're sequestered inside your own secure office inside a secure building with a secure car park, you're also exposed to the madness that everyday people seem to suffer from, and choose to inflict on other people. My longest call today? Thirty four minutes. Thirty one minutes of which was the caller repeating themselves. I progressed right from "okay, well I'll get xyz to give you a call, thanks" to "I've got to go now" and then right up to "i'm going now" before cutting the caller off mid sentence, if only to save my own sanity - and her phone bill, which she spent 15 minutes complaining about.

Pets? I don't think I'll ever get one again. Not when they seem to cause people this amount of trouble.

So what else have I been up to? Well, I've recently had one of my photos accepted by fotolia, a photography agency that sells royalty-free images. The basic concept is that I take photos, upload them to fotolia, and if they're good enough to pass quality checking, they go up for sale. Money is divided in a 70%/30% split - them and me, respectively. Might not sound like a lot, but the more photos you have and the longer you're a member, the higher the cut you get.

There you go, please buy my photo.
There's serious money in online photo sales though, and the beauty of it is that as you expand your portfolio, your income increases, so unless a client site goes down, your income only ever goes up. Maybe one day in the distant future I won't need a job. Who knows.

Anyway, I'll write more tonight, I've got to be back on the phones in 7 minutes, so time to work my way to the office at the other end of the building. Hopefully the afternoon will be over as quickly as the morning was.

Have fun!

Grr, I hate HTML.

You will doubtless notice that the layout of the blog has screwed up.
This is because despite the fact that I am no good at HTML, I have got so sick of the blog taking up a narrow strip down the center third of my screen that I have tried to change the width of the overall blog, to get rid of the massive borders either side.

Obviously you can see the result, I'll fix it when I have more patience.

Special Review - Micansu T700 Tripod

Okay, so this time, I'm posting something a bit different. This is not a blog entry, it is in fact a review of my sparkly new camera tripod. If you're into photography, this may be of help. If not, you can skip this one, you won't have missed anything. Anyway, let's begin.

One thing I've noticed through researching on the internet, is that there's not a lot to be said about Micansu's T700 Tripod. That's not to say that people don't think highly of it, there's literally nothing out there about this tripod.

So today's entry, is a quick review of the tripod, which arrived this morning.

First Impressions:

The package from Micansu (actually vistarex) arrived well wrapped and securely packaged. The postage was reasonably quick, ordered on the sunday evening, arrived on the wednesday,
All documents enclosed.

The first thing that I noticed about the thing was the weight - over three kilos, this is a substantial tripod. Take the head out of the box (boxed seperatley) and you're left with a nice little (if somewhat... budget appearance) carrying bag. This will come in useful so you don't have to carry the thing around in your hands.

Feet:

The tripod comes with feet fitted, nodescript but substantial rounded plastic feet that will probably do the job, but don't inspire faith. Not to worry though, as it is also packaged with a bag of bits, that on closer inspection appeared to be a trio of spare feet - these are much more substantial and work in a ball-and-socket type arrangement to keep the feet level on the floor regardless of how rugged the surface is, By screwing the feet inwards, you expose the rather pointy metal spikes at the tips, designed to dig into soft surfaces and again, keep your camera expensive side up. They're a bit fiddly, but certainly look sturdy.

Legs:

The body of the tripod itself is made from extruded aluminium, and the top of the legs are covered in a rather nice foam sort of material, which means it's reasonably comfortable to drag around, and you won't burn/freeze your hands on the metal if you're shooting in hot/cold weather. You notice on your first glance how sturdy the tripod looks, even when it's fully extended, and this is a tall tripod, at over 70 inches fully extended, with center column in the lowest position. With the column in the highest position, the camera is some 7 and a half foot above the ground, which is more than high enough for even the tallest photographers (and actually feels a bit precarious when it's balancing up there. But the sturdiness of the tripod isn't compromised, and it's still rock steady. The legs are also adjustable independently, and while most budget tripods will have all three of the legs linked to the center column, with the T700 you can spread the legs out until they're almost horizontal, and each leg will lock into one of four positions - good for extra stability, I imagine,

Center Column:

Unlike my old tripod which used a rack and pinion type arrangement to raise and lower the center column (which had the advantage of being quickly and accurately adjustable, but which spun the control lever around at a frightening rate when you wanted to lower the camera again, frequently jamming it under the legs and potentially causing you to drop the entire kaboodle), the center column in this tripod is again, a simple triangular section of extruded aluminium. It's secure though, and adjustable simply by using a lock nut which presses a pressure plate against the column (so you won't damage it). Unscrew the nut, slide the column to the height you need, and tighten the nut again. Simple.
This tripod however is much more versatile than its rack and pinion cousins, and allows you to actually slide out the entire center column, and re mount it upside down, so that the head of the tripod is in between the legs, and the camera dangles down from the center of the tripod instead of perching on top of it. This allows you to get the camera millimeters above the floor, for more versatility, and is accomplished by removing the security plate at the bottom of the column - a little triangular plate mounted into the column with a press stud type thingie, designed to stop the center column (and your camera) crashing to the floor. Again, very secure, very sturdy. Both ends of the column have a standard screw thread (3/8) on the end, so that you could fit a head to either end. The end opposite the security plate however, has a substantial metal plate that the head could screw to, whereas the plate itself is just plastic. For this reason, I'm using the "top" end as the top.

The Head:

I purchased the tripod with the optional Pan and Tilt head, on the basis that it's less fiddly than the ball head, which is also an option when you're buying.
The head actually ships in four bits - the head, and the three knob/lever thingies that screw into it. Instructions were provided, and the head was assembled quickly and easily. It has several controls, the foremost being the three levers. One controls horizontal panning, one controls vertical tilting in the front-back direction, and one controls side to side tilt, allowing you to tip the camera on its side from 90° at the left extreme, and 30° at the right. The vast majority of (if not all) of battery grips on the market have the controls at the right hand side, so tilting the camera to the right gives you full access those secondary controls in what is a natural and convenient position for taking portrait photos.
Both the side-side tilt, and the side-side pan have little reference markers on them, so you can see how far you're panning/tilting your camera, in degrees.

The head also includes a quick release plate, for those times when you need to get the camera off/on the tripod and capture that quick shot. The quick release plate also includes a small but effective safety catch, so you don't accidentally lose the camera off the top of the thing.

Complaints:

The actual finishing is perhaps my only complaint about this tripod, and it's here that the T700 falls down a bit - just a bit, not a lot.
With the exception of the legs, which are finished in a black enamel/powder coat type finish, the majority of the exposed metal on the tripod is finished in an attractive dappled gunmetal finish. Unfortunatley, my tripod had evidently been knocked or caught by something, either at the factory or in transit, as in one area, a the finish was peeling off exposing bare metal underneath.

