Monday, February 26, 2007

Lick 'o paint

I took a couple of days off last week and did some painting and decorating. The little room (not the bathroom) in the house got painted an eggshell blue. That isn't the name of the colour on the tin but thats what it looks like to me.It looks good. Makes the room look a little brighter, fresh coat of paint an' all that. New curtains as well. I shall be building a a new computer workstation desk type thing this week. The little room is being turned into a little office/study. Whoo-hoo, a den no less. The parents in law gave us a wheeled office chair which saved a trip to a shop and parting with money. I only have to re-route the telephone cable for the phone/ADSL and the room will be sorted. Well, there are shelves to be put up, a filing cabinet and some bookshelves to buy but the room will be usable and the pc installed this week. Iwill be using this room to store my photographic equipment in as it is spread over the house at present. All looking good so far. I am not allowed to turn it into a boys only room as the Missus has to use the pc as well. Can't have everything.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Funny valentine

Bah humbug,.... dang that was christmas.

No matter, I don't do "Valentine's Day".
I have done in the past, not a lot mind you.
Mrs M doesn't do it either, which is handy. It isn't that I am unromantic, rather that I am kicking against the pricks, in a manner of speaking, and not participating in a load of bloody nonsense dating back to an ancient pagan festival which was subsequently co-opted by Christianity. Never mind the fact that it is yet another excuse to program us to purchase more stuff. Ranting, me?

What a load of dreck.

I am romantic EVERYDAY and I don't need to save it up all year and go out to dinner ( worst night in the year to do so, you have been warned people) and buy overpriced cut flowers etc.

Gaah.

Romantic gestures do not have to be intertwined with a retail experience.

I did do something today though.
I got out of bed whilst Mrs M was in the shower and made a batch of pancake batter.
Pancakes for breakfast.

Eat your heart out. ( Pun intended.)

Friday, February 09, 2007

Cold Turkey not wild turkey...

My name is Mudflapgypsy and I am an addict.

I have weaned myself off my drug of choice after I tried going cold turkey. That was pretty horrible. Nasty, nasty headaches, irritability. Yuk.

I was addicted to caffeine and my delivery vehicle was coffee.

Hell, I miss being able to have a coffee when I am out in a cafe. Dagnabbit.
I am now drinking many cups of decaff coffee when I get home from work. Talk about a habit.
I love the taste. Americano, black coffee, coffee with enough milk to just make it turn a dark brown, espresso...aaaaaahhhh. Coffee sweets, coffee flavoured chocolate...coffee cake, butter cream icing and walnuts too.

You get the picture.

I am kind of cheating though, I have been eating roasted peanuts encased in chocolate and covered in a crispy sugary casing. Yum. Still cheating though. ( not saying dagnabbit again as that really would be gratuitous). When I was but a nipper they were called "Peanut Treats" and I loved them. I have to make do with their modern incarnation. Still magic though.

I have also stopped drinking alcohol. Thankfully I didn't consume it on the same scale as coffee.

I miss beer. I mean real beer not laaaaaaaager. Stout too. sigh.
I miss having wine with dinner at the weekends.
Still, it is all going to be good for my health. I am sleeping really well, which is good. When I do have a coffee or a drink of alcohol again I will be bamboozled very quickly.

I was able/daft enough to drink a pot of coffee before lunch at weekends. That really cannot be good for the health. Can't be.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

NO landscape on Sunday

I did not get out into the world to use my camera on Sunday..sigh...
I will be trying to learn to use the wireless flash operation tonight though. Off the camera flash is always better. Photography is light after all, who needs a camera? Oh yeah, I need to show other people my ideas of what I think looks good.Duuuh.
I did bring it into work today and get a couple of shots of my colleagues using the wireless lighting trick. I like it a lot. Veeery nice. Still TTL though. Gotta set things to manual and stop being lazy.

On Sunday I tried a recipe out of a Cafe Paradiso cookbook. I made corn pancakes with red pepper and red onion and cheese filling. I made a tomato sauce to go with it. The recipe used goats cheese but I used manchego instead and added black beans.
A big thumbs up from the Mrs and I really liked it too. Definitely one to make again.

Friday, February 02, 2007

D200

Well, whoop de doo, I am now much lighter of pocket and an owner of a camera that has a small novel as an instruction manual. I have been "futering" ( have I spelt that correctly?) with the camera for a few hours over the past couple of nights. Since I have been a luddite I have to learn new techniques of doing things, no more twist the dial and set the flash by twisting it's dial. It's all multi function buttons and menus. It isn't that I am not used to these things, try programming a synthesizer via a single row LCD display with multiple screens, now that is taxing. Still, it will be a wee while until I feel comfortable and confident enough to use it on a paying job. I have my Sister's wedding to scan and clean in photochop which has been on the back burner for a few years now ( I was NOT the official photographer-I bowed out of that one thankfully ). Oops digressing again..

The camera is great, I got the battery grip for it too. Makes it feel more secure in my hands, which is good. The 10 million pixels make for a sizeable image onscreen before the pixels are visible. I have 20 free prints at Jessops online service to try out but these will be 6 by 4. I need to get LARGE prints made to see what this camera is really capable of.
I need to see if it will give my Mamiya RB67 a run for it's money, what am I thinking.....of course it won't. I got it so that I can supply photos on disc quickly to clients rather than the to-ing and fro-ing from the lab. As I said before, I don't really have easy access to an E6 lab anymore which is a problem for deadlines. Hopefully the D200 will solve this, any medium format work won't be to strict deadlines as I need time for lab access.
Apart from the family pics tomorrow I hope to get out into the landscape on Sunday.
Northern Irish bloggers
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