Categories
Food IAMOWIM Peril Photos

Opal Fruit… or Terrorist?

I unwrapped the green Opal Fruit and tossed it lightly into my mouth, assuming that this would be an Opal Fruit like any other Opal Fruit.

Opal FruitsIn my complacency, I allowed my attention to wander to other tasks. This turned out to be my greatest of errors, for the Opal Fruit moved around in my mouth in a non-obvious fashion, exploiting my moment of least concentration to make a dive for the left cheek as the teeth came down.

Searing pain. My hand shot to my mouth. I left the room abruptly, aiming for the bathroom, where I could suffer my ordeal in sweet sweet solitude.

I spat into the basin. Blood.

I had bitten my tongue and made it bleed.

Being away from my desk, I didn’t instantly have Google to hand, so I had to improvise the treatment for a bleeding tongue. I applied some pressure with a clean forefinger, and when the flow had been staunched, I used cold water to wash my mouth out and remove the excess.

The pain eventually dulled to an irritating ache, and 24 hours (or so) later, I’m starting to feel a bit more human again. No segments of tongue were permanently lost, and I have faith that I will make a full physical recovery.

However, my ordeal still haunts me, and the Opal Fruits taunt me, and a flaunty thing flaunts me. A strawberry flavoured Opal Fruit sits, unwrapped, on my table top, beckoning me with its soft curves.

“Hey there,” she says, “Do you think you can handle me?”

I jibber and jabber back incoherently.

“I know what you are thinking,” she says, “If I succumb to her fruity wiles, will I be vulnerable to that pain all over again?”

I splutter and clutter.

“Oh, you silly boy,” she laughs, tossing her hair and fluttering her eyebrows, purring seductively from somewhere deep in her throat, “I don’t bite.” She laughs at how incredibly fucking witty she is.

Incensed by her cockiness, I toss her lightly into my mouth.

Categories
Holiday Top Photos

A series of photos from my holiday on the Isle of Wight

Ventnor Beach

Ventnor Beach.

The Needles

The Needles. After taking this photo, we walked round to the old Battery (the building you can see on the top of the headland). However, by that time, the mist had come in, and visibility was lost.

Red candle
Meerkat

When these little fellas turn and stare right at you, you can feel their eyes boring into you. Terrifying.

Out to Sea
Fish and chips

Lunch, obtained from the seafront at Sandown.

Sunset over Wight

Categories
Parenting Photos

Once again, I owe you an explanation

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words. These thousand words are a few weeks old, but I think that there is enough in there to get the rough jist of the message across.

Offspring

I hear you cry, “does this signal a return to blogging for the Uborka couple?!?”

Well, you’ll have to wait and see. Happy 2006 everyone, by the way.

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Photos

Resolution Expose

So I was unconvinced of my mobile phone’s claims to have a proper VGA resolution camera. I suspected that the photos taken at the highest resolution were of no better quality than the ones taken at the lowest resolution, and then just scaled up using a rudimentary resize algorithm. I had to know.

I was assisted in my project by Butter Rabbit, as you will see. I started by taking photos of Butter Rabbit at the three available resolutions: 160×120, 320×240 and 640×480.

I then enlarged all these three images up to the same size, namely 1280×960. If my hypothesis was correct, these three images would be practically indistinguishable from one another.

Finally, so that I would be able to present my findings to you, I cropped these images down to the same 300×200 detail. Here they are:

LOW

low - sample

MEDIUM

medium - sample

HIGH

high - sample

As you can see, my paranoia was unfounded. Thank goodness for that.

Categories
Food Photos

Ripening Chillis

Ripening Chillis

Categories
Top Photos

Lampshade

Lampshade

I have an interesting lampshade in my recording studio that’s made out of cellophane. It’s damn pretty. In my old flat, I had it on a dimmer switch, so I could produce highly subtle effects. Not at this place, sadly.

Categories
Gardening Photos

My new friend

This is a photo of my new friend. I call him Snappy. I hope that the reason behind this should be obvious.

Snappy

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Gardening Top Photos

Red and Yellow

Red and Yellow

Categories
Photos

Touched by Royalty

The queen just walked past my window.

Awesome.

queen.jpg

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Holiday Photos

A selection of photos from my holiday in Prague

Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Square, from the bottom end, by the museum. Our hotel was about ten minutes walk from here. I remember standing with Karen in a furious downpour, debating whether to go back to the hotel for an umbrella.

Old Town Square

The Old Town Square.

Old Town Square

This is the Church of Our Fantastic Lady of Tyn, or something like that.

Tube Station

In Prague, the walls of the subway stations aren’t lined with adverts, which is most refreshing.

Ossuary

The ossuary at Kutna Hora. This is actually the least blurry of all the photos I took in there. It won’t surprise you to learn that it wasn’t well illuminated.

Crossroads

Due to the unavailability of a tripod, I placed the camera on a stone pillar to take this. And due to the sloping nature of the stone pillar, and the need to position the camera such that it wouldn’t tumble off the pillar, there is rather a lot of stone pillar in this photo. Let this be a lesson.

Castle

The castle, across the river.

Clouds
London

Flying back over London.