I’ve been working on macro photography with my snails, fish, and shrimp, and I caught my snail giving me the stink eye.
Are you looking at me?
This is a Tiger Nerite snail; it’s about one inch big, gliding on a plant leaf. If you are looking for a snail for a freshwater aquarium, this is the snail to get. They have brightly colored shells with patterns and don’t eat plants. They glide along with the leaves, eating the algae and tiny food particles on the surface.
They are very chill, and unlike other snails, they don’t really come out of their shell, so there isn’t anything for aggressive or hungry fish to nibble on. They are also very hardy.
You never think about many things, and when you are hit with the fact, it just seems weird or untrue.
Pineapples grow out of the ground. Most of us don’t live in tropical fruit fields but we all assume that fruit grows on a tree or on a vine. Bananas, apples, oranges, lemons, limes, cherries, all on a tree. Then you take a vacation to Hawaii and see the pineapple fields and BAM they grow out of the ground. And it just seems wrong.
Peacocks roost in trees. I’ve only seen peacocks roaming the perfect keep lawn in some stately manner, a zoo, or in ads. I have never ever thought about where do peacocks come from and where do they sleep. It’s like they aren’t even a real bird species, they seem like something a 14c eccentric nobleman created for a monarch I was on a bus tour and the guide said if you look behind you will see peacocks roosting in the trees. As to where they come from, it’s India.
What late-breaking medical treatment will be made fun of in the future? We all laugh at the crazy cures ancient cultures and more recent ones have, but in 500 years what crazy cure will people make fun of? Like LOL can you believe people in 2000 thought antibiotics worked, I’m glad I live in the now where laser fixes everything.
How does a microwave work? There are a number of people that know how they work but I would say most people don’t think about it. This is something we grew up with, you open the door, enter a time, and bam it’s warm. Also, those easy bake ovens with lightbulbs don’t help clear up the issue.
What’s the difference between Mist and Fog, partly sunny and partly cloudy, and why is inflammable and flammable the same thing?
Fog is a low-lying cloud, Mist forms when water droplets hanging in the air by magic or force.
However, according to the National Weather Service, partly cloudy and partly sunny mean exactly the same thing, however partly sunny can only be used doing the day.
Straight from the dictionary: Inflammable and flammable are synonyms and mean “able to burn” even though they look like opposites. In this case, rather than the prefix in- meaning “not,” as it often does, “inflammable” comes from the latin verb inflammare, which means “to cause to catch fire.” “Flammable” was coined later from a translation of the latin verb flammare (“to catch fire”), which inflammare is related to.
If you find this information useful or fun I highly recommend two BBC series QI (Quite Interesting) and Horrible Histories.
I’ve started playing around with the Oil Painting Style in Photoshop, and below might be my favorite result. This is Lake Eibsee in southern Germany.
This is the photo I started with.
What I ended up with.
I have found that animals and landscape are the best types of photos to try this out on. I’m sure there is a technical reason for it, but I’m too lazy to google. Just click on the photo above if you want to know more about the photo.
You open a photo in Photoshop, go to Filter, Stylize, then Oil Paint.
Just a few clicks, and you are done.
Then play around with the sliders, and you are done.
For this project, I used the app PhotoScape X, and there is a free version and a Pro version at 35 USD (one-time cost). This app does not sponsor me,
I used texture filters, pre-created shapes, and bright colors to create digital Images. The one below is rectangles lined against each other with an added paper texture filter to create an abstract watermelon. I started with the dark green colors of the rind, which merged into the bright red of the fruit, last stripe of color is black for the watermelon seeds.
I created the next one with a bright yellow background, then added the triangles shapes in neon blue and purple. The last step is an already created swirling shape in the app, and I just changed the color of the design.
So go crazy, add circles, squares, and triangles in different sizes and colors, use paintbrushes to create blobs of colors, or add premade filters to a background and change the colors.
Plot holes and plot devices don’t bother me if I’m entertained, or the movie uses magic logic. However, a “serious” movie that’s using a series of medical or mechanical mishaps irks me… by a lot.
A good example would be sci-fi, where the space ships seem to fly faster than the speed of light, which in theory isn’t possible*. The shows/movies never say they are traveling faster than light, and they could be bending space via some tech that moves point B five miles from point A. When you try to ground and make something real, then the logic falls apart, and I am just picking at the holes.
The latest logic ruin movie is Stowaway. Many of the unfortunate series of effects seem fetched and not possible. Which made me start picking at the movie when I realized this story has been told before in the Martian, Apollo 13, and Saving Private Ryan, to name a few. You have a group of people who try every single possible avenue to save one person.
Which made me think why replay this theme, we’ve seen it before, and it was more entertaining. Why not go the other way, you have four people in a craft built for three, and there are no options left. How do you decide, what do you do if the person with the short straw doesn’t want to go, how does the group of three interact six months or a year later while still stuck in a tin can. How do you save the many if the one disagrees? It seems like that would be a more interesting story.
I haven’t been able to get out much, like many people this past year, so I’ve started working on indoor creativity. I now have two freshwater aquariums and one dry terrarium with succulents plants. My latest project started with Skulls in vintage wigs and has morphed into Skeletons in different art styles. See below
The Skelton is a Halloween decoration with some locking joints to sit up straight in a chair. I dressed it in a black pillbox hat with a veil and a 18th Century UK judge wig. In its mouth is a real pink frosty donut with sprinkles, and it’s in front of a dark blue and grey abstract background.
My next step was to change my photo into artwork using the app Fotor Photo Editor. They have freestyles, but the good ones cost you :). If anyone knows of other apps that have different styles, let me know.
Help, it’s one year into COVID shut down, and I’ve run out of photos to re-edit, my pets & kids run away when I get the camera out, and now I have nothing else to shoot. Well, worry not, because I have a photo idea for you.
Do not operate heavy machinery while looking at this photo.It is suggested that you listen to 70’s psychedelic music when viewing this object.
Items you will need:
Items you will need: Glass or crystal ball, also called a photo ball. It’s a hunk of glass in a sphere shape, you can purchase it at camera stores or any retail store like walmart, amazon, etc.
LED Lights on a metal (usually it’s cooper) string, which allows you to create shapes with the lights.
A camera and tripod.
A room that can be made dark.
Patience.
I wrapped the LED string around my fingers to create a stand, and then I placed the glass ball on top of the LED strings. Then set up the tripod and use the speed option on your Camera.
Usually, the speed option of the letter S on the camera dial lets you slow or speed up the shutter speed. The lower the number, the faster it goes, like a blink vs. a slow wink.
For a photo like the above, we need to slow the camera down and try a 5 to 10-second shutter speed, letting the camera soak in the light. Try taking a photo at different heights and angles because the light will reflect in different patterns.
This is the Spegazzini glacier in Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina, and it’s massive. With a capital M.
It makes a 3 decker boat look like a bath toy, and this isn’t the whole glacier; there is still more. You don’t really understand its scale until you get up close, via the not a toy boat.
See what I mean, it takes the boat 10 mins to sail from one end to the next. The black lines are ash from wildfires or volcano eruptions from who knows when. I should say someone knows, but that someone isn’t me.
Funny anecdote, I dropped my camera before getting on the not a bath boat, so I was holding it together with my hands, hoping it would work and wishing for duct tape. As you can see, it did! This is one of my favorites because it looks like a secret hideout.
Many people will be having a small Thanksgiving/Christmas this year and will miss out on having a big get-together. So here are some ways to mimic those big family gatherings.
.1. Get everyone in the house (including pets) to stand in one corner of the kitchen, then try to reach around for items. It’s like a vertical twister game.
2. Start drinking the day before, then you will have a killer headache for Thanksgiving/Christmas, to mimic the one you usually get that day.
3. Reply to any sentence, comment, or question with one of the following: that’s the first thing Hilter did or paragraph one of the Communist Manifesto.
4. Chose one person, and only one, to do all the clean-up.
5. Get everyone in the car, pick a place to drive, turn off the GPS, get an out-of-date map, and enjoy.
6. This one is for three or more people. One person hides a can of food and can opener before the cooking starts. The second person goes into the kitchen to start cooking, and the third goes to “help.” When both parties start yelling, “Why wouldn’t it be in the same places as always” or “I am looking, and it’s not here,” you have won the game.
It’s taken a good month, but I am just about done with my freshwater tank. I had a 10 gallon before, went through 3 beta fish, and gave up. I didn’t do my research. I just wanted aqua plants and felt bad for those poor beta fish in the tiny tuber-ware and became a pet owner on a whim.
Now years later, I’m trying again, but the lockdown has given me a lot more free time with some knowledge and research. It turns out it’s better to have a big tank when you start; it seems counterintuitive, but you are trying to balance an ecosystem in a tank, and the larger the body of water, the more forgiving it is too small changes.
Step one was getting a tank and substrate and filling up the tank. Substrate creates needed ingredients for the plants and the whole tank. It’s like potting soil for plants; please don’t use potting soil. It isn’t good for the critters in the tank.
Step two, I added the plants, then a thin layer of river rocks, so they didn’t float and protected the roots from the snails. Later, I discovered glass plant pots that stick to the wall, so I have the greenery, but it’s not covering up the animals.
Step three, I added the nerite snails, which live in freshwater but only lay eggs in brackish water. Brackish water is a mix of fresh and saltwater, so no chance of it getting overrun by snails. The snails clean up any algae that might grow in a tank.
Step four, fine sand and freshwater clams. It would be best if you had the fine sand so the clams and dig in and work on filtering the water. Please note you can’t see the clams in the above photo because they are already hidden.