In addition, the reference markers on the head seem to be printed on some type of plasticard, and are stuck into place on the tripod - not a problem as this's how I'd expect them to be fitted, except on the side-side tilt reference marker, it's not been centered before being stuck on so it's a little off center. On this subject, as you may have noticed from earlier, there is no vertical tilt marker, and the side-side pan reference marker seems to have no corresponding reference point on the head itself. Also, with the head fitted, you will not actually be able to get the tripod in the little shoulder bag that it shipped in. Aftermarket bags are available, but it's irritating when you need to pay to replace something you already have. That said, you're not likely to lose the tripod out of the bag even with the head fitted, so it still serves its purpose.

My next complaint is that the factory didn't seem to spend any time cleaning the tripod up before shipping it out. Some parts of the tripod, particularly the head, were still covered in swarf from the machining process, and if you were to get that on your camera, it could cause a great deal of damage to the lenses, the lcd screen, or worse, the sensor inside the camera if it got in while you were changing lenses. In addition, the joints of the camera/head, all the bearing surfaces are liberally lubricated with grease. Good, because it makes everything run smoothly, bad because they used more than they needed to and you're at risk of getting it on your camera.

My final complaint is that the feet, which were thoughtfully supplied with the tripod, are actually no good at all. This is not because of any deficiency in their design, but simply that so far, I have tried everything except taking tools to the tripod to get the existing useless plastic feet off, and they are absolutely not budging. [Update: April 5th - I managed to get the old feet off the tripod - you have to push them off, not twist them off]

VERDICT:

FEATURES:
Weight: 7.5lb/3.4Kg.
Closed Length: 30 inches/76cm.
Max Length: 76 inches/196cm.
Quick release clips for easy leg adjustment.
Independently positionable legs adjustable to four positions.
Reversible center column with 3/8 Head mounting thread at each end.
Non slip self-levelling feet, with spikes for soft surfaces.
Quick release plate, with safety catch.
Head is adjustable for 360° Left/Right pan, 135°Up/Down tilt (approx), and 120° Left/Right tilt.
Spirit level indicator.
Supports up to 6Kg/13.22lb.

Pros:
Looks great!
Independantly positionable legs adjustable to four positions.
Self levelling feet with spikes.
Quick release plate with safety catch.
Extremely sturdy.
Maximum height is greater than any photographer would ever need.

Cons:
Sturdy construction means high weight.
Finish poor in some areas.
Factory installed feet will not come off, so can't fit self levelling feet.
No vertical tilt angle indicator.
Will not allow you to tilt the camera directly up at 90° to the horizontal - could be a problem when photographing the sky.

All in all, I am pleased with the tripod. It's extremely sturdy, very versatile. the head solidly locks the camera into position, while the quick release (and the safety catch that prevent its accidental use) is a boon to people that like to go quickly from mounted to hand-held photography. It is an attractive piece of kit, it looks the business too. While there are a few niggles with the overall finishing of the tripod, build quality seems reassuringly solid and you get a lot of versatility that you really don't expect at this price.
Most people have never heard of Micansu, which is a shame, as £70 will net you this tripod and your choice of head. For budding photographers who don't have the £250 most people like to spend on their tripods, this is a great alternative to the more expensive more established names. I am very happy with mine, and look forward to using it in future.
I'll happily recommend it to anyone.

Pictures (Linked to photobucket to be as 56k friendly as possible)

The tripod standing up, unextended
The tripod at its maximum height
Independently adjustable legs
The camera can be easily mounted on top of the tripod
It can also be easily mounted underneath, for macro shots etc
The finish is poor in places though
The adjustment guide on this one wasn't centered properly
Too much grease on the joints could cause problems

Fin.

Spam sandwich, please!

Okay, so, it's 11:04PM, the weather outside, well, the weather outside is trying its best to get inside. A lovely gazpacho of freezing rain, hail and sleet, all gently blended together with ferocious winds that drive it at high speed horizontally towards my window.

Which is fine, I'm in here nice and warm (though if the weather is like this in 24 hours time, I will be out running in it - eek!)

So, today I have been working (bloody hell, that snow, for that is what it is, is really coming down now!), or at least maintaining an appearance of working. Tomorrow I shall also be working, but thankfully I'm only on a 90 minute shift tomorrow. Work insisted I take the remainder of my holiday allocation, so I'm going in for only three times as long as it takes me to get there.

After work I came home to find the game I ordered - UFO Afterlight - has arrived (good skills, ebay seller person, I only ordered it 2 days ago). My tripod hasn't, which is a shame as I was rather hoping I'd have it by tomorrow, on account of the fact I'm supposed to be going out to the nature reserve again.

Not to worry, I spose I could always go on thursday.

So, what's with the title? As you probably noticed, I've been the target of some pointless spammer prick. Convinced that whatever product/service they are offering is so bad, so substandard, that no amount of advertising could ever sell whatever it is these mediocrity merchants are trying to peddle, they decide to skip the advertising altogether and trick people to their sites instead.
So you'll notice that to make a comment, you now have to fill out one of those image verification boxes (just type what it says on the screen folks), and wait for me to check your comment before it's added to the blog.
Not that I expect either of these changes will make any difference since I don't receive any comments at all these days - have all my readers deserted me?

So what else have I been up to? The highlight of my day is probably erm. 4am this morning.
I was asleep, I was warm, I was content.
I wasn't bored, I wasn't hungry or irritable. I'm all three now.
But, I've been busy with the camera again (in addition to cleaning every last speck of dust off every last piece of equipment, apart from the 8 or 9 specks of dust that are intently clinging to the low-pass filter inside my camera, which are not visible on the images I take, but are acutely visible to the naked eye - gonna have to get a shop to have a look at the filter if it becomes any worse), I've been playing around taking sparkly shots, and after about 10 minutes work, managed to get this photo, which I'm rather pleased with.

So yeah. This is today's official photo of the day. As for me, I'm going to fiddle around a bit longer with my computer, before disappearing off to bed. I won't go to the [nature] reserve tomorrow unless the weather improves considerably.
Not much point going with my [old] wonderfully springy and useless tripod, now is there.
I suspect I may have a small meal - glass of milk, maybe some fruit or whatever, and then an early night. I didn't have my siesta so I am pretty tired.

Take care, folks.

I need some support...

Yep, it's true.

Whenever I perch (or should that be salmon, yes, salmon is more exotic), whenever I salmon my camera on my current tripod, it's like the stupid thing can't hold its weight. I swivel the camera round on the tripod, lock it off, and the tripod just sinks under the camera's weight. Fair enough. It's a BIG camera, as you've seen.

