2 Tb drives are cheap now

Very cheap. Went to Harvey Norman to get another WD external hard drive. Since the advent of Windows 8, 3 Tb and USB3 drives are the sought after items, so the 2tb drives USB 2 drives are dropping in price. Since one of my external drives is 500gb, I felt it was good time to replace it, as it's almost full. Shifting things from it as I type this out. When all has been moved from the old drive, I will format it, and then use it to make a new system image back up.

Decided to collate photos a bit more. Been making subdirectories (ie Birds\Parrots, Birds\Honey Eaters, Birds\Waterbirds etc) to make searching and filing a bit easier.

Sort of productive day

Stopped in at K-Mart and got a two items for the "Wishing Tree". Went pillaging, but not too much, as I have a pteradon due to come in on Monday. What I did notice, though, is I'm not as over this cold as I thought I was. Just a few hours out and about, and it wiped me out.

Still have next to no appetite. Just having one small meal at the end of the day.

Managed to get all the Giftmuss presents wrapped and labeled.

So, I've tucked myself into bed, comfy pillows, laptop set up on 'bed tray' and disc 2 of Downton Abbey. (Oooo Miss O'Brien is such a bitch!)

The World didn't come to an end

No one flung off the surface of the planet, no earth shattering kaboom, not even a spilled salt shaker. Just the celestial cycle starting over again after it's path being well charted by the Mayans.

But I do have one helluva nasty cold. Been fighting with sore throat, fever, and exhaustion. Exhaustion is mostly because I can't sleep. I tried to rest yesterday after getting up at 4am, but when Loki heard me get up and he was all purr purr headbump, meow. Found myself falling asleep sitting up and figured that was a good time to go lay down.

No sooner did I start dozing off the phone rings. It was Wing. *sigh* At least he was apologetic for waking me up. You would think that after 12 years marriage, he would remember "She's sick, she will be resting"

Forced myself to stay up late enough so I wouldn't wake up at 3am... didn't help. I woke up shortly after 3 am, still feeling like crap.

Dear Mr Huckabee;

I don't often address politicians directly, but in this instance, I felt it was necessary.

20 beautiful babies, and 6 dedicated teachers were slaughtered in an Elementary school. What was your reaction/comment? "We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we've systematically removed God from our schools." As if that wasn't bad enough, when you were asked "Well, what about shootings in churches? Prayer and God's in those." you immediately jumped tracks and blamed birth control.

Mr Huckabee, you are one of the lowest of the low. You are a religious hypocrite, and a media whore. You don't give one hoot in hell about those innocent children and brave teachers, you just want to score some sort of face time on television, with those inane talking heads of Fox.

You should be ashamed of yourself, in the same amount I am sickened by you. You claim to be an upstanding Christian, but your words and actions show you're anything but a Christian.

Again, you should be ashamed of yourself for your cruel, self-promoting self-serving statements, but you won't be. You are filled with pride and self righteousness, which if I recall are supposed to be 'sinful'. So, I say to you, Mr Huckabee, fuck off and die.

The New Tamron 24 - 70 vs Canon 24 - 70 MkI

I have already tested the Canon Mki vs the MkII . Now it was time to compare the MkI with the New Tamron 24 - 70.

Both these image sections were cropped from an image taken at f/2.8, ISO 400, 1/200 sec exposure, auto focus, taken at the same spot and same distance, under fluro lighting, no flash. No editing or adjustments were made. The results were remarkable.


The Canon 24 - 70: The very middle of the image is as sharp and clear as one would like it... but what shocked me was how much blur there was. The smaller lettering blend into each other




Tamron 24-70: Sharper overall, more detail. The lettering that was very soft and illegible in the Canon MkI images, are clear enough to read. Mild purple fringing (easily corrected in camera raw) but all in all a better image.




If you're trying to decide whether to upgrade your Canon 24-70 L Series MkI with the Tamron 24-70, you won't be disappointed.

Next test I want to try, is the Tamron 24-70 vs Canon 24-79 MkII, to see if it's worth shelling out an extra $1200

Oh reeeallly?

After being told by Adobe Forum 'techs', those who say they are expert with Adobe Photoshop/Bridge, that there was something wrong with my computer. That was their pat answer. That the problem was something wrong with my computer, or something I was doing wrong.

Schadenfreude: that is what I felt when I found hundreds of others having the same problem with Adobe CS6 Bridge being glacially slow. Computers with more memory than mine, same amount, Mac, PC, all having the same problem. I had a double dose of Schadenfreude when I saw one of the very people who said it was something wrong with me and mine having the same problem!

Please, someone get them a thesaurus!

Now, I'm not a professional writer and I do have a habit of repeating certain words, especially at the start of sentences. However, when professional writers, or speakers for that matter, keep reusing..no overusing phrases and terms, not only does it show lack of imagination, but laziness.

1: "Gate" - tacking the word 'gate' at the end of every scandal, real or imagined. The name of the hotel was Watergate. That doesn't mean every f**king scandal needs to have the word gate. Find another, for shits sake, there are plenty out there.

2: "So-Called" - majorly misused when "self called" or "self styled" would be the appropriate term.

3: "Tropes" - during a discussion panel with two prominent authors, the word "Trope" was used 37 times in one hour. The irony of the overuse of this word is not lost on me.

These three are my biggest bugbears. And this list is subject to additions and changes without notice.

That went very well

It was Wing 's Mumble-ty Mumble-ty birthday yesterday. He tried to let it sneak by, but I announced to family and friends that it was, and it resulted in a flood of birthday wishes.

After he went to work, Alan and I wrapped his present, and I prepared ingredients to make a lime/coconut cheese cake. Picked limes off the tree, grated the lime peel, squeezed the limes and proceeded to use my birthday present, Sunbeam Stand Mixer, and got busy making this:





I had jokingly asked him what did he want for dinner. "Satay chicken of SahTAY chicken?". He said "Surprise me!". Far be it from me not to 'obey', I called a local Chinese restaurant and ordered some home delivered take out.

Wng came home, and found the dining room table all decked out with a luscious meal, a gift, and we indulged him for the evening. :) All in all, it was a great night.

Why aren't our cats naked?

Yesterday I vacuumed, and filled the bagless container. Emptied it, took out the filter, cleaned that one and set it up to dry. Put another filter in, and vacuumed again today. I swear, I had even more cat fur in it! I swear I could knit them sweaters from the fur pulled out of the carpets and rugs.

Why aren't they naked?