Melons Ahoy You Pervert

Not those kinds of melons.  These ones:

They're already desperately attracted to the sun so until I plant them outside I'm going to rotate them around.  By the pictures I've seen on the internet they seem to sprawl which would seem to suggest they just kind of flop over and face the sun as soon as they can.  But we don't suffer layabouts here, so they're going to grow upwards until they get their own place.

So far we have four confirmed germinations which is good news for melon lovers, as I only have three possible spots.  The strongest survive.  The weakest may well go into a playoff for the final two positions, both living in one pot with the aim being to grow little portable melons to send back to england.  I'm not sure of their edibility, but they might make good ornaments.

The other weaklings must, I'm afraid, head off into the sunset, unless of course I can sneakily plant them somewhere around here where no one will notice.  Guerilla gardening.

Farming

So I'm now officially a farmer.

Interestingly, of the dozen melons I planted this is the only one to come up so far.  These four plants were separated from the rest which makes me assume that the quarantine I imposed on these guys was actually beneficial in some way.  I'm assuming it's warmer where I put them.  Or maybe I forgot to water them and that made this melon start growing.

The spider plant also has some new growth which is encouraging.  I've since put these four somewhere brighter, and moved the other lazy bastards where these guys were previously.  If they don't start getting their acts together, they'll be in the bin.  I've already given them a verbal warning, next is written.

Straight to the Knees

So my knee's still not right.  It's been a couple of weeks so I went back to the doctor today with the expectation of maybe booking an MRI for a few days time.  What I got was something slightly different.

Oh boy.

So I'm going to get really technical here, so please bear with me.  There are a few squishy, fleshy pads knocking around the ol' nobblies and mine were either swollen, or there was swelling surrounding them.  That part was lost in translation, but I did just about manage to understand the swelling part.  Anyway, that's when he whipped out an eight foot comedy needle that required two nurses to carry it into the room.

Obviously that didn't happen, but an injection was required.  An injection to the knee.  While awake.  Let that just sink in.  Absolutely horrific.  It's also not a quick injection, presumably the added fluid isn't particularly natural and your systems need to adapt, slosh around a bit.  It's a pretty damned weird feeling because the knee is usually a fairly closed system and when you add several litres of unknown nonsense I imagine it's a bit of a shock.  The knee was pretty tight afterwards, I kept expecting a fountain of gore every step.  Mainly litres of water or whatever but some gore too.

Anyway, if this doesn't help over the weekend it'll be the MRI option.  I'm not a doctor but with a knee full of mysterious liquids, won't it be difficult to get a picture?  Maybe they'll have to stab deep into my knee again, this time to extract the lake they put in today.

Lensageddon

So I bought my camera a few years ago, which means it's nearly time for the new models to come out.  Nikon have already produced their camera in my range, or are very close to doing so.  Canon are going to release their stuff in a few months.  Obviously, this camera was a once in a lifetime purchase, I'll never be able to afford something as expensive or frivolous again so I've been looking at the lenses that currently make up their lineup.

I really want a big lens.  One of the 400mm pro lenses that get you shot in america because they think you're carrying a bazooka.  The kind of lens that comes with an aluminium case for lugging it around because it's too big for a normal bag.

Alas, two things stop me.  Firstly and least importantly, I wouldn't use the lenses that much.  Wicked interesting animal pictures, strange portraits and occasional oddities aside, I'd probably only ever haul it out a few times a year.  Then again having one of those in the wardrobe would probably get me out more frequently.

The second and more important reason is obvious.  They cost, even second hand, as much as a car.  The cheaper versions would suffice for me, probably anything above f4 (if you don't know what an f number is, it basically means that, should I have this lens, my penis is bigger than someone with an f5.6, but smaller than someone with an f2.8).  Second hand price doesn't drop that much once you get to a certain echelon of gear, so all of these are thousands of wonga, even if used.

So I started looking around for other types of lenses that were feasible within the next year or two, stuff that had a practical use for me.  I really like the idea of a 50mm, a prime that you can just walk around with and take some pictures.  The 50mm primes are cool because they're really fast and relatively small, which means you can hand hold them just fine and use available light, which means not toting around a flash or tripod.  As I have none of these things it's almost the ideal type of lens.  Unfortunately the good ones of this variety are pretty expensive too.

