Getting It Right The First Time

How It Feels To Be A Viking Fan

sent to me by my cousin

Music Trivia 23

What amazing song contains the following lines -

River keeps flowing and the grass still grows,
And the spirit keeps going, nobody knows.
Poets they come and the poets they go,
Politicians and preachers they all claim to know.
The words that are written and the melodys played,
As the years turn their pages, they all start to fade.
The oceans still move with the moon and the sky,
The grass still grows on the hillside.
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This is a Hillbilly

emailed to me by Highpower

Add A Caption 39

Anyone have a caption idea for this pic?
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Omphaloskepsis 14

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say,

"I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"
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Creative Advertising

Well, Ive done some posts on bagvertising in the past, now let's take a deeper look at advertising. Many companys today advertise on their vehicles. This is probably one of the most common ways to promote your company. Here's a guy that got very, creative with this advertising outlet. Well done.

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Music Trivia 22

The correct answer to Music Trivia 21 was again given by HighPower who said...

"Meatloaf Bat out of Hell from that same Album".

Congratulations genius!

Now for 22 -

The opening lyrics for this long tune go -

The roses in the window box

Have tilted to one side

Everything about this house

Was born to grow and die

Who performed this song and what is it's title?
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Keep Your Eye On The Road

Funny Videos

Nokia's Latest Protection er Phone

Finally, Nokia has led the way with it's newest phone, designed for use when traveling through the areas where you know you just shouldn't be. No more having to carry multiple items on your belt. Now you can STOP your problem and then conveniently dial 9-1-1, to apprise the authorities of the situation. One word of caution - in our tests we have discovered the numerical buttons on the phone have, what we can best describe as . . . well, hair triggers. This should bring new meaning to the phrase 'speed dial'.

photo emailed to me by highpower

Add A Caption 38

Who has a caption for this pic?
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Omphaloskepsis 13

Why is abbreviation such a long word?
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There Are Bags For Any Purpose

Back in April I did a post on bagvertising, where you could see many artistic and clever shopping bag designs. Today, I stumbled upon something a little different in bag design at a site dedicated to the collection of airsickness bags. Yes, those little bags graciously supplied by airline carriers which are designed to catch whatever you may toss around in flight. Yes, someone collects these! There is even a name give to the collection of airline barf bags - bagophily. Those of you who don't believe me or those of you with an eye (or a stomach) for such an exciting hobby can check out this site. Personally I can't say it's too exciting.
Why this post? I did find some humor on it's opening page which attracted me. Thankfully, it was on the front page or I would never have found it. I couldn't stomach delving further into this site. No offense to the creator of the web page but, it looks like a pretty boring site/interest to me.

Anyway, the funny bag of which I speak was put out by Southwest Airlines back in 1999. There was even a full-page glossy magazine advertisement created for this bag. Now to me, considering the purpose of the bag the text becomes hilarious. Ah, maybe I too, am a little strange.

Perhaps, also, it's a little ironic that the infamous 'bag lady' has no job.

Music Trivia 21

The answer to Music Trivia 20 was -

correctly answered by HighPower

Pink Floyd "Pigs"

Of course the official title is "Pigs (Three Different Ones)"

For this week -
What famous rock song is considered to be the ultimate motorcycle crash song?
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Sony A700's D-Range Optimizer

There are many new features and specs I was anxious to upgrade to with the new Sony A700, not the least of which was the D-Range Optimizer. The D-Range Optimizer automatically prevents loss of detail in dark shadow or bright highlight areas in strongly backlit or high contrast scenes. Although, somewhat skeptical of getting usable results with this feature, I believed it would be amazingly useful if it did work as intended. Imagine not having to dig out and work with filters or painstakingly have to rely on post-processing to save a picture whose exposure values were just too wide. After playing with the other various controls and features on the A700 (for a little bit), I decided to concentrate specifically on the D-Range Optimizer. As I'm sure most have figured out already, the D-Range stands for Dynamic Range and getting all the values properly exposed in certain photos with a large range has long been a pain for photographers. Let us see how the A700 handles such situations.


