Long Term Challenge

Okay, so my 30 thingie challenge is slow going.  I blame you, dear readers.  Think of it as a non-violent vicious circle.  If you comment I will post more.  The more I post the more you'll want to comment.  Please?

A friend told me he sees a blog as a one-way thing.  Where I put up my thoughts and you read them.  But I don't want to preach!  I want to be involved in discussion!  Make comments on my posts and I will reply, lets talk about things.  All sorts of things.  "Oh this reminds me of [link]"  "It was more like [this] when that happened to me."

Otherwise it's just an exercise in self-promotion.  Blah blah blah.



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I have another goal, and this is more than the 30-day challenge which is for kicks.  This is for my growth as a photographer.  It's going to take a LONG time, and I will keep coming back to this post to update links to the photos.

Here it is:

100 Theme Challenge list:

1. Introduction:
2. Love ...  here
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace
6. Break Away
7. Heaven 
8. Innocence
9. Wolves: 
10. Daylight
11. Memory
12. Elements
13. Protection
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. Vacation
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Hold my paw/hand
36. Precious Treasure
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned...  here
39. Dreams
40. Drive
41. Teamwork
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Breathe Again
48. Childhood
49.Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Insanity
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can't
74. Are You Challenging Me?
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude...  here
100. Relaxation... here


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Wish me luck!

Day Twenty-Two: Picture Of You On This Day

 

Heavily manipulated of course.

21A ~ Favourite Shakespeare Quote

FOOL: ...We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' the winter.  All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking.  Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him drew thee after.  When a wise man gives thee better council, give me mine again; I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
    That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
        And follows but for form,
    Will pack when it begins to rain,
        And leave thee in the storm.
    But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,
        And let the wise man fly:
    The knave turns fool that runs away;
        The fool no knave, perdy.
KENT:  Where learned you this, fool?
FOOL:  Not i' the stocks, fool.
                                                  King Lear Act II. sc. iv.

I had to provide the full segment of conversation between Kent and the Fool because the quote is useless on its own.  Kent was put in the stocks because he lost his temper around Oswald.  He called Oswald:

" A knave; a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch..." (Act II. sc ii.)

After Kent started wailing on Oswald he was put in the stocks for his behaviour and this was where King Lear found him upon arrival at the castle.  There was some discussion about his position (on his arse with his legs in the stocks) and the Fool lectured Kent on not losing his temper when no others can see the fault, but instead following the ways of wise men.  That's the first part the Fool says at the top.  My favourite quote is the Fool's answer to Kent's scathing question of "where did you learn this, fool?"
What a brilliant come-back.  "Not i' the stocks, fool."

Number Twenty One: Favourite Movie Quote

I'm not really sure that I have a favourite movie quote.  My friends and I are quoting movies all the time.  In fact most of our conversations are in movie quotes really.  So I'm just going to put up a damn good one.
I bet you'll be able to pick the movie.


"Do I look like a cat to you, boy?
...Am I jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree?
Am I drinking milk from a saucer? Do you see me eating mice?
You stop laughing right meow!
Meow, I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. It's the law.

...

Not so funny meow, is it?"

XX - A 10+ Year Old Picture

Recruit Course Steyr Phase.  

Let's see if I can remember everyone's nicknames:
Wheels, Reedy, Aides, Cletus, Cray, Wally, Wolfy, Fenton, Youngie, Yace, Pricey, Skatie, Randy, Sez, Peanut, Andy McNabb.  The other's didn't really have nicknames and I don't want to put their real names up.  So there you go. 
I'm crouching down, second from the right.

Raquel Welch: Space Girl

Wow. What fantastic luck to come across this gem over at Topless Robots. Checking it out on YouTube led me to a very well-done remix, which includes the same visual element with a different song. I'm impressed with the timing. Can be found here.

Thingie Number Nineteen: - Something Which Made Me Smile Today

My bike has been sitting in the garage all winter, so when I tried to crank it up the other day for a possible ride the battery was flat.  I've been meaning to connect it to the car for a week or so now, and today I finally got a round tuit.  So I smiled when, after 20 minutes, I finally got the beast rumbling.

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Another thing which made me smile was watching an episode of Doraleous and Associates from the Escapist Magazine web page.  This particular episode was called Hero Punctuation and included a parody of another video series which features on the same site.  It's all in-house jokes really, but it cracked me up.  It's a great site.

Thing Number XVIII - Favourite Board Game

Who killed Dr Black?







For some interesting facts about the game, visit this link.

17: A Childhood Picture of Me

This is the only one I actually have.  Everything else is safely stored with my Mum.

Grounds for Divorce

My friend recently introduced me to a group called Elbow. I'm sure you may have heard of them already, and a couple of days after our discussion I discovered I already had a copy of their song Fallen Angel.
Anyway, although the song featured in the video above is not typical of the rest of their work, I do love the album it comes from - Seldom Seen Kid. 

All this introduction to Elbow and discussion on blues music and whatnot spurred me to tune my guitar and make a little more practice.  The chords for Grounds for Divorce are (apparently) Dm, C and G - all of which I can play (w00t).  Unfortunately the song isn't really one for an acoustic guitar so it only works when accompanied by the song itself, and even then comes out feeling a little too upbeat for the general tone.  Nevertheless I took the guitar in to work (since we'd been having a quiet week) and mucked around a bit with the song, the chords and with Dave, who can actually play.  The upshot of all this is that Dave has taught me the starting notes to the 12 Bar Blues.  I'm really thrilled to have learned the first part of this awesome and versatile piece and once I've mastered it I'll be keen to move on to the next part.
Unfortunately, while my guitar has a great natural sound to it the neck suffers from high action. This is where the strings sit quite high off the frets due to an exaggerated bend in the neck.  Because the strings are steel and my little finger is quite little and not very strong, I struggle to get the strings pushed onto the frets firmly enough for a clear sound.
Apparently I can alter the action of my guitar by adjusting the bend in the neck.  On the surface this is something a techie like me can easily accomplish.  Remove the covering plate at the top of the neck (3 phillips-head screws) and use an allen key to adjust the bend in the rod which runs down the centre of the wooden neck.  The downside of this is that after every *small* adjustment the guitar needs to be re-tuned and tested before the next adjustment so as well as the hand skills with a screw driver, I need a good ear and at least half a day.
I might get into it this week sometime.