So I've just ordered myself a new one. See, eBay were nice enough (very nice, I thought) to send me a letter through the post (as opposed to by carrier pigeon or whatever) basically saying "You're an ebay star because you spend lots of money with us. We like you, and to prove it, here's £10 off your next offer"

"Fantastic", I thought, too grateful to consider the fact that i've been a "yellow star" since I achieved 10 feedback about a year ago, and am now not only a "blue star" at 79 positive feedback (and no negative feedback! see, I told you I'm a nice guy!), but well on my way to being a Turquoise star (100+). But all that colour chart stuff aside, eBay basically sent me a nice colourful letter saying that I'm a nice guy, and giving me money off my next purchase. I like this :). They also gave me a card to put in my wallet, so that if anyone ever steals my wallet, they will also know I am an eBay star!

Anyway. The tripod. Okay, so it's a camera tripod. Big deal. Indulge me, while I try to get excited over an expensive three legged stick.
Well, on the plus side, it is very solid and looks very good. It's got a handy spirit level so I can make sure the camera is level before I start taking pictures, and it also has a "pan and tilt" head with lots of knobs and suchlike so it looks more technical and expensive to passers by.
Seriously though, it's a heavy (very heavy, 3.4 kilos) 71.5 inch tall tripod that will hold the camera rock steady, and allow me to take seriously steady photos with very very little blurring. This is good.
Even better, it also allows me to position the camera millimeters above the ground, so say, I can take pictures like this. Which is also good.

[NOT VERY RELEVANT AND NOT VERY INTERESTING BIT] In true "I've never heard of them before" fashion, my tripod is manufactured by a chinese/japanese company called Micansu, a fairly pleasant sounding eastern name. Said tripod is sold on behalf of Micansu by another company called "Smick Trading". And no one else. Odd, are these two in cahoots or something?
Actually, Micansu and Smick trading are both part of the same company with the incredibly western sounding name Vistarex.ltd, which rather un-exotically, is based in Laindon, near Basildon, in southern England.
Why am I telling you this? I don't know, but it's worth bearing in mind that plenty of other manufacturers do this as well. Belinea for example (the guys who make computer monitors) are actually part of Maxdata, while Matsui, the japanese TV manufacturer, is actually part of the Curry's/Dixon's (Now Curry's Digital, where I bought my camera, see how it all links!) group, and hasn't even been exported TO japan, much less produced there. Or as Wiki says, [EVEN LESS RELEVANT AND INTERESTING BIT] "Matsui is the brand name of a line of electrical items such as televisions, VCRs, and microwave ovens sold in the UK, introduced in the 1980s. It is an own brand of the DSG International plc retailer, and not an independent manufacturer. Buying a Matsui product is therefore akin to buying the supermarket brand.

Contrary to popular belief, the company is based in the UK. The Japanese-sounding name was chosen as a device for fooling customers into believing the goods were made in Japan, since common perception at the time was that electronics from the Far East were of higher quality than European counterparts. During the 1980s, many Matsui televisions were rebranded Ferguson sets made in the UK.

Since both Dixons and Currys are owned by the same DSG International plc group, some Matsui products are identical to Currys Saisho branded items."

So that's cleared that one up.
What else has been going on over here. Well, despite what the gentle, barely audible breeze filtering in through my open window is telling me, we are apparently due for incredibly severe weather in the next few hours. A huge weather front is due to meet an equally huge spring tide, and is apparently likely to result in a tPratchett esque farcial disaster of incredibly British proportions, you know, like an earthquake that doesn't knock anything over or a tornado that has just enough power to rearrange some cafegoer's chess pieces.
Despite my cynicism though, we are apparently due for a big one, and people everywhere are battening down. It's been quiet all night but it says that the storm front isn't due to reach us for another couple of hours yet, so maybe all hell will break loose, I don't know. Either way, I'm going to stay inside instead of practicing my new balancing-on-top-of-telegraph-poles style of yoga.
It was only tiredness that kept me from practicing this the night of the earthquake, I shudder (pun absolutely not intended. No seriously) to think what might have happened!

So what am I going to do now? I'm off to see whether Herr Ashen has posted any more videos. Then I might go downstairs and grab a burger or something like that. Once I've done that I might rearrange my ammo collection, if I have the patience, and later on I intend to learn how to play Texas Hold-em. If I find I have the required attention span, which I haven't, so far.

Anyway, what's to show this time. You can have a look at my sparkly new tripod if you're photographically inclined, and I also have a desktop wallpaper for you. It's not of anything in particular (It's my computer with the case off - I think it is pretty cool, could be better but hey, you want to see some of the absolute crap some people have as their desktop background).

Here










Right, now I'm off to buy some nice poker chips, maybe. I don't why, I always wanted some poker chips. The nice ones that clink, not the cheap plastic ones.

Take care, all, and I hope we don't get too much damage from the storm :).

And so things start moving again...

Yes indeed. After the success that was my nephew's birthday party, I've had a reasonably good week. I've finally managed to order his present which should come (late - yes, but we had arrangements to make) in the next week or two.

My Battery grip arrived today, and it makes the camera look huge, which is good. It's also quite handy to use.

I spose the most important thing I've done today is arrange to see one of the doctors at the hospital about my jaw operation. I then phoned the AFCO and told them that I can do ADSC as soon as the operation is completed.

So after a night of preparing for an early night and generally tidying the place up, I'm off out, for my first run in ages.

And hopefully this time, I can actually get as far as passing ADSC. I am beginning to really really really hate my crappy terrible horrible job.

Anyway, time for a run, then wind down with a shower, a drink of juice or something and some nice fruity porridge or something like that before I have an early night :).

UPDATE: 11:11PM

Well, I went out for my run, and once I got into my stride (ha haha etc) I actually pretty enjoyed it. I did have a brief moment where out of nowhere a massive huge dog started barking at me (on closer inspection it turned out to be an excitable labrador and his owner) and the rest of my run was pretty uneventful - easier than normal in fact. Certainly in comparison to the one I did at Strensall.

I came back, panting, groaning and snuffling, and dove into the shower, taking care not to brain myself on the hard ceramic tiles.
Okay so I actually hopped in, nearly falling over, and chilled out in the shower, before preparing my supper and coming up here to write this.

I now have a run-induced headache, and my throat hurts, I feel 40 years older, but hey, it was a good run, and now I'm, gonna have a good supper and a good sleep :).

Night.

Just a little note

Okay, workplace chat has been abuzz with talk of this morning's quake, and the news has been on TV in the office all the time. Apparently, some more assessments have been carried out, and the quake was re-categorised as being a 5.2 quake, rather than a 4.7. The epicenter is in a town called market rasen, in lincolnshire, which again, is about 70 miles from here.

Damage caused was limited to collapsed chimney stacks and the odd new hole in someone's garden, but apparently the quake was felt as far north as Newcastle, and as far south as Brighton - that's basically almost the entire country that felt it.

One thing I forgot to mention a few days ago, is that need for speed prostreet, and unreal tournament 3, are now working again DESPITE the overheating problem returning.
I only got over this because my dad was nice enough to give me a cool neon blue fan card that slots into the motherboard and provides extra cooling for the card.

Here, you can see :).










