We Saw a Chicken …

Author: scruss

  • disney work

    Disney Opera House, Los Angeles

    I tried to get more of a ‘joiner’ effect, but Hugin’s just too good at stitching. Still, it’s angular enough for the Disney Opera House. The original is approximately 90 megapixels.

  • injera frenzy

    Catherine and I just had lunch at Queen of Sheba on Bloor just east of Dufferin. It was good; gentle spices and tons of flat bread to eat the meat and sauces with.

    I can’t believe I have never had Ethiopian food before. I shall remedy that soon.

  • the land camera

    pola2a.jpg

    RB67, 127mm @ f/3.8, expired Polaroid 664, 1/125s

    My first attempt with the RB67 and Polaroid back. With the metering prism and the handgrip, the RB67 weighs over 4kg, so it’s not something you want to wave about.

    Something’s a bit weird with my film. Every picture I take has the top left corner missing:

    pola1.jpg

     Is the developer dry? Am I pulling the film through the rollers too slowly? Too fast? I dunno.

  • it’s summer, so …

    … it’s time for the CREST Wind Energy Summer School.

    It’s about the best way to start out in the wind industry. I went there back when it was at Imperial College. So many of my friends and colleagues in the industry have attended.

    I wish the same course were run in several locations. Loughborough isn’t on most people’s travel plans.

  • pee-yew

    There is a very bad smell blowing into Union Station from the east. It has a kind of burning manure tang to it.

  • my new favourite word

    I will use the word tortfeasor in casual conversation today.

  • clearly an American agency

    Bell Canada’s new slogan “From A to Z, the calls are free” doesn’t quite work here. In this country it would have to be “the calls are fred”.

  • a big purple frog

    Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis thinks you’re ugly.

  • overfed

    We had a power cut last night, and my Gregarius aggregator on the basement server really didn’t appreciate it. I think it was doing something to the sqlite database that holds the feeds when the power went out, so I lost all my configs and had to trudge through hundreds of old items.

    It could be worse; you could be stabbed! (as Mark Taylor always used to say).

  • i think not

    Barr’s Irn Bru Irish? Surely not, but that’s what Dominion thinks:

    barr’s irn bru is not irish

  • that’ll learn me

    … to buy so many CDs at the Midwest Banjo Camp. I’ve spent the last couple of hours keying in track listings for The Old Time Banjo Festival, Erynn Marshall & Chris Coole, and Neil Woodward. Please, please please don’t let me have to do the same for the Uncle Dave Macon set, ‘cos then I’ll be here all day.

  • this is genius

    Bob the Angry Flower – Terry, Industrious Sloth

  • pen lament: lost angeles

    Dang! Looks like I lost my Lamy fountain pen at the Los Angeles Omni.

    It was very yellow, with green ink.

  • looks like strobelight, sounds like whoop tone

    I have the elevator in the Hilton Checkers in Los Angeles to thank for my new blog slogan. It’s about the fire alarm.

  • a pleasing light on the millennium biltmore

    millennium biltmore, los angeles

  • minutemen moment

    I’m in Los Angeles, and it gave me rather more jollies than it should have done to drive under a road sign to San Pedro like on Double Nickels On The Dime.

  • flying sucks

    Flying – especially to the US – is such a tawdry experience. You trail out to a part of town that noone would otherwise go to, you wait in line, ticketing systems malfunction in ways that airline staff accept blindly, you wait in line again, a bored immigration official grills you half-heartedly, you wait in line again (this time without shoes), then you look forward to some dinner in the departure lounge – and have to make do with some cardboard pizza, since the only other choice is a hockey bar. And all of this is a good 90 minutes from your departure time.

    Why does anyone put up with this?

  • really big, and really ugly

    I saw not one, but two International XTs on the way back from Michigan. These are without doubt the most obscene vehicles on the road. Of course, neither were towing anything.

    At least the Scion only offends the eyes briefly.

  • last morning of Banjo Camp

    Well, just two more sessions to go at banjo camp. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned so much. I do need to get my chord skills down, but even my half-formed frailing did garner compliments.

    The concerts were great. Last night we had Wade & Julia Mainer perform some gospel numbers. Wade turned 100 this year, but you wouldn’t know it to hear them play.

    So it’s a long drive back, but it was worth it.

  • it’s official – i suck at banjo

    okay, I need to work on my basic G chords and getting to know the standard jam canon. I knew none of them at the slow jam tonight – no Boil Them Cabbage, no Cripple Creek, no Buffalo Girls. I might know a bunch of modal tunes, and one in F even, but can I fret a C chord … ?