Me+ fire= :D

While in the city with my friend last Friday, we stumbled across a shop, a veritable fun factory!

Just next to the checkout area of aforementioned shop, there were deodorant cans on sale, and right next to them were lighters! You can imagine my joy when my friend said he had never done 'the aerosol and lighter thing.'

We bought armfuls of each, and hurried to the carpark behind the shop. It was dark.

After performing this 'trick,' many times, I went home. Above are some of the pictures I too :D

I sprayed the deodorant into a glass, then held the lighter above the opening, aflame. Woof!
The next pictures are of the standard, 'hold lighter in front of can and spray' variety.

My inner pyromaniac loved it!

What do you enjoy doing with fire?

My Day of Badminton Excellence

Today, I elected to participate in an inter-school badminton competition. Having had badminton racquets always available as a kid, but never actually using them, I considered myself an expert!
So, this morning three of my friends and I stepped off the bus to a rude shock. We had been 'chosen' to play the Victorian State team, as a warmup for their upcoming National Championship. :/

Needless to say, we were thoroughly beaten, but it was good to see how a good team play.



Oh, and by the way, THANKS GUYS!

(Some more of my amazing work in Gimp ;)

Gimp

Yesterday I downloaded The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program.) I highly recommend it! It is a very powerful, free picture editing program.
I have completed a few online tutorials, which I have posted below.

This is a great tool for anyone interested in amateur or even professional graphic design.

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://creativenerds.co.uk/tutorials/50-design-tutorials-for-mastering-gimp/

You weren't born that way.

Take a moment to look at the picture above.

I think it is reasonably accurate, in terms of depicting how the social environment you are brought up in affects the person you are.

My parents were more on the 'liberal' side of this picture. Although the polictical party with these views in Australia is actually called Labour, and the more right wing party is Liberal.

How were you brought up, and how do you think it has affected the person you are today?

Not Reno dummy, Rio, Rio de Janeiro

This is a photo of Rio de Janeiro, a place I would love to visit.
I find the South American ancient and modern culture fascinating, and from what I've heard it's a welcome change from the over commercialization of many other tourist destinations.

What is your dream holiday destination?

Starfish

Another photo I took at the Melbourne Zoo.

Judgement Day

Tomorrow, May 21st, will be the Second Coming of Jesus, and Judgement Day.

According to Harold Camping, and many fundamentalist Christians, tomorrow will be the end of the world as we know it.
The remaining people on earth that are not saved by Jesus in the May 21st Rapture will be sentenced to 5 months of torment under the rule of Jesus during the End of Days. The End Times will cause anarchy, chaos, disasters, and the end of civilization as we know it. Everyone left on earth will be well aware that Jesus is Lord, but savior will not be an option after May 21 Doomsday.

"Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Matthew 13:40-43.

Harold Camping previously predicted that Judgement Day would fall in September 1994. After this obviously fell through, he claimed a 'mathematical error.'

So, will your last day on earth be May 21, or October 21?

I hope that I will at least be alive until next Tuesday, my new TV gets delivered!

Insignificant.

5:30.
Damn.

I hurriedly finished eating my breakfast. Taking a sip of my poorly made instant coffee, I slipped out of the door and into the cool morning air.
Sitting in the worn out drivers seat of my ancient car, I had a couple of seconds to think about how I would spend my last employed week of my life. I had better hand in my resignation papers soon. Then off to the beach to spend the rest of my young, but so far wasted, life.
I laughed mirthlessly to my self. More likely I would spend it wasting away in my tiny rented house, living off government benefits while missing my daughter and her mother.

The engine made a couple of feeble attempts at turning over, before starting with a reassuring growl. I was already 15 minutes late, but today I was in no hurry.

I pulled in to the station.

5:52.

I said hello to Christine, the accountant. She was a nice lady. Pretty, too. Maybe one day I could ask her to- No.
I could never do that to Stephanie. I could never replace her.

As I stepped on to the train I saw today there were about seven passengers, which was a bit unusual for this time of morning.

I started my well-drilled routine. 'Ticket please.' Take offered ticket. Hole punch ticket. Hold out ticket for collection.

I went through this for every passenger, through the morning rush to work, midday lull and up until the influx of school children onto my train.
As I was checking the ticket of kid after kid, I saw one boy, about 16, try to discreetly make his way to the toilet. Hiding in the toilet to escape being caught without a ticket. How original.

