Working on my dandelion patch

Before we got our socks blown off by wind and hail, the day was actually very nice today. Nice hot and sunny. So I got out to start working on the plot for the avocado trees (only one of four has sprouted a root yet). The kitties helped in this venture. I put Gravy on the lizard leash again, and tied her to a shovel. She just got fixed, so she'll be outside pretty soon. I wanted her to start sniffing around before getting total free reign of the outdoors.

Biscuit helped from under the protection and shade of the Japanese Maple.

I think I spent half of my time getting Gravy untangled from underneath the wheel barrow.

So about that dandelion patch. I got to about where I had done for the failed rhubarb plant, and that stuff all came up pretty easily. Then I got to stuff that seemed stuck in there a bit better. Well yeah, it's weeds growing out of clay that hasn't been disturbed in god knows how many years! So I decided to quit. And no, I don't feel bad about being a quitter.


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Stuff in work's yard

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You can't see it here, but the buck's leg that he's holding up is completely effed. He was putting weight on it, it looked like, but he limped when walking slowly. Don't know how he put weight on it, as it looked like the bottom half was not connected to the upper half of the leg.


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random

Just got back from the big fish/lizard/pet store in PA, and I got a leash for (iguanas) Fatboy! So here I shall post a picture of Fatboy looking displeased.

Actually the top one he could almost be showing off his leash. Well the squirming he's doing right now makes me think he doesn't quite like having something tied around his neck.

These two were of Biscuit escaping from Gravy. He seems pleased with his escaping abilities.

Yes that's Evony on the computer. Don't judge me. (don't know why the ads around the internet made it look like a porno, it's not. Just MMORP... whateveryoucallit.)

And yes I put the lead on Gravy. What else do you think I'm going to do with it?

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Well, shit

So I checked the UPS site multiple times yesterday and today to see if they said anything about needing a signature (I know the box of computer parts coming next week will need a signature, as I've ordered computer parts before). It said nothing about needing to be there to sign. So I didn't worry about coming home early to sign. So what's waiting for me when I get home? The Failure to Deliver Notice, of course! Thanks UPS, you fuckin fuckers.


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hhmmmmmm

What does it mean when a dogfood truck pulls out of a street that only
has a Denny's on it?

I think I'll not be eating there ever again.

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Stuff in my yard

I wonder when the SPCA is going to come take my kitties away? Today I used Biscuit and Saffron to lure out a mockingbird. She was barking at all of us all day today, but actually came out of hiding to dive bomb the cats. So I was able to get some pictures.

mockingbird

mockingbird

catbird (yes, it's a real thing, and sound just like kittens mewling)

mockingbird

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Eggy goodness

Was gonna clean the discus tank today, but they are laying eggs! Click the webcam link to watch them (in the sidebar) ----------------------->

[UPDATE] in the 1.5 hours since they laid the eggs, already over half were eaten! I watched the male do it! So I scooped up 10 or so and put them in the breeder bag. I'm sure nothing good will happen to them, but at least they have more of a chance than before.

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Day late, but I don't care

I went to the Tea Party in my town (sent a pic to Insty, and got posted!) Hubby estimated the crowd to be 3-400 hundred, which I think is pretty good. I wasn't really expecting many to show up, but they did! And they seemed like a happy crowd, not angry, or militant, or nasty or anything like that; just regular people who came to hear what was being said. I only took a few pictures, because I was paying attention to the speakers. Also, we were only there for a short time because we had to get ready for BBQ. But here are the few:

(a guy and a donkey sitting next to each other, guy holding the Cap and Trade Bill, donkey sez "I'm waiting for the movie to come out."

This Senate hopeful was the first speaker when we arrived. He seems like a good guy. Now if only I knew his name to vote for him!

Hey! That's me!

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I'm starting to get suspiscious

Background info: We are current Verizon customer with a land line we don't actually used, but thought we should keep the account because we've been waiting to upgrade to Verizon's FIOS for Internet and cable. The line was installed earlier in the year, and we've gotten a few cards from sales reps trying to sign us up. I knew it would be a while between the lines being laid to when we could actually start the service, so we weren't in any hurry to contact anyone.