So I'm back to square one.  I came across some interesting macro options.  These are cool because they let you blow up small objects, making them fill a frame with things you might not otherwise see.  If you get a normal macro lens route you can take quite nice pictures of people, and you can get pretty darn close to small insects too.  This is a kind of photography I could get behind, and despite the relatively low prices of these lenses, you need a tripod and lighting setup, which inflates the price.  To get the really cool pictures you would look at something like this.

It magnifies everything up to five times which is great because it opens up a world of photography that you can indulge in anywhere.  Looking at everyday stuff blown up to be huge is fascinating, and with the setup required being relatively small, you'd just have a box in the corner of the room with all the gear you'd need to take a picture.  You could probably take some really interesting videos too.  I think that's my next project.  Save up for that particular lens, clear out a corner and set something like that up.

Thousands of pounds are impossible, a few hundred might not be.  Super saving powers go!

Operation Fruits Go Go

So I'm going to try and grow some fruits this year.  As a cursory fan of enormous fruit and veg, I obviously went straight to melons, because they don't have the potential of, say, a pumpkin -  but they can still get big.  I think both those pictures are the same grower.

Anyway, the biggest oaks start with the smallest acorns.  Or something.

The two in the middle are spider plants, I'm trying to grow new ones because I had a couple of spare pot things.

I'm going for some strawberries too, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get all this lot in the sun outside.  The veranda is extremely thin and has a high wall, so it doesn't get much sunlight.  I'll have to find a table, or even better, steps.

Something to think mull over.

And a picture of, is that Putin?  Riding a weasel?  Riding a woodpecker?  Being chased by Gandalf?  And a stormtrooper?  The internet in a nutshell.

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before

So I can't sleep.

I know, you've probably heard someone else on the internet talk about not being able to sleep.  You might even have seen it on here, shock and much gasping.

As such, I'm left wondering what to write about at four in the morning.

My knee still hurts.  Definitely going back to the doctor on Monday, I'll have to brow-beat an MRI out of him.

Cherry blossom season is once more speeding towards us.  The trees are starting to bud which means waiting a couple of weeks, I should imagine.

Terry Pratchett died.  The author of my favourite series, and probably my favourite book.  I've been staving off his most recent works because this way was inevitable, what with his illness, and I wanted to essentially main line the endings to all the threads he started decades ago.  My insignificant homage will be to tie his series up in as short a time as possible, leaving what I can remember of his older books to memory.  Actually that's a lie, I'll definitely re-read everything at some point in my life.

I've been writing a book since December.  It's about one quarter finished, which means at the current rate the first draft will be done in a year, the final copy in about a decade.  Refresh the page hourly for rip-roaring content updates about this.

Also, if you read this you're obliged to buy at least one copy when it's released (self publishing, woo!).  My stated aim is simple:  In my lifetime I want to sell a hundred books.  Whether that's ten books, ten sales each or one book with one hundred copies, I don't mind.  That's a fairly modest number right?  I think it's doable in a lifetime.  Anyway, you've got a year to save up a tenner.  Hop to it.  (Please.)

Needs More Fireworks

So a few weeks ago I went snowboarding.  The highlight was the small festival the area happened to hold when we arrived.

They must have heard about me.

Anyway, using a camera phone (because obviously I chose not to bring my camera the one time they had an event) I took some photos that you may have seen before, but I also shot some video.  The camera had the damndest time trying to figure out where to focus and this caused a fair number of problems when it came to putting a small compilation together.  Nothing was in focus.  The stuff that was in focus had a few unsupervised children screaming through them (a joy in person, too) so they were unusable.  The result was the following short video.  Despite the fact it was taken with a phone, the quality isn't bad (when it can decide to stop focussing on alpha centauri).

A Quick Look at the Daruma Market

So the prior post was about the pictures I took while at the market for Daruma (those plump looking red things).  This one is a really quick update to show you the video I made of my visit.  It's really quick, stupidly simple but quite indicative of the area, at least I think so.  Check it out here:

Daruma Festival

So there was a daruma festival a week or so ago.  If you're wondering what a daruma is, here you go:

The idea is that you buy one, fill in an eyeball, make a wish or some kind of resolution for the coming year and then, when the wish is fulfilled, fill in the second eye.  I think you also burn or destroy the daruma once the year is up.

The vast majority are red, with white eyes and some writing on the front or back.  Occasionally you'll see gold or white ones; at this festival there were also blue ones but I've no idea what the differences are.