Step Five decorations. I added seashells, land snail shells, a purple barnacle structure, and coconut shells. I think everyone has unused seashells from some trip to the beach, the coconut shells cam from the store, and the barnacle structure ordered on the internet.
Step Six, crayfish. I got two blue crayfish, and they are fun to watch; the coconut shells are for them as crayfish need hiding spaces. I cracked it open with a hammer wedged it into the sand to make sure there was an opening.
Step Seven, guppies. Not seen in the photo because I haven’t received them yet, but I’m getting 5 guppies. If you have crayfish in your tank, you need to have the right kind of fish, not big enough to eat the crayfish but fast enough to keep out of their way and no bottom-feeding fish.
Step Eight, sit back and enjoy the antics. The crayfish keep trying to get out; they are known for it, so I’ve taken to call them Steve and McQueen because they are trying for a Great Escape.
Steve, in all his glory, is eating the sinking food pellets.
I created this photo using three unrelated photos, which is why I keep almost all of my photos; you never know when I need to add something.
The three photos I used were: one of the winter trees with barren branches, a photo of a full moon, and a photo of a almost full moon covered with a thin layer of clouds.
Low res version to save upload time.
The next step is to copy the full moon and paste it over the cloudy 3/4 moon. I use the lasso option in Photoshop, but other Photo editing software has the same feature. Then you merge the two moon into one, save, and then open the merged photo in your photo edit software/App.
Now we move into the style of the photo, and this part depends on what you like. You don’t have to follow what I did you can choose your own adventure. I would suggest playing around with all the settings and deciding what you like the best. Below are the settings I chose if you want a starting point.
Once you are done with your settings, you need to overlay the tree branch photo onto your moody moon photo. To do that, you need to copy the tree photo and paste it onto the moon photo. Then you pick the blending option you like, or you can merge the photos.
I’m a big Disney fan, and Sleeping Beauty is one of my favs and a big reason why is the music. Then I grew older and found out the music was by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and fell in love with the music again. Then a few years ago, I had some free time, not COVID-19 free time because I fear going out of the house but between holidays free time, and watched the Ballet. My thought was even if I don’t like Ballet, I will still love the music, and that’s when the Absinthe fuel daydream started.
I’m sure everyone knows, but just in case, the Disney Animated Fairytale movie (Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White….) is a happier version of the Fairytale, usually the Brother’s Grime version. However, they are multiple version or variations across the world. This means I went into this expecting some differences and maybe the death of Sleeping Beauty, but these are related in the same way the Four Chris’s are related. FYI Hemsworth is the best Chris with Chris Pratt in an almost tie runner-up.
Fairies. In the Disney version, we have three good fairies and one bad fairy (Maleficent), the ballet has SIX good fairies, and the bad fairy is called Carabosse. That’s not a scary name that a off-brand coffee store. Carabosse is generally performed by a male ballet dancer in drag, which I love, but I didn’t know Ballet or Russian culture was into camp? The main fairy, the Lilac Fairy who gives off Glenda the Good Witch vibe. You know, like she could have fixed everything in five minutes but wanted to teach Dorothy a lesson. She changes the curse from Death to 100 Years of sleep that happens.
Aurora. In this version, Aurora, AKA Sleeping Beauty, gets to live with her parents, and the first Act is her sweet sixteen birthday. She dances with her four suitors during said birthday, and I guess none of them had a great horse like Prince Philip. In my mind, Prince Philip’s Horse is the great-grandsire of Maximus in Tangles. Surprise, old Carabosse shows up, the entire kingdom is knocked out for 100 years, and the castle is covered in thorns. Then the Lilac Fairy lures this random prince to awake Aurora with a Kiss, and she doesn’t know him; how is that love in the Disney version at least they meet first. Aurora wakes up and agrees to marry Prince Désiré (still not making this up), and that’s it. There’s no fight, no turning into a dragon, nothing.
Wedding. The last part of the ballet, when the guest arrives to wish the couple well, is differently the weirdest part of the ballet. The guest list is some hodgepodge of characters from other fairytales, and some are B-list characters. Puss in Boots and the White Cat, Goldilocks and the Three Bears; Cinderella and her Stepsisters; the Bluebird and Princess Florine; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; and Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. I have no idea who the White Cat and Princess Florine are, but the big question is, why is Cinderella there with her Stepsisters? Is this a prequel to Cinderella when they are all friends or some cruel act where the Stepsisters are servants to Cinderella and must watch in envy? Also, in most tales, her Stepsisters die, so is this a retelling directed by Tim Burton (which I kind of want to see now)?
This leads to the last question of this tale. Did Tchaikovsky wait until the last min to come up with this idea and style it out like the tailors in the Emperor has no clothes? Only smart people with artistic versions will understand this ballet.