Current situation: a door-to-door sales rep came by last Friday or Saturday evening. We signed up for the triple play (phone, Internet, cable) even though we don't need the phone. But you sign up for all three then cancel what you don't want later. That's fine, that seems to be the way it usually works.

So anyway, the sales rep guy needs to use our computer to plug in the order on the Verizon site, I guess. I thought the whole process seemed a little weird, and they call a thrid party service to confirm you have knowledge of this guy placing an order in your name. I thought it was weird, but I saw he had other filled out slips in his folder, so we're at least not the only people falling for a scam. So we set an install date for a couple weeks from now.

Yesterday I got a voicemail from Verizon giving me no more information than call this number in less that 24hrs or your order is cancelled. So I tried the number. Invalid number.

I don't know my login or account number or anything for the website, so I can't really do anything from work. At least this evening I'll have an account number the plug in and see if the website tells me anything.

And the weirdest part? The computer the guy used to put in the order is dead as of two day ago. Wonder if he put a virus on it.

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Kaput

Desktop computer dead. Probably clogged with cat hair and dust.


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Making my list, checking it twice

I am putting together the list of food items to be at the 2nd annual Maya Papaya BBQ, along with what each item needs. I am moving a lot of the things to be made the day before, which is something I didn't do last year. Let's just say there -- wait -- corn on the cob -- OK where was I. Oh yeah: last year was kinda hectic day of BBQ. There's a lot of dips I can do up the night before; since they need to chill for a couple hours anyway, why not over night? But another reason I want to ease up on the amount of work day of, is there is a TEA party in my town in the morning. I really want to go and show off the Debt Star sign I'm going to make. Judging by the activities of our "representatives" of the last week, I think there are going to be plenty of things for people to gripe about. I just hope not a lot of people are leaving town that weekend. I think they did it in the morning so it wouldn't get in the way of any afternoon or evening activities we might have planned, so that was nice of them.

Anyway, back to thinking about food.


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Yay Godzilla

(Godzilla is my preliminary name for the super lens)

Anyway, got a chance to look at the moon tonight:

By measuring, it is 30% more moon goodness than from the 300mm telephoto, as yet to be named. Godzilla's autofocus did a much better job of focusing than I did, and I seem to remember the autofocus on the 300mm lens didn't do a super job. I think my most crisply focused picture with that lens came from manual mode, so pretty much by accident.


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No luck

I drove up to where the eagles live hoping to use Godzilla for some nice bird nostril shots. I may have heard an eagle, but with the leaves on the trees you can't actually see them. The water at the dam was high, so that may be the reason I didn't see any out. There is supposed to be a small resident population there, which grows into the hundreds during their migration. But anyway, I didn't see any of the profesionals there, and I'm assuming they know all the good times to be there. I may have seen a heron or two as the base of the dam, but decided to wait for a different time to try for pictures. Maybe there is a schedule of when they release water so I know when the water will be low.

Anyway, back to killing my back cleaning the stupid tiles I put in years ago.

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I don't care about Michael Jackson

Or Farrah Fawcett. Now Ed McMahon, he was honorable. But he died of old age so there's nothing tragic about it. Both Farrah And Michael? both bat shit insane, but for some reason everyone is completely flipping out over this. I say who cares. You know there are still innocent people being hacked to death or pushed off of bridges by their government, right?


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More fun with superlens

I've decided I'm going to need to go up to the eagles this weekend. I also need to find out when the next full moon is or at least when it's visible at a normal hour. Tonight I was trying for lightning bugs again. This time around, though, they're more difficult to capture because they fly out of frame so fast! So the pictures never come out in focus, because I don't have time to adjust it.

Just playing around...

From across the room, 15 feet. Not zoomed at all, so 200mm:

Some lightning bugs, wide open at f/4 and 25sec:

From the deck, probably 15 feet away, zoomed all the way to 400mm:

just a crop, not a new picture:


Another "stuff in my yard" probably 30-40 feet away:

So here's the comparison of 300mm on the 70-300 lens, and 400mm on the 200-400 (red box is field of view):
400 is 25% bigger than 300, so a first level approximation would say that the field of view should be 25% smaller this seems to be true, when comparing the measurements of the two pictures. Learn something new everyday, I guess.

