Album cover feels

I took a photo that looked like an album cover, so…I made one.

High contrast, sepia photo of people wearing dark, warm clothes walking in a diagonal line through a walkway under a train line. The photo has been cropped and made to look like an album cover with the band name ‘below ground’ printed in large, all-caps text along the bottom. In the top left corner, in slightly opaque bright yellow text, is the album title ‘Volume IV’.

“But what about the three previous albums”, you ask?

Well, this is where it all started…

Photo of a harshly lit underpass, tweaked till the photo is very high contrast black and orange. The photo has been made to look like an album cover for a band named ‘Below Ground’ – which is written in large, all capital letters along the bottom of the image. The album is titled ‘Volume 1’.

Then there was the difficult sophomore album…

Photo of a tunnel with (apparently) colourful panels placed across its curved ceiling. The photo has been desaturated to a pale blue tint and had been made to look like an album cover. Along the bottom of the image, in all capital letters, is the band’s name: ‘Below Ground’. In the top left corner is the album title: ‘2’.

Followed by a critically acclaimed and welcome change in direction by the third album…

Photo of train tracks entering a train station through a tunnel with a large pedestrian crossing on top of it. The photo has been made to look like an album cover, with the band’s name ‘Below Ground’ printed in all-caps at the bottom of the image. In the top left corner is the lowercase letter i repeated three times, which are the Roman numerals for the number three deliberately written incorrectly. That is the title of this album.

Also, these look better when you put them together in a grid :)

Digital cameras through the years

As I dug through my old photos to precisely date my lost Instagram years, it occurred to me that I hadn’t documented anywhere all the digital cameras I’ve been using since 2005. So here’s that list in a nice timeline for future reference.

Infographic showing a series of digital cameras and smartphones placed along a timeline from 2005 to 2021

I don’t just have a timeline, I actually have a record of the first date on which I took a photo using each of these cameras. So, for completeness’ sake…

  1. Olympus µ-20: 4 Jan 2005

  2. Sony Ericsson K750i: 6 May 2006

  3. Canon IXUS 120 IS: 23 Aug 2008

  4. BlackBerry Bold 9000: 25 Jun 2009

  5. HTC Desire HD: 27 Nov 2011

  6. Apple iPhone 4: 1 Dec 2012

  7. Samsung Galaxy S III: 2 Feb 2013

  8. Samsung Galaxy Note 4: 9 Nov 2014

  9. Google Pixel XL: 2 Nov 2016

  10. Google Pixel 3XL: 18 Dec 2018

  11. Google Pixel 6 Pro: 28 Oct 2021

Fun times, and some really good photos too – the oldest of which you can see on my Flickr photostream, by the way (which I don’t post to anymore).

I look forward to seeing which camera – smartphone-based or otherwise – I get next.

UPDATE: I bought a new camera, a Fujifilm X-S10, in December 2022.

Unlocked Instagram photos 4: Jul 2018 to Dec 2018

July 2018

Melbourne

August 2018

Melbourne

September 2018

Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane

October 2018

Melbourne

November 2018

Melbourne

December 2018

Melbourne

Unlocked Instagram photos 3: Jan 2018 to Jun 2018

January 2018

Melbourne

February 2018

Melbourne

March 2018

Melbourne

April 2018

Melbourne

May 2018

Melbourne

June 2018

Melbourne

Unlocked Instagram photos 2: Jul 2017 to Dec 2017

July 2017

Melbourne, Sorrento

August 2017

Melbourne

September 2017

Melbourne

October 2017

Melbourne, Dubai, Karachi

November 2017

Karachi, Islamabad, Melbourne

December 2017

Melbourne

Unlocked Instagram photos 1: Dec 2016 to Jun 2017

December 2016

Sydney, Melbourne, Freemantle

January 2017

Melbourne

February 2017

Melbourne

March 2017

Melbourne, Avalon

April 2017

Melbourne

May 2017

Melbourne

June 2017

Melbourne, Sorrento

My lost years on Instagram

I’m not a fan of tightly gated internet communities. By ‘tightly gated’ I mean communities (ie social networks) that don’t provide public RSS feeds and also don’t let you view anyone’s content without being logged in yourself.

