Snail Rush

I've wanted to take a long-exposure shot of a snail for a long time. This was my first attempt, and it came out so-so. I think I should try it later in the evening, though. I'd like to get just a blur of snaily fury across the entire frame. ;)

Water

This is a cover to a water panel of some variety. I don't recognize the logo as belonging to a brand or company, but it's pretty cool. :)

Morning Wood

Catchy title, huh? ;) This is a chair outside - you guessed it! - Starbucks. The DoF isn't as shallow as I would have liked, but it still turned out pretty good.

Hitchhikers

This is in our reef tank. It's some kind of algae or other, I think. What I do know is that they must have hitched a ride on something else, because we didn't put them there! We had a cable technician over today, and he was quite enamored with the tank. I can't really blame him, though; they're pretty freakin' sweet!

Macro Mai

I bought a +10 diopter for close-up shots today. I'm not entirely sure if I like it yet; either I don't know how to use it well, or it's just not well-suited to my camera's zoom lens. It may also just be too powerful.

This photo demonstrates the effect of the lens on macro shots. The top version is with the diopter, the bottom without. The only thing that was changed between the two shots was the removal of the diopter lens and a focus adjustment. It was shot at a distance of about an inch and a half. Notice the more pronounced depth-of-field effect in the top photo. I think that effect alone may be worth the price of the lens.

I can't wait until I can get a super-nice digital SLR. I'll definitely buy a dedicated macro lens once I have one. Probably on the same day I buy the camera. ;-)

The character is Mai Kannazuki from the anime G-Taste, if you're wondering.

DS Feather Pen Stylus

Nintendo has a survey going right now for users who register The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. If you participate, you'll receive a nifty feather pen stylus as pictured above. Cool! This is what the stylus looks like with the crimson-and-black DS Lite.

Porchside

Here's another action-packed photo of myself, this time sitting on the porch. The astute among you may suspect that today's and yesterday's photos were, in fact, taken on the same day. You would be correct. I cheated a little bit. But now March will have no empty days, unlike January and February.

The Light in the Tunnel

Here's another one from our Disneyland trip. The Indiana Jones ride is pretty damned fun, in my opinion. When Kevin was much younger we took him on it, and he was catatonic for around 10 minutes afterward. He wouldn't talk or anything. It was sad, but pretty funny at the same time! Going on it this time, I can see how it might upset a kid; it's pretty epic. Luckily he did better this time. :P

This one's public, so anyone can grab one of the larger sizes if they wish.

Street Education

Had class in the evening, as is usual for Mondays and Wednesdays. We got our midterms back from Monday, and I did... not so well. :-/ I made a lot of little mistakes, and unfortunately small mistakes can add up to big points. It wasn't all bad, though, because I got this cool photo. I sure wonder what chain of events led to this stick of chalk's untimely demise on the sidewalk, alone in the night.

Sick Day 2

Still sick as a dog. What does that even mean, anyway?

Successful Quest!

I went to a bunch of places in Carlsbad today in search of my much-coveted crimson-and-onyx Nintendo DS. It's too bad I didn't want a pink one, because several stores had those. Everyone told me the same story: They're totally sold out, and they don't know when they'll get a substantial shipment of new units, and check back in a few days. Apparently the backlog goes all the way back to Nintendo, which basically means that they can't make DSes fast enough to satisfy demand!

You can see from the photo above that I did manage to track one down! The Sears website (oddly enough) has an in-store pickup option which I checked mostly just for the sake of thoroughness, but was pleasantly surprised when it told me that one was available for pickup—and at my local, um, location at that! I bought it online immediately, went to the store, and picked it up with nary a hitch. Awesome! ^_^v

I also learned a valuable lesson about retail store stock records. At one Best Buy, the girl I talked to checked the stock on the computer and reported that while her store didn't have any DSes, the one in Mira Mesa did. I saw with my own two eyes that it did indeed have several. I called the Mira Mesa location just moments later, and the operator—who was the very definition of customer service—reported less-than-politely that they had none. Not even enough time elapsed between the question and the answer for her to have looked up from her nails to check the stock. The same basic scenario played out at Sears earlier in the day as well. Anyway, said lesson is that you shouldn't take telephone operators' word for it if you're looking for a hard-to-find item. Go to the store and be insistent that they actually physically check for your item. Perhaps this is common sense, but it wasn't for naïve little me...

At least the cosmic balance is restored, and my DS now matches my bedding, my car, and several outfits. All is well. ;)

ATM Keypad

Absolutely nothing of interest happened today, so I had to cheat a little bit. I took this photo on Monday, I believe. It's the keypad of one of the ATMs around town.