I think I actually had a dream about this lens. This morning I remembered what the dream was, but now I can't recall it. I can't even remember if it was good or bad.

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Early birthday present

I got my birthday present from my parents today. It had the company name in big red letters on the box, which by itself didn't really mean anything to me. It's not like it said "This is a camera store in NY" or anything. So I googled the name, and it came up with camera stuff. So that confirmed what I guessed: zooooooom lens. A big one. I waited all the way until Hubby got home, which was a few hours, because I had to be there to sign for the box. So in those few hours I was getting more and more excited as I grew more and more sure of what was in the box. Right weight, right size for a big lens.

Hubby got home and pretty much said what are you waiting for. He's such a bad influence! His justification was it would affect what he got me, like if we had to get a new tripod to support the monster (we don't, it works great).

So inside the box: a Nikkor 200-400 zoom lens with vibration reduction, along with a nifty travel case. (lots of thick padding!)

So here we go: zoom pictures of cat poop:

What. It was like he was begging for his picture to be taken. We were already out there playing with the lens, so I had to practice! (slow shutter is what is causing thr blur.) Anyway, that was 100% crop. He was about 25 feet away.

And Saffron was about the same distance; these two are both 100%. I wanted to see if you could read the tag. It was washed out a little, so had to do some tweaking in Aperture.

I was going to show a picture taken with the 70-300mm lens, and draw a little box to show the relative size of the field of view on the new lens, but I messed up.

But here is an actual photographic test. Although not as important as the ability to capture cat shit as it's coming out, bokeh is a good quality to have in a lens. Apparently "good bokeh" is when the out of focus background is really diffuse and doesn't show any hint of structure:

It helps in this picture that the leaves had some sideways sunlight to light them up nicely, but I think this is good bokeh.

Here's 100% crop of Biscuit's other end at about 10 feet away.

But anyway, Thank You so much Daddy! I love this thing already. Do you know I almost drove up to the eagles as soon as I had decided what was in the box? Don't actually know if any eagles are out, but still. I was totally gonna do it.

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Tax man!

So I guess now I'm going to have to drop the "Going Galt" bit from my routine. OK, fine I don't have a routine, and I've probably only mentioned not having done anything with taxes yet once. Because today our taxes are done and filed. We submitted the paperwork to the tax guy before we left for Mexico, and because that was over tax day, he filed and extension for us. And a couple back and forths getting the final tidbits of paperwork to him, and finally we're filed. Our estimated for 2008 actually overpaid by almost one quarters payment, which has already been applied, so we don't get to actually see the cash. :(

Anyway, one less thing to worry about. On to trying to figure out how I'm going to get Gravy to the vet Monday if it's raining, with the only enclosed car in the shop. A soft top for the Jeep is looking better and better...


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Bits

1. Addendum to "stuff in my yard": Hubby saw a baby fox in the back yard last week while I was a tupperware party. He should have taken a picture, even though I know it would have come out blurry. I thought they were very protective of their young, so I don't know why one would be out on its own in the grass. But I have noticed the fox activity is up from years past. I have only seen adults, two different ones I think. One is kind of mangy looking, and the other looks in better condition.

more rambling after the fold

2. Biscuit barfed. He had a hairball and ate some grass to alleviate the problem, and he alleviated it all over the carpet. At least it was dark carpet and not the almost white. He's been shedding like crazy lately and I hope it's just the increasing heat and not something serious.

3. Gravy does this thing that I don't know if it comes from being a kitten or her half feral beginnings: if she gets really hyped about a toy or some activity, she'll spaz attack my hand if I am grabbing her. Like with sharp teeth and razor claws really start biting and clawing and kicking hard. She's still little so it may hurt a lot for a kitten but in the scope of cat-damage it not really a big deal. I yell at her ferociously in my angry voice, but I don't think she cares.