Instagram is one such gated community.

All my photos used to be publicly accessible

Before 2007 I didn’t publicly share many photos online. Those that I did, I uploaded as albums to this website – like my engagement and wedding photos.

Then in 2007 I joined Flickr and started posting all my photos there. Flickr was an excellent site, and I even had a paid account for several years.

My Flickr photostream from 2007

Instagram launched its Android app in April 2012, so a few months later I started posting photos there as well. During this period I cross-posted all my photos to both Instagram and Flickr.

Flickr stagnated, Instagram innovated

Unfortunately, Yahoo! pretty much stopped investing in Flickr. So, while Instagram was becoming increasingly easier and more fun to use, Flickr stayed where it was.

That’s why from 2017 I stopped cross-posting, and instead posted all my photos to Instagram only.

My Instagram photos from 2017

Facebook locked down Instagram

In the earlier days of Instagram you could still browse someone’s profile and look through all their photos without needing an Instagram account yourself. But, over time, Facebook made Instagram an increasingly tighter gated community.

Recognising this was happening, from the start of 2019 I started cross posting all my photos to this blog. That’s where we are now.

Diagram showing four timelines. Three of these are light grey in colour and are labeled ‘Flickr’ (2 Mar 2007 to 7 May 2017), ‘Instagram’ (8 Nov 2012 to 9 Apr 2019), and ‘Random tangent blog’ (1 Jan 2019 to now). One is orange in colour and is labeled ‘Instagram only’ (2017-2019).

Unlocking two years of ‘lost’ photos

What all this means is that I have almost two years’ worth of photos locked inside Instagram’s walled garden. This is what I’m now here to fix.

Over the next four posts I’ll re-share all my Instagram photos from 2017 and 2018 that are currently only available on that platform.

Here goes…

Moving a car workshop

At first I thought this was someone was getting a classic car delivered to them. Then I realised it’s somebody moving their entire workshop because this truck was followed by at least seven others, all carrying cars in various states of repair.

Photo of a beautifully restored 1960s era classic car in pale yellow on the back of a towing truck that’s driving down a residential street.

Food court, 4pm

I love a good liminal space, and I walked by one my way home from work today.

Overhead photo of a mostly empty corner of a food court. There are empty tables and chairs neatly lined up, with only one person sitting and eating and a couple of others walking by.

Also this café, that’s now closed till breakfast.

Photo of a food court café named Lily Li that’s closed for the day. The lights have been turned off and all the chairs have been placed upside down on the tables.

Tu chal, mein aaya

Shout out to Nadia for getting me this happy mug for my recent birthday and to Sophie Hurst for the lovely design!

Selfie of a bald man with a salt-and-pepper beard holding up a large white mug. On the mug is an illustration of a brightly coloured Pakistani rickshaw, drawn on a yellow background. Below the illustration is the text “tu chal, mein aaya…”.

Stopping to smell the flowers

Stopping to smell the flowers.

(Well, technically, stopping to smell which dog had peed on those flowers – but whatever.)

Photo of a red/brown dog smelling the bottom of two large flowering bushes on the side of the residential street. The dog is wearing a walking harness that’s attached to a lead that the photographer is holding.

Maggie, waiting

There’s a box of hot chips on the counter and, since Nadia and I have walked out of the kitchen, she is mightily concerned that she isn’t going to get any more.

(I came back. She did get a couple more.)

Photo of a red/brown dog standing next to a kitchen counter with her ears pricked and her attention focused on what’s on top of the counter.

Same dog, same kitchen counter – just a few hours earlier at doggie dinner time. Nadia is measuring the dog food before she puts it in Maggie’s food bowl.