There was also this wooden statue in front of the main shrine, I have no idea what it was for but very few people approached it.  Those who did rubbed it, for luck perhaps?

The figure was very obviously worn, I wonder if it was more popular in the past or if there's a separate event dedicated to this deity (if it's a god at all).  Maybe it's just really old?

The obligatory incense bowl in front, every shrine that's big enough seems to have one of these.

Everyone was having something written on their daruma, once again I'm terrible at this kind of thing because I have no idea what it says.

The finished article.  Maybe this was last years model, hence both eyes being filled in?  Maybe I'll learn, one day.

Legs

So last Saturday was the first (maybe the second?) proper training session of the year.  We'd done a lot of fitness for a couple of weeks prior but the entire squad turned up for the official beginning.

We played a few different games, aimed at skills and fitness to try and get into the new season at a run.

It was surprisingly cold so I obviously went for short sleeves because I'm a fool.

I think I had my hands crossed for 90% of training to try and keep the extremities warm.

We also played a game of 7's against a local team, I scored 2 but my hamstrings are incredibly sore again - I need to start stretching, massaging and hot/colding once again.  This seems to crop up once every few months, achilles tendinitis perhaps?

A game of 7's right after training isn't exactly a great idea so I scored our only points before I limped off.

The first one was from the kickoff, I handed off a couple and ran as hard as I could, just about making the line ahead of their team.

This is from the kickoff, bad achilles and all.

The training went well, the fitness was okay, I just need to figure out how to buy a new pair of legs and I'll be good to go!

SkiBoarding

So last weekend I went snowboarding for the first time in a long while.  It turns out that it's like riding a bike, you really can just jump back in and do it again.  There's a ton more technique in boarding though, so I wasn't quite as good as before - I think I've hit my ceiling with regards to snow based sports.

Disregarding ability, fun was had.  The Tsugaike place we went to was somewhat easy - there were only a couple of areas worth a red, and the black was only black because of the intense moguls.  Not that big lumpy blocks aren't worth a black mark, it's just that I prefer variety.

As with anywhere else in Japan, the views were spectacular.

I've only ever skii'ed in Japan and Europe so I can't speak for the whole world (obviously), but the asian mountainscape seems to be unique as far as I can tell.  They just extend forever in every direction.  Korea is the same in many regards, when flying over Korea all you can see is a sea of mountains.

This isn't the best view to show that, but it's a nice picture nonetheless.

These were taken on a phone camera, so I've not bothered to edit anything.  They seem to have come out relatively well though.

We were there during a festival period, for some reason they had this jump set up with dudes doing jumps and whatnot over it, performing tricks and whatnot.  No one managed a backflip although a couple tried it.  Ouch.

Despite the lack of backflips there were some amazing fireworks.  I'm editing the videos to make a quick compilation thing that'll be up sometime in the future, but they were unlike fireworks in England in almost every respect.  There were some enormous explosions, some triple layered fireworks (I've never seen anything explode, grow and change colour, then explode again) and a lot of really cool ground based stuff.

Trying to focus using a phone camera is a nightmare.  Who knows if any of these are going to come out.

They do a really good job of putting their fireworks to music, usually classical, (and with a short enough crappy 'pop,' music section that you don't want to leave immediately) always interesting.  They also layer their fireworks really well.

The Japanese firework game is superb - they're superb at the whole thing.

This is an example of the ground based stuff I was talking about.  They layer these in the same way as the sky based stuff.  English fireworks guys need to take a close look at the Japanese scene.

So as it was a festival, they cut a lot of little spaces like this into the snow.  Every hotel or store has their little area in front filled with mountains of snow, a great way to make a small display like this.

Another small cubby with a candle.  I wonder what the fire risk associated with this is?

The above was one of these.

A rather large hotel had a front that obviously bore the brunt of the snow clearers, but at least they get to have a fun little diplay like this out front during the season.

I tried a small steerable snow thingy for the first time.  They're pretty cool but the one I rode was incredibly slow; the runner were plastic with random flecks of metal sticking out of the runners, screws not fully placed and the worlds smallest steering wheel, none of which add up for speed or control.  If you lived in an area like this presumably you'd have your own and maintain it properly.

The festival itself was fairly low key except for the fireworks (which were dope, so to speak)  but well worth checking out if you're in the area.  We came across a couple of local kids digging in some of the displays (shown above) which was a nice little slice of life, showing how people in the area live.  Worth it!