And now I have my nephew's birthday party to prepare for :).
Later!

Shaky beginnings indeed,,,

Picture the scene, 12:58am ish.
I'm laying in bed, mostly asleep. My computer's purring silently next to me, I'm doing my best not to drool all over the pillows, I'm nice and warm and totally relaxed.
Suddenly, I get this sensation - that falling sensation that tends to jerk you awake.
Except I'm still awake, and the sensation isn't stopping. There's a roaring noise outside, just the wind, most likely, as it's been really windy**.

Except the roaring noise isn't coming from outside, it's coming from underneath, directly underneath the house, and the jerking sensation isn't stopping.
Things start jangling about on the top shelf, in true movie fashion, some random metallic objects I own rattle together in their own jingly little way, while a few things fall off my shelves. I realise with a heart-in-my-mouth rush of adrenaline, that this is an earthquake!

I've never been in an earthquake before, is this the beginning? How long will it last? Will it get worse? Will it cause damage? After about 5-10 seconds the earthquake dies down, the roaring stops, and the only reason my body's shaking now, is because of my pounding heart.
If I was just walking down the street, and it happened, I suppose i'd be less affected by it, but as it woke me up, this really rattled me (ha ha etc).
I'll admit, to those of you who live in earthquake prone areas, I probably sound like I'm overdramatising it a bit, but I'll be honest, this is the first earthquake I've ever experienced, and it kinda scared me. It definitley woke me up!!

So today, I have mostly been in bed, and I'll admit, that's the first time the earth's ever moved for me while I've been in bed by myself.

"if you are awake and didn't expect to be awake, it might be because of the tremor that seems to have affected the earthquake, pretty much the entire country"

Looks like everyone felt it.

So yeah, that was completely bizarre. Seismological stability my arse.
Okay, so no buildings fell down, and no one was hurt (unless there were some people balancing on high things or something) but that was a completely strange experience. To eplain further, the UK is very tectonically stable - we've had two earthquakes in about the last five years, and the one before this one was too weak to feel outside the epicenter (down in the west midlands) so I didn't experience it.

Well, I'm bloody freezing cos I got out of bed unexpectedly, so time to get back in.
I wonder if there'll be any aftershocks...

UPDATE: The news reports are flooding in now. The quake was apparently centered on kingston-upon-hull, which is over to the east. about 70 miles by road.[edit - no two news stations can agree on where the quake was centered, so let's take this bit of information with a pinch of salt, for now]. Judging by the fact that the majority of the country felt it, we're relatively close to the epicenter. So...

The quake itself has been measured (according to some sources which similarly cannot agree on how strong it was) as having a magnitude of between 4.7 to 4.9, which in United Kingdom terms, is a biggie. It says that 4.9 is right smack on the borderline between a light "unlikely to cause any damage" and moderate "can cause damage to poorly constructed buildings" earthquake. Why can't they just shake hands and agree it was a 4.8?

Anyway, that was fun.
Actually it wasn't it was scary. But now I know what it was, I want another one!

So now we know!

Night all.

**Roaring noise, yes, that's the best way to describe it. An earthquake doesn't sound like a truck passing by or a freight train, it sounds like a bloody earthquake, and the sound of a vehicle, no matter how big, passing you, is NOT the same as two massive plates of rock thousands of kilometers across (one of which has your house built on it!) grinding against each other. It's like the difference between a kazoo and a marching band. An Earthquake sounds like an earthquake. Period/Full Stop/Your National Equivalent.

Back to normal...

Today I have been mostly visiting the dentist. Nothing major, just a filling. I had the university student [carrying out the dental work] again, and what she officially (she seems to be able to do everything my regular dentist can do) lacks in experience, she makes up for in bedside manner.
Of course my regular dentist is very nice, but this one is nicer.
Anyway I'm not going to write a huge dramatic description of the procedure, because a filling is a filling, and after having had about 6 of them in the past year, they're really nothing to write home (or friends) about.

Apart from that I have been sleeping. I have had three seperate sleeps today, one this morning from 2am-8:30am, one this afternoon from 12pm-3pm, and another one from 4pm to 7pm.
I have also been playing Need for Speed Prostreet, which I must remember to review some time.
I totally buggered up carreer mode by selling a very good car to buy what turned out to be a totally crappy one, so I started the game all over again.

What have I been up to the past few days? Taking photos mostly, and I've been working on my long-exposure photography to see if I could do special effects photos.
The long and short of it is that I can do special effects photos, but not very good ones.
Here they are. I'm quite pleased with them, not bad at all for a first attempt. Maybe.
















To continue, I have not been doing much the past few days. I'm off soon, to buy a battery grip for my camera, to make it look beefier and bigger (actually I'm buying it because the D200 eats batteries, although the grip will make the camera beefier and bigger).

I also managed to get some decent photos of my camera, which next to my bike, is my pride and joy :). As well as my computer, obviously.

This space is intentionally filled with text that states that this space is intentionally filled with text that states thatthis space is intentionally left blank. Because well, come on, look at it, the formatting of this blog entry is an absolute bloody nightmare. In fact. I'm going to just make stuff up to fill the gap; Did you know that the UK has more dangerous wildlife than people think. According to Bill Bailey, hedgehogs feeding on honey, might fall in your eyes! Billy Connolly agrees, complaining that cows are dangerous as they have a habit of standing on your feet when you stand near them. How near, he didn't say. He could be referring to those weird cows with extendable legs that people keep phoning me about at work.
No I'm not insane, they're insane. I don't invent mad callers, they just happen to me.


It's a lovely piece of kit, and I love it to bits.
Incidentally, the paperwork for the camera has now arrived. I'm now officially being charged for it.

So now, I am off to put my clothes in the dryer, have a shower, stick the tv on, eat a creme egg and some aero bubbles, and go to bed, so that I can wake up bright and refreshed, and fully ready for the challenges (talking to idiots while resisting the urge to hang myself from the nearest power strip, out of sheer desperation and frustration) all day.

My work life is a dilbert comic.
Only my work life, not my domestic life. That's more My Family.

Byeeeee

I got a pressie, yay!

I got home from a fairly dull, boring, but painless day at work to discover that someone had sent me a late birthday present...

Okay, I bought it myself but it amounts to pretty much the same thing, in practical terms.

I unwrapped it and found myself looking at this: A rather nice red and white box with a lot of numbers and letters and figures on that probably don't mean anything to most people.


Yay! The present which I bought myself from ebay had arrived, and it arrived damn fast as well - he only dispatched it yesterday! So I open the box and I'm pleased to find my new pressie :).



Yep, it's a new sparkly lens for my camera. Not only is it a new sparkly lens, it's a new sparkly wide angle lens, which means that my camera is now more versatile than before, I can take better photos indoors, and I can cram more stuff into my pictures! Fantastic stuff, that'll come in useful.
So I shoved it on my camera (gently of course, it's expensive) and started playing around with it. While the lens does exactly what it says on the box, it also has the added advantage of making my already substantial camera look absolutely massive. Yes, cameras are for taking photos, not featuring in them, but it's always nice to have a camera that looks like a tank.