4. I was putting the pre-shredded cheese (Kraft brand) on my microwave burrito today, and happened to look at the ingredients. I already knew there was starch or some sort of moisture absorber to keep the individual shreds individual, but it turns out there's an antibiotic in there too (for mold prevention)!! This I was very surprised at. It's natamycin. I've never heard of it, but it's not like I'm versed in antibiotics. I know the few used in aquaria, and that's about it. Anyway, it seems like this would not be a very good thing gut-wise. Or just general superbacteria-wise. Maybe we shouldn't be putting antibiotics in the general food supply? Or maybe we already do? I don't know, it just feels wrong.

5. I watched a few movies recently. hhmm, Netflix says I've watched Boogie Nights, Taken, The Machinist, The Bank Job, Knocked Up, American Psycho, latest James Bond, and the Harold and Kumars.
- Boogie Nights: still love it. "Have you seen my fucking wife?" Love it!
- Taken: I liked it because he wasn't afraid to kill bad guys. Problem is he's ex-CIA in a foreign country and so should maybe not run roughshod over their laws, but still I liked Aslan kicking ass (more that Aslan already kicks ass) a lot.
- The Machinist: I looooove loooove looove Christian Bale in a totally I'll leave my husband sort of way. He lost 60 pounds for his role. Hubby left halfway through because it's kinda artsy, but I enjoyed it. It may have borrowed too much from Memento and ... shoot I can't remember now. Anyway, good and creepy and one that makes you think about what you just saw when you get to the end.
- The Bank Job: not the next in the line after the Italian Job (that's The Brazilian Job) but it has Jason Statham in it as well. Based on a true story. I liked this just fine.
- Knocked Up: Hubby had no interest in watching this, but I found it a little funny, but also a little sweet at the end too. One reason I liked it was the lead actress Katherine Heigl seemed like she really fit the role of upper crust who shouldn't be telling or laughing at dick and fart jokes. Or maybe it was just stiff acting, I couldn't tell.
- American Psycho: again with the Christian Bale! (and guess what's next in the Q? 3:10 to Yuma) People may give him shit for his meltdown, but dude can freaking act! This was a really good movie, and he did a really good job in it. I mean, he really was quite amazing. And I'm not all fangirl with the vapors about this. He really did an amazing job. Sounds like overall, though, the book is much better as usual, just because you get so much more detail about what's going on in that noggin of his.
- Quantum of Solace: I really dislike the name of this one. But I still enjoyed it. What's not to like about a super-secret super-powerful super-embedded group of super bad guys? Except for the fact that head bad guy is a douchey twerp, but I liked it anyway.
- Harolds and Kumars: I actually liked both these movies because they were a lot smarter than I thought they would be.

[OK gotta pause and watch me some crab show]

6. My fish still have fin rot. And I don't know if there are any babies left running around. I just wish I knew why this tank has so many problems. Discus seem to be doing A-OK.

7. "Something has happened in Iran": Yeah, no shit Sherlock. I would say "Turn on a TV and open your ears" but we all know this story is not being talked about except by the internet, as usual.

8. And that reminds me about why this Iran thing bothers me so much. Yes, it's the wanton abuse of the regular people just to scare the rest into submission. But it's also the way they are going about it: stalking to dormatories and killing students who were going to go to, no have been to, opposition rallies. Also the government wanted to try and track Tweets and texts to locate the people writing them. And by locate I assume they mean learn their names and addresses so they can later sneak into their homes and kill them. Now it looks like some stories are saying that Hamas has perpetrated some of these killings, and so the Iranians are sort of consolidating against Palistine. I'm thinking only good things can come from this if that's the direction they are heading.

9. As usual no links to anything because I'm too lazy to look stuff up. Just search the HotAir archives.



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Dirty inuendo of the day

RE: wondering if we should start Boogie Nights at 10pm:

Huh, this movie is two and a half hours.

Yeah, I seem to remember it felt long.

Good night! Remember to tip your waitress


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Yay Summer!

Lightning bugs are here! That means it's summer!

(Something else that means it's summer might be the downpour happening right now in the 80 degree, 100% humidity heat. It's 9:30pm.)


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