Photo of a red/brown dog waiting in anticipation next to a kitchen counter. The dog is looking up at someone who is off camera.

COVID-19 vaccine winter booster!

Turns out when you’ve already had three Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations without any reaction you don’t have to wait around inside the pharmacy for fifteen minutes after your fourth one :)

Selfie of a man inside a car. The man has the left sleeve of his black t-shirt rolled up to show a plaster over the place on his upper arm where he was given a vaccination injection.

Happy potato

Nice, long walk
+ routine visit to the vet
+ drying off in front of the heater (it’s a cold, rainy day)
+ pig’s ear treat
= happy potato (who is snoring gently).

Photo of a red/brown dog curled up and fast asleep in a comfy dog bed in a carpeted room.

Neighbourhood buffet

Best. Walk. Ever. Well, at least for Maggie.

We found a pile of chips under a tree (which is what she’s being pulled away from here), a whole open packet of crackers, and two small orange and poppy seed muffins.

She managed to sample a bit of each.

Photo of a red/brown dog straining on her walking harness and lead as she tries to get at something at the base of a tree.

Picard season 2 was ruined in editing

I finally got around to watching season two of Star Trek: Picard and, while the story itself was fine, I think the show’s pacing and editing ruined the whole experience.

I think if the showrunners had been forced to tell this story in eight episodes instead of ten, they would have gotten rid of the slack and produced a tighter, more enjoyable show.

*SPOILER WARNING* Season two of Star Trek: Picard discussed freely below

Banner for season two of the TV show Star Trek: Picard

I liked the story, and everyone’s motivations were good

Time travel stories in the broader Star Trek universe can be fun: “how would people from the future navigate life on earth in this century?” is an interesting idea to explore. Sadly, these stories frequently end up being, well, a little bit tedious. And ST:P season two is no exception.

That said, I do like this season’s overall story, which is centred around the idea that ‘no one should be alone’. That’s what motivates the actions and decisions of all the principal protagonists:

  • A story: Q doesn’t want to be alone when he dies, so he plans one last adventure with his favourite pet, Jean-Luc Picard. And since Q doesn’t want Picard to die alone either, he uses that adventure to force Picard to confront his past. Picard doesn’t want to be alone, but his difficult past (which we are shown in slow, excruciatingly drawn-out detail) stops him from having a genuine relationship with Laris (who also doesn’t want to be alone).

  • B stories: Raffi and Seven want to be together, but Seven needs to stop hating her Borg-self and Raffi needs to stop trying to control Seven (and everyone else around her). Rios feels disconnected from everyone, which he tries in-part to overcome by attaching himself to father figures through his life (Picard being the latest). Tallinn has watched and guided Renée Picard from afar, but she has never been able to connect with her charge directly.

  • C story: Jurati and the Borg Queen are alone in every timeline, and they go through their lives trying to connect with others in one way or another. And since this is a C storyline (ie not a standard, secondary-character development, B storyline) it merges with the A storyline at the end of the season.

  • D stories (covering the junior principal cast): Elnor is torn between the Qowat Milat and Starfleet, and he doesn’t know which of his extended families he wants to be with. Kore wants to be free to live a life alongside everyone outside her bubble. Young Guinan feels isolated on this planet since she’s having a difficult time connecting with humanity.

  • E stories (?): Adam Soong didn’t have a real storyline, did he? He was just given a shallow motivation for his antagonist-ey actions. And Renée Picard was just a convenient butterfly-wing-flap that Q used to change the future, so she didn’t have much of a metaphorical journey either.

None of the D stories needed to be told in this season, though at least Elnor’s journey provided Raffi with the drive to move forward. Young Guinan’s story was interesting for TNG fans, but Kore’s story was entirely unnecessary to the main plot. I’m guessing the showrunners didn’t want to drop Isa Briones as a principal cast member from a whole season of filming and that’s why they wrote in Kore’s mini story arc. Though maybe formerly-Wesley Crusher’s appearance will set up something interesting for season three? Who knows?