I let him interrupt my precious schedule, and walked over the to the toilet door.
Knock, knock, knock. 'Please open the door, sir.' Unsurprisingly, he did not comply.

I didn't feel the bullet enter my stomach. The commuter's screams faded quickly. The warmth left my body, but I wasn't cold. Someone was crouching over me, but I didn't really notice.
I was thinking about Stephanie, and my baby girl, who I had never met.

Then, nothing.


'Back to the horrific train bombing this afternoon, there has been 38 confirmed dead, including 15 school children. One man was found with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Inspector David La...'

The man turned off the television. He had better things to think about.


A short story I wrote for English a couple of months ago.

Point Lonsdale Lighthouse

This next amazing photo I'm sharing with you, is one I took in Point Lonsdale, Victoria. The lighthouse is still manned 24 hours a day. The entrance to Port Philip Bay, or The Rip as it is known, is one of the most notoriously dangerous in the world.

It was built in 1852, but was rebuilt quite often up until 1902, after which it has remained unchanged.

I took this photo on a very windy, cloudy day and I'm glad it has turned out well.

Planking

After hearing about the death of a man in Australia, while apparently 'planking,' on a seventh storey balcony, I was intrigued to find out more. I have broadened my knowledge of this craze, and will provide a description of it for you, my dear reader.

On May 15th 2011 a 20 year old Brisbane man fell to his death from an apartment building balcony. He was planking on a 5cm wide balcony rail. Many people have started copying his actions by planking on many different surfaces, such as railway boom gates, shop rooves and even a parked police car.

Planking is the act of lying face down, arms by your side, in unusual public spaces. Planking reportedly began in 2003, called playing dead, à plat ventre (on one's belly) and the lying down game.

Many Facebook groups have been made commemorating, celebrating and also mocking the actions of Acton Beale, the 22 year old man who fell to his death in Brisbane, Australia.

What are your thoughts on this new fad?

Apple's upcoming Cloud?

It is rumoured that a new 300,000 square metre data centre will be built adjacent to Apple's current 50,000m2, $1 billion centre in North Carolina.
Something revolutionary in global communications is brewing.

Apple bought the domain iCloud.com from Swedish software company Xcerion, for a rumoured $4.5 million. Xcerion has since renamed themselves CloudMe.

Apple will most likely launch iCloud as a music service to compete with Amazon's 'cloud locker' system. This means that you could store all your music in the 'cloud' and access it anytime, rather that store music on a iPhone or computer disk.
Indeed, you could store any digital files and have it always accessible.

Apple is not without competitors. Amazon's current service is moderately popular, and Google has been testng a simlar service on their Android OS devices.

So, whoever you choose, you will have your files with you wherever you go.

But, these services will not be limited to just streaming music. Think of what a ultra portable laptop like a MacBook Air would be capable of, connected to a virtual hard of terabytes, petabytes and even exabytes.

Apple last month bought 12 petabytes of storage space from Isilon Systems. If that is part of the future of the North Carolina complex, iCloud will be about much more than iTunes. One petabyte is capable of holding about 13 years of high definition video. The 10 billion photos on Facebook take up 1.5 petabytes, although Google processes 20 petabytes each day.

Many people already use cloud based services, such as Evernote, Dropbox and others. Why not store everything there, protected from power surges, system crashes and even viruses in super-secure data centres?

If this is the future of computing, I for one, am interested to see how it all turns out.

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams is one of the best landscape photographers. He always shot in black and white, and always unedited.
He was a member of the Sierra Club, an environmental activist group.

This image, called the Tetons and the Snake River, is one of his most popular images.

More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams

Artistic2themax.

This is a photo of the Ballarat Town Hall. It is a very historic building, built in 1870. The view is from a coffee shop, just next to the town hall.

GTKY

This blog will be a collection of photos I have taken and seen around the interwebs. I will endeavaour to update daily.
I enjoy taking and editing photos, and I regularly browse Flickr, etc.

This first image is one I took at the Melbourne Zoo a few weeks ago. There is a below water level viewing area, which provided an amazing look at the seals. THe light from above shines through the water beautifully.
This photo is unedited.