I chose a typical indoor scene which usually spells trouble for the camera trying to obtain proper exposure across the whole range. The scene has one standing in an interior shooting towards a window with bright sunlight. The view is wide enough to include much of the interior surrounding and in front of the window. Predictably, if we expose for the sunlight the rest of the scene goes very dark, as shown in the first shot above.

This was the first shot I took using the Optimizer and was meant to show how the scene would record using the camera's default value. Although, I thought this setting would be what the Sony labels (D-R) or the standard setting, somehow it wound up being (D-R+) or what Sony calls the Advanced Auto Setting.


Later on, I figured out how to change the setting to standard or (D-R), which was very easy to do actually. And this setting is represented above.


So then, for comparative purposes, I thought I would capture the scene using the camera's built-in flash and this is what we see here.



Now, on to the fun stuff. Sony's Advanced Level D-Range Optimization can be utilized through a five-step range, depending on the needs at the time.

Here is the scene recorded at Level 1.

Same scene at level 2.

Here is a Level 3 shot.

A shot at Level 4.

Here is Level 5, the highest setting.

I'll let everyone be their own judge here, as to the usefulness of this feature. It plainly did lighten up the shadows and expand the range of light values. Tell me what you think.

NOTE: To keep comparisons as accurate as possible, all shots in this post are presented with no post processing except to downsize them for web use. Notice even my typical copyright is not present.

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My New A700 Arrived

I arrived home from work yesterday to find my new baby waiting on me. My A700 has arrived safe and sound. I ordered it directly from Sony on Monday and received it yesterday, as I stated, with no special shipping. I was way too tired to try it out after a 17+ hour shift, so I will see what it offers today. I can tell you from the two minutes I did spend with it that the screen is awesome and beyond compare. Amazing! I can't post any further now as I must finally check out the new camera.

If you need a review of this camera
check out dpreview , Steve's Digicams, or imaging resource.

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Add A Caption 37

Who has a caption for this pic?
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Would You Invest?

Would you invest?
Who got the last laugh, here?

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Master of Malapropism

In my youth I greatly, enjoyed old reruns of 'The Bowery Boys' and especially loved the linguistic twists so often employed by it's lead character, Slip Mahoney. Well, I didn't realize there was even a word for it. A malapropism is the incorrect use of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning, usually with comic effect. This is exactly what ol' Slip Mahoney always did and what attracted me to the hilarious series in the first place. Slip, played by Leo Gorcey, was a master of malapropism which henceforth became my favorite style of comedy. If done with talent and timing nothing beats this method of comedic effect.

From the mid thirties to the mid fifties Leo Gorcey was a very, busy actor. He became famous as the leader of the fictional gangs known as The Dead End Kids (1937-39), The East Side Kids (1940-45), and best of all The Bowery Boys (1946-56).

Add A Caption 36

So, what's going on here?
Anyone have an explanation
or a caption?
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USG Racing

USG's NASCAR Ford was in town today. This baby driven by Matt Keneseth had four wins last year (Fontana, Dover, Michigan and Bristol) and a career best of 15 top-five finishes. Matt, also, finished second in the Nextel Cup championship point standings.

The USG/NASCAR partnership began nine years ago in 1998. Many more exciting years are anticipated.
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Men's Restroom Etiquette

With the semi-recent events in mind, concerning a certain senator in an airport restroom stall, I felt that we all need a review of proper restroom etiquette. While not all the bases are covered here it is a good remedial primer, for us all.
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Omphaloskepsis 12

I wonder if Houdini ever lost his car keys?

Bought Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

I broke down and bought Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 today. Maybe I'll be an Ansel Adams or a computer artist tomorrow. Of course, Ive owned the last four versions and it hasn't happened yet.