The editing could have been so much better

The real error ST:P’s showrunners made in this season, I think, was that they elevated the A story too far above the B and C stories. As a result, too much screen time was dedicated to Jean-Luc Picard and far too much screen time was dedicated to his past.

In telling J-L’s story painfully slowly it’s like the showrunners were creating a show for particularly dim twelve-year-olds who needed to be repeatedly hit over the head with the story stick for them to keep up with what was going on. From episode three onwards Nadia and I rolled our eyes and audibly groaned Every Single Time in which they showed us anything from J-L’s childhood.

Still from the TV show Star Trek: Picard showing the characters Agnes Jurati and the Borg Queen

In contrast we were both riveted to the screen every time Jurati and the Borg Queen interacted with each other. We could tell from early on in episode three that whatever transpired between these two characters would have far-reaching consequences on our rag-tag team of time travellers. This storyline was written beautifully, told tightly, acted brilliantly, and executed sharply. If only the A story had been written half as well.

I think there were three ways in which they could have improved the A story:  

  • They could have gone with drastically variable episode run-times, which we know works just fine on streaming platforms. They could have skipped the entire FBI agent Martin Wells bit altogether, for example. That little aside served absolutely no purpose to the broader story, and they could have just made Picard and Young Guinan wait for Q in the bar for one whole episode instead.

  • They could have gone with one, or even two, fewer episodes, which would have forced them to tighten their overall writing, cut down on the flashbacks, and generally move the story along at a much tighter clip.

  • They could have trusted the audience to keep up with was going on, which would have helped them get to the point much, much quicker. There have been so many time travel stories told on film and television in the intervening years between the season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation and season two of Star Trek: Picard. Viewers would have kept up. There have also been numerous stories about people confronting their past, understanding themselves better, and then changing their future decisions as a result. But no. We needed to be shown everything in a contrived/fake-clever manner and then had everything explained to us in a, frankly, condescending way as the season progressed. It was infuriating.

Still from the TV show Star Trek: Picard showing the characters Chris Rios and Teresa Ramirez

On the plus side, I thought the B stories were all told really nicely. Before watching season two I’d listened to the No Man's Land audio drama featuring Raffi and Seven that was set immediately after season one. Knowing what happened in that story made the Raffi/Seven storyline in this season more enjoyable. And Rios is such a puppy dog. I was lovely seeing him happy in this season instead of him being all mopey like he was for most of season one.

I’m still looking forward to season three

I sincerely hope the studio and showrunners take on the feedback they’ve received on season two, and that they do a better job with writing and editing season three – particularly on the A story. I know they’re capable of telling a great story, I just hope that this comes out in the execution.

*fingers crossed*

Delightfully dessert-ey

I’ve had a delightfully dessert-ey few days.

First I made a (gluten and lactose free) three-tier carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Plus a basic fruit trifle. Both turned out really well :)

Photo of a dining table (with a flowery table cloth) around which people are standing. On the table is a large cake with rustic cream cheese frosting and the numbers 5 and 0 stuck on top of it. Also on the table is a trifle bowl containing fruit trifle that’s topped off with vanilla custard.

Then yesterday I made two pies: one apple and one sweet potato.

I made the gluten free sweet pastry for these from scratch too.

Close up photo of an apple pie cooling on a rack. Behind the apple pie, and slightly out of focus, is a sweet potato pie.

The apple pie even featured an unintentional alien face :)

Close up photo of an apple pie that has three slits cut into it so steam can vent during baking. The slits are arranged in a way that looks like two angled eyes and a vertical mouth.

And since I had some leftover pastry, I made a few mini apples pies for good measure!

Photo of four mini open apple pies cooling on a rack on a kitchen counter.

Those turned out pretty well too.

Close up photo of a mini open apple pie with crispy, caramelised apples and a nicely browned crust. This pie is lying on a cooling rack, along with a couple of adjacent mini pies.

So yay for some successful weekend baking!