Archive | August 24, 2011

Little soft pulses in my… dead?!

I’m breaking the blogging rules again and rambling. You were warned.

As to the title, tell me, does that make ANY sense to you? It’s what 99% of the internet claims as the second line in the song “Say You’ll Haunt Me” by Stone Sour. I know, it’s been out for awhile now, but it recently caught my attention on Slacker radio might have the sticking power to dislodge Arctic Monkeys for awhile. I don’t want to say 100% that this is not the real line, it does sound a lot like it, but I can’t reconcile it with the rest of the song. See what you think:

Taken with my phone

Got my proof copy of the book today, so it means more editing. I won’t lie, I’m tired of editing, but I know it needs it. I wasn’t as tough with the second book as I was with the first one and you can see the difference in the reviews. I will say I think the second book is far more “me” than the first, but hey. go with what works. It is also still out with the final beta reader (I know, doing all this at the same time is mind boggling, but I have a good handle on the “combine” feature in word, so no worries!) so I’m waiting to see what she thinks, too. My poor Mother has read the book so many times that she probably has it memorized – or would if I’d stop changing things! ha!

We’ve started watching the new Thundercats – yes, there is a new thundercats 2011 series on Cartoon network! This one is more anime in style (Lion-o is way hotter) and has about as much to do with the first series as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies do with the cartoons. Besides the animation, which I am loving (I haven’t seen anything else by the Japanese Studio 4°C, but I may need to!) the story line is updated and so far the episodes flow from one to the other, which is the way I prefer it to be. Stand alone episodes are great for a series start, or a sitcom, but for my fantasy/sci-fi/anime I want to feel a real gap if I miss a week.

with all three “rings” on

Hubby got me a macro extender for my lens, so that I can take macro shots now. We discovered that it takes so much light that it was impossible to get a decent shot, even in full sunlight. That meant we had to break down and finally build that light box I’ve been putting off for years. I got the directions from a websitesome time back, but I’m a tightwad. In the end we paid $1.50 each for five sheets of foam board, something like that for a roll of tape, something similar for two sheets

I think we need two more lights

of poster board, 16$ for four light bulbs (on a recommendation from the comments we went with GE DAYLIGHT ENERGY SMART HALLOGENS: 6500 Kelvin – 26 watt producing 100 watt equivalent light @ 1600 Lumens each ). It was the clip on lights at $9.99 a piece that took the money. I actually need two more for the full recommended six but wal-mart didn’t have that many in stock. (this is what happens when you build a light box at midnight!) We also bought the twisty tripod, but so far I have not been very impressed with it. It works okay,

the wing in question. More light would have helped.

but it is very jerky so a minor adjustment jerks the camera a long way, and when I was trying to fine tune a shot of an insect wing, that was a problem. Of course, my own fault probably as it’s a $30 product not made for precision, but rather for attaching your camera to fence rails. Yeah, I said insect wing. i found it stuck to my deck (okay, kind of gross, I guess) but it seemed like a perfect macro test, so I carefully peeled it loose and brought it inside. I think more light would have helped, but never fear I saved it so I can try again. I’m not sure what kind of bug it’s off of, but it’s about half an inch long, anyway.

the light outside our house – usually just a big glowy blur.

Hubby went kind of nuts, as we also grabbed a Polarizing filter, which really does get rid of light glare. I am looking forward to trying it on some white flowers as those seem to be one of my nemesis. They always have that annoying halo around them. Anyway, so I played around with the light box with the polarizing filter and without, with the macro extenders and without, etc etc and ended up with a few good shots. I need to upload them to

Barbie in the light box

flickr still (I’m trying to wait until I get this newest round of book covers done so I don’t lose them in among the photos) Not that there’s anything in there that will make you gasp with delight, but oh well. Most of my photo stream is not so amazing. I like it anyway. I think that’s what matters. For instance I have silly photos like this:

hee-hee

Oh! I also got my website updated – FINALLY! Hubby has done some work to it so that uploading photos and book covers is so, so, so much easier now! I used to have to resize, add those gray borders by hand, make the thumbnail and then hand code it into a file. Now I use an upload form and it makes the correct sized images (thumbnail and view size) and adds the appropriate boarders. Did I mention hubby rocks? Anyway, go check it out.

Okay, this is long enough, so I will end here. Night all!