I've since spent most of my time doing general admin, cleaning my room etc, hoping that tonight will be cloudless, and that I can get some decent photos of the upcoming lunar eclipse [news]. The sky is looking very cloudy at the minute, and I'm very annoyed. It's been bloody clear for the past four or five days, absolutely crystal clear. The night we have a lunar eclipse and the bloody clouds get together for a bleeding party!! I'm genuinley angry now, there's not a f***ing star in the sky!

Anyway. Here's a nice photo of my new and old camera side by side so you can laugh at how much chunkier my sparkly new one is compared to my weedy old one :).]

And since you've been ever so nice, there's a nice sparkly view through the viewfinder showing you all numbers and stuff, so if you don't have a good camera, you can print it out really small and stick it to the viewfinder of your camera so when you look through it you can pretend you've got a monster like mine hehe.

Did that sound bigheaded? I spose it did. Not like me really, though I suppose a bit of smug-gitiness never hurt anyone in small doses :). If you get jealous, just console yourself with how much the damn thing has cost me.
Or hasn't cost me.
I've not had any paperwork from the company, so while I owe money, I still don't know who to or when I need to pay. Clever huh? I mean I'm all for a free camera, but I'd rather just get the thing paid off before I leave my customer service mcjob.

Still, here's the pics, let's hope the sky clears!











(yes, these photos are kak (or however you spell it, it's not a word I use often), because I took them with my cheap and cheerful point and click, and it has little to no manual control whatsoever.

Oh well.

More pain, lucky me!

Okay, so, I opened a nice packet of Biltong for some quick snacking pleasure, and after the past few days, in which i've had no dental pain whatsoever, I thought "hey, I wonder if my jaw has fully healed, I know, I'll try chewing on that side for a bit".

So I did.

And it hadn't.

I've spent the last six hours in not inconsiderable pain, having gone through a few anadin (well, four, DO NOT EXCEED THE STATED DOSE etc) and generally rolled around on my bed while reading, humming happy little tunes to myself to try and distract myself from the feeling that a dentist was giving me a root canal without anaesthetics.

Admittedly, the pain is subsiding now, though the last 6 hours have taught me that that may well only be a temporary thing, so I've been distracting myself by getting thoroughly immersed in a book.

"Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds is a book that seems to have been unjustly maligned in reviews, with at least one reviewer describing it as a shameless ripoff of a couple of books, not the least of which was "Rendezvous with Rama". There are similarities I suppose.

The story follows the crew of a mining ship, the rockhopper, and its crew. The rockhopper is owned by a company that makes its money mining cometary ice and as the story starts, we find the rockhopper mining one such comet.

Before long though, they receive a message that Janus, one of Saturns moons, has unexpectedly left orbit of Saturn, and is accelerating out of the solar system. In true sci-fi adventure fashion, Rockhopper is the closest ship, and as such is tasked to investigate.

What follows is a novel full of scientific exploration, filled with conflict, not only between the ship's captain, Bella Lind, but between her closest friend, Svetlana Barseghian, and between the crew and the company itself. Such arguments and fighting, while initially put aside, are present throughout the entire book, during which Rockhopper not only tails Janus, but is carried out of the solar system along with it, into new realms completely outside human experience.

The book charts the survival of the crew and their descendants, as Janus carries them towards its unknown destination, where the crew quickly find that there are much larger things at stake than company or patriotic pride, where not only the solar system, but Humanity itself become things that are only distantly remembered.

Without wanting to go into any more detail though, I strongly recommend you get a copy - it's a very good book, and a great introduction to Alastair Reynolds' novels, of which he has written at least a half dozen more, in a similar style. As with all his books, the scale is vast, covering not only thousands of light years, but thousands of years of time as well.

I've also been playing around on ebay, winning a new lens for my camera, which is just as fantastic a toy as its always been :).

Thankfully, whether due to the second pair of Anadin I've recently taken, the fact that I'm distracting myself with writing this, or just the fact that the irritation of my jaw is beginning to die down, the pain is lessening, so I'm off now to read another Reynolds novel.

Have fun all, and let's hope I stop being in considerable discomfort sometime soon!

Update: 03:22AM

Okay, so my period of comfort/low pain didn't last long. While (going on experience) I'm pretty sure that this is only a temporary thing, going to bed didn't help affairs one bit. And whether it's cos the painkillers are wearing off, or because I was putting pressure on my jaw by resting my head on the pillow, my pain has worsened considerably.
I now have a very sharp yet throbbing pain from about the 3rd tooth on the lower right all the way to the farthest back molar, also extending up my jaw to my temple, giving me a throbbing localised headache. The pain isn't excruciating, and it's not the worst I've had, but it is the worst pain I've had for a fair few years, and it's definitley keeping me from sleeping.

So I'm up again, i've got a nice hot drink, and I'm going to chill out until the pain disappears. If it doesn't disappear by morning I'm gonna phone the d*nt*st and book an urgent appointment - even having my teeth drilled to bits is better than this pain.

What I wouldn't give for a shot of that dentist's anaesthetic right now! Ow Ow Ow!

Update: 08:17AM

Right. I finally crawled into bed at about 4:30am, and for at least 90 minutes, enjoyed blissful oblivion.

I woke up about 2 hours ago in absolutely sickening pain, and have been unable to get back to sleep since. I'm not going to put it off anymore - I'm in the process of getting changed and going to the dentists. I need to put a stop to this and frankly, I'm happy to subject myself to the dentists ministrations if it means getting rid of this pain. I'm tired, I'm very irritable, my voice is half an octive higher than it normally is, and I don't know whether I want to start throwing up, or start crying.

I am absolutely hating this, so it's time to get it seen to.

Update: 09:09 AM

I've just got back from the dentists. Surprisingly the pain seemed to lessen on the way there. I put this down to the fact that it's still hanging around the high minuses outside, maybe -1/-2 C. Whether the cold deadened the nerves, or whether it just made the rest of me as uncomfortable as my jaw, I don't know, but it's better than being inside.

I got into the dentists, explained my situation in a "please help me!" kind of way, and she said that a bunch of university students are coming in to practice their dentistry. Alarm bells started ringing in my head, as I remember a scene from an old film where a guy (he's being chased by hospital security so he disguises himself as a dentistry student) accidentally pulls out a perfectly healthy tooth from a patient who had otherwise perfect teeth.
She mentioned that they'll be fully supervised by a trained dentist though, and as my dad rightly points out, they'll no doubt do their best to avoid hurting me because doing otherwise doesn't make them look good.

It's 09:13 now, and my appointment is at 10:10 - it's being treated as a short-notice dental emergency, which sounds about right!

