Parallax

Scene from a pawn shop:

INDI: ".... a fully manual option for the shutter and aperture or else I really can't do anything with it."
BLEU: "You do realize you're talking Chinese to me right now, right?"
INDI: "Ni hao, meimei. That's Chinese."
SALESMAN: *snerk*

(Thank you, Joss. )

I was at a pawn shop to complete my Birthday Quest: a new camera. My beloved Vera snuffed it when I was shooting the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice, in a completely unexpected manner. The catches that hold the battery door shut spontaneously snapped off, and since the thing relies on a lot of tension to keep the batteries in, I couldn't hold it together with tape. It worked well enough for the rest of that evening, but afterwards... not so much.

I kept saying what I needed was a Vera upgrade - since the full DSLR is out of my budget, I'm firmly in prosumer rangefinder-with-manual-options land. And what I wound up finding was exactly that. Same Fujifilm S series, but a much more recent model, with twice the megapixels (eight instead of four) and twice the amount of space on the memory card, which is XD so I can still use the older ones. The new camera is a bit smaller, and the lens doesn't lengthen when it zooms, so it's better protected. Things are basically the same - a few new features, and some of the controls are in new places, so I'll need to spend a while tuning my muscle memory up. It's been dubbed Vera II, since it's sort of a reincarnation of the original Vera. The queen is dead, long live the queen.

We also met a bunch of interesting people at that art studio that had been scalped by the tornado. Bleu picked up a fantastic Warhol-style print of four Mona Lisas and ran into an old friend, while I got to hear the story of exactly what it's like to be targeted by a tornado. Scary stuff; I'm glad they're all right.

After we found Vera II, we went to the swamp, because there's no better place for me to put a new picturebox through its paces.







The gators were plentiful, and part of the boardwalk was still submerged after the rains last week. Full set is here.

It's funny how all feels right in my world now that I have a camera again. And just to confirm that it is in fact mine, I've already lost the sodding lens cap. But that's all right -- need to fit her with a skylight filter anyway.

I don't know what you're talking about, so here is a Trooper with a pancake on his head.

So much complaining for this one, y'all have no idea.

Shots from the Tall Ships do-thinger they had last week. Some color-adjustment took place because the lighting was utterly crap, overcast and greyish - otherwise things are as I shot them.





( 15 more beneath the cut )

It has been decided that we are going to stow away in a ship like this and live a life of Being On Boats, which would include wearing fetching outfits that mostly tie together, being barefoot all the time, drinking fruity drinks, and having our needs seen to by a bevy of friendly and well-built Colombian sailors.

Don't try this at home. EVER.

If we were a sitcom, the action montage would sound like this:

Mahah mahnah doot - OW - doot do do, mahnah - CRASH - ah, doot do do do - HEY STOPPIT - mahnah mahnah doot do do - BAROOOOO! - do do - AURGH - do, da-da-da, da-da-da, badaba - SNEEZE - da-da - EURGH!- da da da!

Two weeks ago, a cop was killed on duty here. It happens more often than I'd like, but not often enough to just be another thing; people talk about it, when it happens. This cop happened to be the goalie for the TPD hockey team, which I did not know existed before now. When the Lightning heard about this, they quickly reworked the fan-fest they had planned, to honor said cop. They invited the rest of the cop hockey team to come play against (and with) some of the Lightning guys in a scrimmage, where everyone on the ice wore the guy's number on their jersey. They split it up into two teams, White and Navy, with sports-radio people and old Espo as the "coaches" for each side. The teams were mixed up, part cops, part Lightning players, part staff, and part Lightning alumni.

All the proceeds from the raffles and auctions went to a charity fund for the cop's family. They also had a yard-sale of used gear (get your stinky old gloves here!) and a hockey clinic for kids barely tall enough to see over the boards and a bunch of autograph signing and picture-taking and other good things, but Bleu and I were in it to see the scrimmage, 'cos come August we get the hockey jonesing something wicked and every bit helps.

The turnout was enormous and even the guys who have been around for years were surprised at how many people came for it. (Ohlund, particularly, was impressed; the interview-guy made a note of telling us about that. Welcome to Florida, big borky dude.)

The best thing is, they were totally fucking around the whole time. They'd drag each other around with their sticks, collide into the boards and bust up laughing, trip over each other on purpose. So they were down there cracking up on the ice, and all us fans were cracking up in the stands. Was a good sendoff for the guy, I think - a ton of people having fun. Stuff like that makes me happy to be part of the Bolts tribe.




Ryan Malone seemed to be having more fun than everyone else put together. Which is not surprising, really. Marty would like Malone to get the hell out of the way so he can see the game. (This accurately depicts what was going on the whole time. They needed Yakety Sax or something, they really did.)

( Loads more photos, as always. )

Hmmm... what to do with a big box of slides....

No mere Trooper can resist the evil of the Thriller. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA.