Bird brained

On my way to the Twin lakes Java (an amazing Coffee shop at Twin Lakes, MI), I was overflown by a rather satisfied looking Bald Eagle. Satisfied, since he'd just finished off what looked like a rather large carcass of a rather unlucky hare. I screeched the car to a halt, jumped out and took a few pictures of him as he circled (!?) and flew past. Mighty pleased with myself for having bagged a good picture of a Bald Eagle, I looked through the pictures to realize to my horror, that I'd been shooting with the ISO set to "HI1". In Nikon's terminology, for the D60, "HI1" == 3200 and also "Avoid using". So there _was_ a reason I had to shoot at 1/4000 and F11 to get the correct exposure.

Feeling pretty silly, I returned and plonked down on the couch with the Rubik's cube in hand. Deciding that I had to get through the silly cube in better than my usual 1:20-1:40 minutes, I started trying to learn all 41 algorithms of the Fridrich method. Then, I came across one of the most useful webpages I've seen in recent times: http://www.freewebs.com/sirshazaam/f2l.htm
The guy has most painstakingly listed out every one of the algorithms for the F2L and has pictures of the cube, for each of them as well. Brilliant.

Having had enough, I attempted hitting the sack at about 6:45 AM, when I heard what sounded like a Warbler. Deciding that I couldn't sleep any more, I picked up the device of photographic expression and walked out. After stalking the fella for more than 20 minutes, I finally caught sight of this brown feathered chappy, chirping away in a brown tree. Perfect. Getting a clear line of sight of the guy was a tough job.






Having shot what I thought was an okay-ish picture and double-checking to make sure the ISO was not an obscene value, I walked around for a little bit, coming across another magnificent sight. Somehow, just somehow, I get the feeling that today's going pretty well for a start.

The gear

Pictured, is my new D60 along with a bargain Soligor 90-230mm F4.5 manual, I got off eBay, for $20.
The other glass (not in the picture), is a humble Nikkor AF-S 18-55 DX VR.

The Soligor has been my lens of choice, ever since I began understanding the concept of exposure better. Shooting without any metering whatsoever and with a manual focus is a little daunting at first (especially so, for someone new to D-SLRs), but certainly not a major hurdle.

The remote control on the right, is a Phillips universal remote, that I've programmed to use as a remote trigger for the D60.

Web widgets

So, the intarwebs is filled with these "Take the pink ponies quiz and see your score now!!!" tests. I normally avoid these abominations. The Political Compass however, is one of my favorites. The Political Compass's theory is, that the traditional Left-Right line, in itself is insufficient. Political orientation, really is a two dimensional plot, with the other axis being the Authoritarian-Libertarian line. Intrigued? Try them out at politicalcompass.org.

Also, I score as

Economic Left/Right: -1.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.79 . To see it on a graph, click here

Also, in order to ascertain bragging rights (Slackbot, this is for you):

80 words

Typingtest

Louise Attaque

I recently re-discovered Louise Attaque, a French Folk rock band. I first heard them live at the Alliance Française de Bangalore sometime in 2005.

Not surprisingly, that was also the first time I'd heard rock in a different European language (I'm fairly accustomed to English!). Although I barely understood a word, I didn't feel lost or out of place. They say music doesn't have a language; perhaps they're right.

Regardless of the genre you listen to, I highly recommend giving Louise Attaque a listen. They've got catchy tunes, with interesting guitar, harmonica, violin and accordion pieces. I don't understand French, but I've been told that their lyrics are pretty interesting too.

The French are a friendly people (see note [1] below for an exception), particularly so at the Alliance Française of Bangalore. If you're in the area and you feel the parisian touch, you might want to stop by.

[1] Overheard at the Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle : "Why do you presume I speak English?"