On the way back though, I began to feel dizzy. The fact I haven't had anything to eat for 24 hours, coupled with 2 hours sleep in the same time, has left me feeling very faint, and not all there. I tested myself, closing my eyes as I was walking along, opening them again to find that completely without concious effort, I'd wobbled onto the other side of the path and onto the grass.

If I can get back there without passing out, I'll consider myself lucky, but I feel more terrible than I've felt for a long, long time.

Oh well, let's see how the appointment comes along. Yes it scares me, but anything's got to be better than this pain which isn't helped by my FCUKING computer beeping warnings at me every goddamn 20 seconds!!!!

I'm off to mope around for a bit anyway. Hope you're having a better day than me!

Update: 12:14PM

Okay so I've got back from the dentist, having seen a team of completely wonderful (no, really!) student dentists, and I have a tale to tell.

Apparently when I bit down on my tooth, I may well have severed the blood supply to that tooth. This means that the nerve inside the tooth will now be in the process of dying - this is a probable cause of the pain. What needs to be done is to see whether a (medicated) temporary filling solves the problem - if not, I will need to have a root canal (the removal of the entire inside of the tooth to remove the dead/dying tissue. This is likely to be the main cause of the pain.

She did however notice on an Xray, that the portion of the root that my regular dentist left inside my jaw when she removed the tooth directly in front, has become inflamed and infection has set in - while this may not be responsible for the pain, it does need to be dealt with - given how unpleasant having the tooth itself out was, I've elected to have this done under general anaesthetic (they put me to sleep and then operate on me), at a local hospital. I will probably have to wait a while to have this done.

In addition, she noticed a couple of cavities, some surrounding the filling in the larger of the two painful teeth (the one that is likely to have a dead nerve inside it), and one in the center of the smaller tooth in front of it.

Here is a diagram I cheerfully spent 5 minutes drawing, for you to see :).







She sent me to the pharmacy, and I've returned home with two prescriptions. The one she prescribed, and the one I prescribed.










Ibuprofen is a painkiller.
Co-codamol is a very powerful painkiller.
Metronidazole is an antibiotic, to counteract the infection in my jaw.

I took one met, and 2 co codamol, and the pain more or less disappeared, for about an hour - it's coming back now :(.

But, I also prescribed myself some aero bubbles, a drink of lucozade, and a nice burger, to cheer myself up :).

Now I'm going to try to sleep before the pain kicks in again, and I should be on soon :).

Update: 20:00PM

For whatever reason, the effects of the co-codamol wore off very quickly, and within 90 minutes, the majority of the pain had returned. Confused at the advice the dentist had given me and not wanting to accidentally commit suicide (that WOULD stop me from becoming a tankie!) the Ibuprofen laid neglected while I took the co-codamol (I later found out that the dentist's advice was right, I CAN take co-codamol and ibuprofen at the same time (well not at the SAME time but you get me)).
In retrospect, the pain should have been expected, because I gather that co-codamol is cumulative, and takes a while to build up in your system, which would explain why it didn't really take the first time.

My mum got me these two wonderful herbal warmer thingies, basically two big cloth pads stuffed with peppermint and lemongrass and all sorts of other aromatic herbs, the things were just a variation on the hot water bottle, they did the same job, but made me smell like a christmas pot pourri selection too (they smell really nice actually).

Although I didn't notice any lessening of the pain when applied, I did notice a sharp increase when removed. So I'm not sure whether they were a placebo or whatever but they seemed to help, and with all these dental problems, I was laying down on the sofa with it like a kid clutching a teddy, grateful for any help I could get.

Time rolled around though, time for more codeine. I prepared my burger too, and once the codeine kicked in I ate my burger, thoroughly enjoying the first thing I'd had to eat in well over 24 hours (excluding the biltong that started this bloody mess!), and I rolled over on my side and sank into blessed, glorious, perfect sleep!!!

First thing I did when I woke up was to get a drink of water, get my co codamol and antibiotics down me, and compared to how I felt this morning, I feel great. Yes, the pain is still there under the surface, but at the minute, I'm on top of it, and compared to this morning, I'm in a fantastic mood! :)

Long may it continue!

Update: 11:42 PM. about 2 hours ago, following my dentist's advice, I supplemented the co-codamol I took when I woke up with an ibuprofen. The result of this combination was to make me not only drowsy, but high as a kite. Having spent the last 2 hours feeling like a kid who has eaten all the red smarties, I now (again, in keeping with the advice the dentist has given me) have taken another two (on schedule - 2 every 4 hours) to (in my dentist's words) "keep my codeine levels constant".

The downside to this is that I now feel completely stoned, very drowsy and slightly euphoric. Yes, it's a lot better than being in the pain I was in before, but I still like being in control of all my er, faculties.

To simulate the effects of a day of codeine + one ibuprofen, simply go without sleep for 48 hours, and then drink 3 cans of lager.

I'm gonna have a shower and stuff and go to bed soon, but I can't do that while my mum's arsing about doing whatever she's doing.

Still, I'm gonna sit about and concentrate on not falling asleep :).

Laters.

Happy Birthday To Me!! (Part 2!)

Right. So, I pottered about a bit, decided not to have a shower, snuggled into bed after sticking Dilbert on, and went to sleep - that's exactly what I did. Far from getting into bed, reflecting on how much I need to change the straw, and generally being uncomfortable (seriously most of the time it takes me an hour or so to get to sleep after climbing into my pit. Sometimes I'll toss*, I'll turn, sometimes I'll revolve completely (*shut up)) I actually fell asleep within what must have been less than 15 minutes!

Oh hang on, I completely skipped the bit about my actual birthday. Screw today's day at work, let's carry on with the birthdayness...

So hey, erm.
Yes, I woke up and went out with my mum. Seriously I said I wouldn't skip any more but you're missing 99.9% of boring crap, I mean it. We had a nice drive through derbyshire, through town, and as we passed round, we got closer and closer to our destination as the signs pointed us towards the "national stone center".

"Yay!" I thought. "I hope it's not as crap as the last time I went!" (it was a surprise trip so I had no idea we would be going there).

We parked up and went on our way down. At least the place was finished this time, last time it was under construction, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. Admittedly last time I was a suicidally depressed sterotypical emo type alternative depressed teenager who's sole occupation was to moan about life...
...well it was fun at the time (seriously if fifteen year old me met twenty-three year old me, he'd rip my damn face off for saying that!)...

Aaaaanyway, we went down and while I'm not going to talk you through 45 minutes of our walk around an abandoned quarry, it was okay I spose. I got some amazing photos, I got to show off my camera, and I got to view an interesting wall exhibition (seriously, they have a wall museum there. To their credit though, while I make it sound really bad, it's an exhibition designed by various stonecutters and wallers etc, people who design loads of different types of walls out of natural materials etc. Okay, that doesn't make it sound any less boring than it is, but at least it should go some way towards pointing out the work that people have put into the place).

