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Monthly Archives: March 2007
Tripod Rage
I came really close to throwing my tripod in the ocean this morning. I have a Manfrotto 390 Junior tripod with integrated pan and tilt head. It was a pretty good buy at the price I paid but I have come to realise that it is not quite stable enough for my needs. More importantly the head is virtually impossible to position and lock accurately, which is why it nearly ended up in the ocean today. I was trying to take some close-up shots of a piece of seaweed and everytime I tried to lock the tripod at the elevation I wanted there would be just enough play for it to drop to just below what I wanted. So it was a fight to guess how much too high to set the elevation to cater for this. So I think that my next photographic purchase will be a better tripod and a good ball head.
Supporting Local Music
I’m not sure how I ended up on Rhythm Records’ mailing list but when I received a copy of their newsletter last week it looked interesting so I took a look at their site and spotted one or two albums I wanted to buy.
This evening I got around to actually doing so. I was very satisfied with the experience. They have a long list of South African artists on their catalogue and offer non-DRMed downloads in MP3 format so you can play them on any OS and download them to any MP3 player. Their music is reasonably priced at R6 per track, considerably less than the likes of Pick ‘n Play, who charge more than twice this for most tracks and only offer DRMed downloads that can only be played in Windows Media Player.
So what did I buy? Two albums, Takeaways by Bed On Bricks and The Red Stone Album by Pebbleman.
I saw Bed On Bricks play live at Rock The Bay in December 2005 and thought they were a really great live band so when I saw that their third album was an acoustic live set I just had to buy it. I’ve given it a spin and I like it. It has a mellow vibe but is still upbeat and funky as you would expect from Bed On Bricks.
My only experience of Pebbleman was the track Loaded Gun that I downloaded from SAMP3.com a few months ago. It is a driving guitar-based rock track and impressed me greatly. Listening to the samples of Pebbleman’s other tracks revealed them all to be of the same ilk. A nice album, not metal, but good old-fashioned hard rock.
I will definitely be passing more of my business to Rhythm Records and will continue downloading sample tracks from SAMP3.com to get an idea of what local music I like and want to buy. I suggest you do the same.
On the subject of South African music, you might want to check out my South African Music group on Flickr. If you’ve taken any photos of South African musicians then join the group and post them.
Neil’s and Lloyd’s Most Excellent Adventure
If you’re into travel stories then you must check out Neil’s and Lloyd’s Most Excellent Adventure, a travel diary of two South African friends attempting to cross South America in 100 days. Countries they have visited or will be visiting are Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras. Today’s entry talks about their experience of tackling the infamous “Death Road”, which turns out to be less scary than its reputation suggests, on mountain bikes.
Posted in Thoughts
Not What It Sounds Like
I just came across afuckaday, which sounds like a cheap and nasty porn site, but is actually a blog showcasing some pretty nice artistic nude and erotic photography. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.
Tagged Photography
This sucks!
From the SABC news feed.
Toddler drowns at Pretoria day-care centre
March 13, 2007, 06:30A 13-month-old baby drowned in a pool at a day-care centre in Pretoria Gardens yesterday.
Trevor Putterill, a Netcare 911 spokesperson, says paramedics found the child in cardiac arrest on arrival at the scene and attempted to resuscitate him. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but declared dead on arrival.
Putterill says there was apparently no sign of fencing around the pool or netting over it.
This is shocking! How the hell can someone run a daycare centre with an open swimming pool?
Surf Phosphorescence in False Bay
Almost two weeks ago Michelle sent me a link to this article about phosphorescence in the waters of False Bay that was apparently related to the red tide we have had here for some weeks. She hoped that I would get some photographs of it and I meant to but things have been hectic and it was last evening before I got the chance to go out and take some photos of the setting sun and surf. The red tide seems to be almost gone so I had not expected to see any phosphorescence and was surprised when I started seeing the greenish blue glow in the surf as darkness fell. Sadly I had some difficulty focussing in the dark so this is one of the best shots I got. Still the slight blur adds some mood to the scene.
Posted in Photos
Is a Flickr stream a blog?
I was just looking at the finalists for the 2007 SA Blog Awards and noticed that two of the finalists in the Best SA Photographic Blog category are Flickr streams, not blogs as I understand them.
craniac's place 