Here at la Maison de la Kiki, we like to eat eyeballs.
Delicious, delicious eyeballs.
We even have a special eyeball bowl specially designed for eyeballs, so much is our love for eyeballs.
If you like eyeballs as much as we do, you can buy them by the bagful at fine retailers near you!
In other news, it was brought to my attention, by my keenly observant mother, that a grasshopper and I were wearing the same outfit.
Every now and then, I indulge in a little fetish.
I find it way too fascinating to look at pictures of what people keep
on their desks and in their bags on Flickr. I spend even more time looking at
productivity pr0n. Obsessively annotated photos make my toes tingle. Ogling this sort of orderliness soothes the chaotic beast within.
Yesterday we went to the orchid show. Every time we go, I’m amazed by the incredible variety in these floral superstars.
Some look like little people.
At the end, I busted out the macro lens (Raynox DCR-250), but since I didn’t have a tripod, most of the photos were pretty blurry. Up close, orchid petals shimmer.
Macro photography is always surprising. Ugly things often look beautiful when magnified, and beautiful things, like these orchids, reveal a more sinister side. Check out how hairy and slimy orchids really are!
A few years ago, I was really surprised to witness a vivid display of the aurora borealis. It lasted for several hours, and I felt lucky to have seen it, considering I’m not exactly in Alaska over here. It was probably the most impressive astronomical sight I’ve ever witnessed. Anyway, ever since, I’ve been a subscriber to an email list that alerts you to changes in the Kp index, the range of magnetic activity that might indicate the presence of geomagnetic storms. I’ve received emails every once in awhile, usually alerting me that the Kp index was 5.33, maybe 5.67.
Anyway, tonight I received one that said it was 7.33, which I believe is the highest I’ve seen since I subscribed several years ago. If you find a good viewing location without much light pollution, and look to the north, it’s possible we might be able to see some activity tonight. I’m kind of guessing at things, but this Kp value was much higher than previous ones I’ve seen.
If you’re interested in receiving alerts, sign up at Aurora Chasers. If I can locate the pictures I took that night, I’ll post them sometime.
Since my last YouTube production was so critically acclaimed, I thought I’d post another one from today:
I can’t wait to see my Google hits this month!
Today, cupCAKE helped make one of my summer dreams come true. For months, I’ve been obsessed with the gravel pit not far from our new house. Every day we drive by and I catch glimpses of a gaping hole in the earth, like the ruins of a forgotten civilization. The fleeting vistas taunted me, and I soon realized that I couldn’t live another day without exploring the mysteries therein.
Plus, I’m a fan of bigass machines.
cupCAKE was up to the challenge and we set sail, a modern day Vasco Da Gamma and Ferdinand Magellan, armed only with megapixels and optical zooms. After bravely ignoring the PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING sign, we were in!
For your viewing pleasure, I present my YouTube directorial debut: THE GRAVEL PIT. A play in three acts.
THE GRAVEL PIT: Act II: Confrontation
THE GRAVEL PIT: Act III: Sayonara
I was one of those kids who didn’t get to play with magnifying glasses or microscopes enough while growing up*, so I’ve been making up for it now. Ever since getting the Raynox DCR-250 super macro lens for my camera, I’ve been endlessly amused by making tiny things big. Look! They were so little! Now they’re so big! I never really appreciated how complex flowers are, or what an anal perfectionist Mother Nature is. That chick is seriously into the details.
*(I was too busy rotting my brain with computer games.)
I’m not really into bugs, except for the ones with effective marketing campaigns and strategic PR, like the ladybug and the butterfly. Most bugs are okay at a distance, but I don’t want to get too touchy-feely with them, you know? Now that I have a super macro lens, however, I’ve developed more of an interest in entymology. My first reaction is always “EUGH,” with an occasional shudder, but my second reaction is to grab my camera and crawl around with the creepy crawlies. Pretty much every bug I’ve come in contact with since February has been exhaustively documented.
Life is just a bit more surreal when you’ve got the song Rawhide stuck in your head. I find certain lines very profound, like:
Don’t try to understand them
Just rope, throw, and brand ‘em.
I also like:
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them doggies rolling
Rawhide!
I’ve been taking pictures of everything, so instead of writing, I’ll do show and tell.
This afternoon The Kitten (who you’d think would have a name by now… we found her in AUGUST) was fixated on a jar in the kitchen. She kept futiley sticking her paw in the jar, but was unable to pull anything out. It turns out that her snake was in there. One day she confiscated someone’s stuffed snake and left a trail of sand across the house as the poor snake’s guts poured out of the puncture holes. Since she shouldn’t really be destroying it, someone ingeniously hid it in a jar and put a second jar on top of it, sealing it off from her inquiring paws.
Head ’em up (move ’em on!)
Move ’em on (head ’em up!)
Rawhiiiiiide….
After reading camera reviews for DAYS, I finally bought a camera. It’s amazing how impassioned people get about their $500-1500 pieces of plastic. I’d click on forum threads with titles like “which camera should i buy?????,” and it was awesome to see how quickly and inevitably they’d devolve into flame wars.
“OMG you bought a rebel xt???? How could you be so STUPiD? D70 FOREVER!!!!!!!1″
“Do yourself a favor and throw that Lumix away and buy a disposable camera instead. The image quality is better. HAHAHAHA!”
“D50 SUCKS, unless you need a doorstop! EOS 20D kicks yo’ bootie! And yo’ Mama’s bootie, too!”
“Forget you posers, I’m going to go take some REAL photos with my DiMAGE. Don’t bother posting again until you get yourself a real camera.”
The two times I went to Ritz Camera to ask about a Canon, the salesclerks would plug their ears and say, “NIKON NIKON NIKON!”
“But I’m mostly interested in the Canon,” I’d explain.
“Lalala! We can’t hear you! Nikonnikonnikon!”
Nikon must be giving Ritz some sweet kickbacks for encouraging people to buy less expensive cameras.
Anyway, I decided to get the Canon PowerShot S2 IS, which is NOT a digital SLR camera. The depressing thing about digital SLRs, I learned, is that the camera is actually the cheap part. To use it, you have to buy fancy lenses, and according to lens connoisseurs, any lens that costs less than $1,000 is basically a piece of garbage. Since I don’t currently have $3,000 of disposable income kicking around, I bought a training camera instead.
The S2 may not be a digital SLR, but it’s one of the highest rated consumer cameras on the market. It has a 12x optical zoom, so I’ve been zooming in on distant birds and relatives’ nosehairs. It not only does macro, it also does SUPER MACRO! I think this is the equivalent of turning the volume up to 11. It also lets me take panoramics and swap colors, so I can turn my broccoli orange.
Now that my camera cost half what I was expecting to pay, I’ve been greedily shopping for accessories. I’m most excited about the Raynox macro filter I ordered, which will magnify wee things ten times! I’ve seen some awesome pictures of bugs taken with this setup, so I’m pumped about slithering around on my stomach and getting up close and personal with the creepy crawlies.
You can take your 3 extra megapixels and shove them, suckas! S2 is da SHIGGITY! Shiggity shiggty shwa!