But. Without wanting to sound dismissive, I had a great time with my mum, okay, the place wasn't fantastic, it was the venue, not the company. The scenery was fantastic and I manage to get some really cool photos. But, off we went to go elsewhere.

We visited a nearby memorial, the Sherwood Foresters if memory (yeah, 2 days) of memory serves me correctly. The highest point in the county had a tower built on it, and the view was supposed to be amazing.
So off we went, up various hills, going up, driving round, going up etc...
Parked up, and walked through the place up to the tower itself.

My mum refused to climb up the tower, but hey, it's a rock solid tower, built out of stone, it's only 40 foot high. So I paid the fee, walked up the staircase and up I went, counting steps.

20 steps. 30. 40. As I went up, the stairs seemed to get narrower [they would have, the tower narrowed as its height increased] as I walked up. I was carrying a tripod in one hand, and had a camera bag on my back. I heard the sound of wind coming from up above and almost saw the light from the sky above the steps, one more time round the tower, it couldn't be more than two times could it?

I passed a window in the wall, showing me to be some 50ft above the ground, inside this thing. That, coupled with the narrow and sheer stairs, combined to make the tower seem less like a purpose built structure, and more like a deep shaft, with steps carved into the wall.

I've never had a head for heights, even indoors, and I decided that enough was enough. To my horror though, I turned round, and the staircase, as if in a dramatic movie special effect or whatever semeed to get even narrower. So I wandered down, holding what felt like the most insubstantial handrail ever, round and round these steps, until eventually, I got to the bottom, disappointed that I'd not been able to go all the way to the top.
But hey, I've never had a head for heights, and towers are not my thing.

Off we went, and driving through rural Derbyshire on a beautiful sunny day, my mood improved. Birds were singing, the day was sunny, the air was warm etc etc...

We pulled up into the car park of a nearby restaurant, and went in.
This was kinda a bar restaurant that had pretentions of greatness, so while the place looked like a bar, they acted like a restaurant. My mum asked "can we pick a place to sit?"
Fair enough.
To which the waitress's response was an artificial polite but embarrased laugh followed by "no", in that incredibly patronising "ahem, no" way.

We got dumped on a table next to the restrooms, and after five minutes of reading the incredibly limited menu - seriously, the place had more champagnes than dinners on sale, I asked "can we just go?" and we did.

So cool, my birthday was really really working out. :(

Anyway, I got dragged along to Grindleford. The name might strike horror into the hearts of all the local walkers.

Grindleford Station Cafe (in the old station house) - a climbers'/walkers' (and occasional Chelsea Tractor Family in bone-dry Gore Tex) cafe famous throughout the UK outdoors community for its 0% Fat-Free food and plain-speaking handwritten notices banning (amongst other things) "uncontrollable children", "mobile phones", and "human fireguards".

The place, this cafe, built in what probably by now qualifies as the ruins of an old rail station, is simply, the worst fucking place I have ever eaten. I'm sorry for the language but it is.
the place is cold, the door is always open. The menu is written in broken English on several chalkboards behind the chipped, stained and discoloured formica counter. That's not all. Not only is the fridge half empty, the effort made on actually making the place look like an eatery, nil, but these people seem to actually fucking resent anyone coming in and making their life a misery, by ordering food.

I am not joking! Go to wikipedia and type in "grindleford". You walk in and the place is covered with "No mobile phones! (cellphones) We come here to avoid them!). One sign said "Due to parents not keeping control of their tiny tots, we are considering banning children from the cafe".

We went in and despite the clueless service, (okay the kid tried his best), the lack of drinks (all sold out [or more likely, understocked]) and the astronomical prices (was it £2 each for a plate of chips?) we ordered some food and sat down, as I tried to ignore the dirt, grime, and general shittiness that showed exactly why a goddamn WW2 era rail station should not try to do business as a cafe!

Eventually, like some kind of hateful bingo caller, the woman moaned into a microphone, indicating that our food was ready. We retreived it from the counter ("this is not an observation gallery, this is a service counter, go wait for your food we will tell you when it is ready!"), we sat down, realising that not only was there no ketchup or whatever, there were actually no forks, knives etc, not even plastic ones, just an absence of eating devices in general.

Now I know what you're thinking. Well, actually I don't, but shush and listen.
I'm not a snob or whatever, my idea of a meal is a cheap microwave meal. Sometimes I don't even have forks, pizza and chips and fish fingers etc, I don't even have them. But I had to laugh as I see everyone in this place eating with their fingers because this place doesn't have cutlery.

We tuck into our chips. Yes, they're hot, yes, they're crunchy. Okay on two out of three...
But they fall down flat on the most important point - THEY TASTE OF THIN AIR!

I mean Damn, I bet the table tasted better than these pointless slivers of potato extract.
After 10 minutes of futilely trying to enjoy our meal, me trying to ignore the fact that my lucozade soda was so flat you'd figure it had been dropped on the floor, we couldn't ignore it anymore and left, leaving most of our food.

I swear, that place is probably an inside joke. Inside, all the staff are probably lovely friendly warm people. They probably have pride in what they do. I'm serious! Some part of someone there must care what goes on in that restaurant. Maybe they deliberatley provide shit food, a shit environment and shit service, maybe it's kinda an inside joke for all the walkers and whatever, I don't know.

But to me and my mum, as rough uncivilised uncultured city folk, the cafe at Grindleford station, is the worst fucking place I've ever eaten in. It was fucking shite ten years ago, and it was fucking shite on monday!!!

After that, we went home. On the jorney hom I reflected on what, well, what a thoroughly depressing and wasteful day out I'd had for my birthday. I'd ben to two seperate places, both of which I said at the time I never wanted to visit again. Yes, to her credit, my mum had the best intentions, she performed, we went on a nice sunny day to different paces, that just turned out to be crap.
A shame, I was hoping something more than to be ignored by everyone except for my mum and my bro. But hey, I spose I'm too old for birthdays to be special anymore.
Me, twenty three, huh. Scary.

We got home eventually, and chilled out. Well my mum sat down and watched tv and relaxed. I went upstairs and chilled out, which is basically the same, but for younger people.

We made arrangements to go to a nearby restaurant though, which I spose is where I take two minutes to grab the photos, So without further adeiu, let me go and get my cables and stuff, and I'll get this stuff together :).
Okay.

We went to my favourite restaurant, the Boardwalk, which has had a change of ownership since I applied for a job there (I didn't get it). It's a pretty cool American style bar and grill.

We sit down, get our stuff organised, and eventually after getting together, my mum, dad, sister, nephew, brother, and brother's fiancee, we have a good ol' family time and decide what meals to get.

I get nachos. Of course I get nachos, I always get nachos :D.
With lots of guacamole, cream and salsa! I love the Boardwalk.

We carry on chilling out and you know, it was a really nice family occasion. The first time we'd been out as a family for ages, and I really enjoyed it.

My enchiladas arrived , accompanied by a really cool chocolate milkshake. The milkshake was good, it wasn't awesome, the one from TGI's looked and tasted 1000 times better, but this one was pretty damn good looking.

So anyway. We had a good old time there, the meal was decent, the service was awesome, fantastic, Boardwalk, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. Was awesome.
First time in well, 12 months, that I've eaten so much I felt ill hehe.
I had a whole place of nachos and most of the enchiladas, and that made me feel full and ill.
Maybe I have a small stomach. Who knows.

As I say, I came home, I wrote my blog, I went to sleep.

As for my entire birthday experience, it was varied, I'll give it that. My new camera, and my brother's gifts were great. The lack of interest from everyone else made it crap. But in the end, the nice meal together with the family, made it passable.
I give it 5.5/10. It wasn't that bad really :).

And now I am not off to bed, I am actually off to do whatever I want. Yay, go me.

Take care :).

Happy Birthday To Me!! (Part 1)

Well, birthday eve and then birthday actually. Yes, I've been busy over the past couple of days, so I'm kinda summarising everything.

Well, I get home from work on saturday evening and out comes the beer. It's a fairly slow start but by 3am the following morning, I'm well stewed and ready to call it a night. So I do, going to bed with a big nice fresh cup of water to cool me down.

I wake up at 8am, with my dad shouting me telling me my bro will be round at about 11. My mouth is a little dry so I go to grab my cup of water, to find there's a teabag floating in it.
Not quite sure what I tried to invent, the night before. Room-temperature ice tea, perhaps?

Anyway, I do the compulsory amount of requisite shouting of acknowledgement, sufficient to get him to feck off and let me get back to sleep, and I fall asleep with blurred vision and a taste of tetley's finest (albeit death-strong, stewed for at least four hours, and room temperature, and no milk, or sugar) tea in my mouth.

I wake up as the doorbell goes (I may be a bit unclear on this point, but the fact is that my brother arriving woke me up, okay), and I give a little hop skip and a jump (metaphorically - attempting it in my condition would have resulted in me sliding down the stairs) downstairs and leap into the leather recliner.

My Brother and his fiancee come bearing gifts, not one, but two distinct presents, yay! [it goes someway towards making up for getting absolutely nothing else from anyone at all]

The first present is pretty large, I tear into the paper thinking "Oh christ please let this be something I like, I don't want to have to go through the next five years using something I hate, just to avoid upsetting someone, though this is my brother we're talking about and Im don't think I've ever had a present from him that I haven't liked - he's sort of the anti-sock-giving-granny, the antithesis of old ma evans, the one who knits you woolen socks each year..." and out comes a backpack. But no ordinary backpack, a camera backpack! Yes, I can finally ditch the huge, heavy shoulder bag that came with my old F50.
I start manhandling everything into the bag, and it fits perfectly, three lenses, the camera body, manual etc, perfect fit. Fantastic.

The next present is a book. It's square, it's heavy, it bends only on one axis, the exact same way that books are wont to do (apart from hardbacks, but those are space consuming fatherless spawns of hell and have no place in a modern office).

"Oh god" I think, "Please don't let this turn into another 'gems bible' (see christmas day 2007)".

I open the present, and it's a book, definitley. The nikon D200 field guide - a page by page detailed guide on the history, the features, the tecniques, everything I need to know about my new camera! Fantastic!

So, without further adeiu, let me show you my pressies thus far. First photo shows just how well everything fits snugly into the new backpack. Second one shows not only my sparkly new nikon d200 field guide (which so far is a very good and useful book), but also how much stuff you can actually fit in the backpack - and it's not even full yet:













Is there any formatting on this blog? I don't know.
No there isn't. It's just a horrible mishmosh of text and images.

Oh well, we shall continue. Well, at least I'm going to, you can piss off if you want, go and read some other guy's boring ramblings...

No, it's nice to have you all here, really :).

So my bro and I sat around and chilled out for a bit with the family, we both had our cameras and we were playing with the cameras and taking randomly bad photos of everything in front of us, which seemed to please our mum.

Anyway, eventually, off to the nature reserve we go. I stop along to get some food on the way, and then we carry on. We get there, park the car, I forget wallet and have to go back for it, etc etc...

*fastforward noise*
*fastforward noise*

[okay I'm sorry, I won't do that too much, I know if you've read this far, I flatter myself that you probably have a genuine interest in what I get up to, so from now, even though I'm on a tight tight schedule - believe me I am - I'll try to keep all the detail in]

So we're in the first hide, having just got in and set our cameras up, and for a while we're able to catch a decent array of wildlife on film. Well. You know what I mean, but "on compactflash" doesn't have the same ring to it.

We spend a while there and I come up with some pretty good images - here are some of my favourites (the best ones, that will make me look better than I am - I warn you, if you're still a technological retard with a dialup connection, don't click these pictures...
...or do click these pictures, but get a coffee first. And a doughnut. And a copy of "Which Digital Camera".












Okay, they're passable, not absolutely breathtaking, but you can clearly see what they are, and I think they're kinda okay. However, I went for a little break, and when I came back, there was an absolutely immense behemoth of a bird sat on a feeder about 6 foot from where I sat.

Okay, he was a wood pigeon, and wasn't THAT big, but he was huge compared to the other birds i'd been snapping, and he seemed unfazed by the lenses and suchlike that he could plainly see in front of him. I was able to get some incredible shots of him, some really good ones.













We eventually left the hide, and walked along to the next one. On the way I managed to take a few pics of some tufted ducks, and we made our way into the next hide.

Which was packed.
There was a bit of a premium on space, but eventually, we were able to settle into the seats and start taking our pictures. Unfortunatley, the birds were so far away that even if I could take a decent photo with the lenses I had, the camera was just waving about too much from people stomping around. So while I did take some photos here, there's not really anything worth showing off.

I meet up with my mate while I'm there, and we go and chill out with my brother for a bit. After a while, with little memory (camera memory!) left, my brother decides to call it a day, but says he will return to collect me...

On the way back he managed to break his sunglasses, which left me feeling kinda guilty (though he DID ask to come along so I don't know whether I should, or??)

After we got everything sorted out, me and my mate (sounds a lot less pretentious and toffee nosed than "my friend and I") managed to get in about another hour's shooting, before time for home.

Not bad though, I got some decent shots, and after my brother took me back home, we all enjoyed a nice sunday dinner.

And it's at this point that I'm going to leave you folks. Yes, I know, I've stopped halfway through, but I am really tired, I need an early night, I have to be up at (even by my standards) stupid o clock in the morning, and I've got some stuff to do first.
Don't worry though, tune in tomorrow for more exciting (exciting?) tales of intense pulse pounding photography, hardcore going-out-for-meals, and bedtime-story-like sleep sequences!

SEE YOU TOMORROW!