ankonymous in Dublin

Soon I'll hear old winter's song

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:26:00 +0000

I suppose there is no arguing with it: Summer, though it may never have started, is already over.

12°C in the morning, storms that shake even small mews houses, and leaves that stretch the variation of possible shades of green far too far into yellow for it to seem reversible.
I believe the total count of days of 20°+ this year was about eight. And the "+" means that the maximum was something like 23°. For an hour. Damn you, Ireland, last year I defended your meteorological qualities against the skeptics but this year, I've joined their ranks.
Now off to dig out winter clothes... oh wait, no need: I was pretty much wearing the same stuff year round anyway.

Faking the season

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Ever since I moved to Dublin, I seem immensely interested in discussing the weather. Not sure if it's cultural (as all English school books would have you believe: This language seems built for weather-related small talk) or just out of despair with the lack of proper seasons, combined with the continued hope that yes, one day, it will be summer. (Actually, that came true: Summer lasted about one day.) So when you see summer end before it even seems to have arrive, what can you do? Yes, exactly: Try the "Summer" setting on your favourite Android camera app and avoid looking at the world without that friendly digital filter. (Yes, I see it too: It makes it look kind of... sunny-autumnal. Still better than rainy-autumnal though...)

Over before it's begun

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:28:00 +0000

I'm quite sure that this is the first time I've seen a ripe chestnut before my sister's birthday, which should be at the peak of summer and traditionally involves complaints about the heat and demands for ice cream. Not in Ireland. August 26th and the trees have already begun to drop decidedly autumnal bits and pieces onto Dublin streets. Meh.

What remains of the (birth)day

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:31:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:25:00 +0000

Oh wow, has this blog been neglected. Well.
It's not for the lack of pictures to post or stories to tell, so other than way-too-long days at the office, I have no excuse.

So. Jumping straight back into this: Rounded squares shall be the new format of choice to capture snippets of daily life. Here, it's a birthday "cake" (well, a decorated 'Amerikaner' pastry) that was a) tasty and b) a Space Invader kit voucher, because glass mosaic tiles were hard to bring across Europe.

And when the bakery offers only subobtimal wrapping, so that the frosting on your pastry gets damaged, what better way to cover that than a shooting space invader?

Whom should I trust?

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 20:39:00 +0000

I am so confused.

German romance

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 14 May 2011 13:06:00 +0000

Georgian spring

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:57:00 +0000

It was spring, glorious and sunny, all week while I had to be inside in a nearly windowless office. Now it's Good Friday and rain is here. Let's hope this is a meteorological manifestation of pure Catholic spirit that will end tomorrow.
I am at work, for I was very German and assumed that something that is not an official holiday will require me to be at work. That is incorrect: It is not an official holiday but we didn't have to work anyway. Riiight. Oh well, so I save this free day for later. Now that spring is over, that seems less of a loss.

A day in the life of... (California Dreaming, 24.3.2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:25:00 +0000

Rest in peace, young camera.

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:45:00 +0000

Ruhe sanft., originally uploaded by ankonym.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in Dublin and our young heroine was getting ready, some small pretty things gathered around her on the wooden floor of the terrace, the macro rings put into place, camera on its tripod, when suddenly... death struck this peaceful scene. Gasp!

For a few friendly seconds, the LiveView function showed the blue glass plate and some decorative innards of an apple. And then our heroine tried to take a picture, and then it was All F**cked Up. Suddenly, the Live View now longer viewed (much less live), the shutter button kept things shut, and the "off" button refused to off anything at all.

Many desparate rescue attempts later, the only noticeable change is that the Live View now shows grey instead of blue (the inside of those curtain-like shutter thingies?). It is not related to: The battery, the lens, the memory card, the firmware, user settings, or anything like the camera falling or being subject to any outside violence.

So testing it out, it still does everything. Except take pictures because, it appears, the mirror no longer moves and the shutter no longer... un-shuts? Nothing seems to be stuck there, though. Did some kind of motor die? Suddenly I think I haven't heard the dust buster sound in a long time. Was this a slow, silent dying process and I didn't notice?

This feels remarkably tragic. The camera is only three years old and has taken 15684 pictures. Certainly not enough to die?

Olympus customer care suggests I take out the battery for three days. (Three days? What mysterious energy-storing devices are in there?) The hidden menu shows me a damage code (8805) but Olympus does not reveal the meaning of them to outsiders. (Why?!) Google does not lead me anywhere, except to learning that if your camera is still under warranty, Olympus replaces it. Sigh.This does not help me at all.

I'm considering a move to Nikon. I might not even respect a reasonable mourning period for my deceased little camera. The only thing left to decide: D3100 or D5100? Is a swivelling display worth 400 additional pounds? Decisions, decisions.

Or maybe I just return to my sketchbook. And use the old camera as a very fancy picture-viewing devide for CF cards.

Californian adventures

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:16:00 +0000

Before breakfast on my first day in San Francisco, I already found myself chasing a fugitive hit-and-run victim in a red Mercedes. And that was not because I was too jet-lagged to realise I was still asleep. No: They do hit-and-run accidents a bit differently here, in that a pedestrian threw himself at the windshield of a car turning a corner on Mission Street, breaking it in the process, and then running off at full speed.
The girl in the passenger seat had glass all over her, the driver was confused, but the driver of the car that I was in started to put his powerful German engine to good use and whooshed after him. (Not that the chase was very far - he ran into a Mexican bar 50 meters down the street.)
We stopped him successfully, and found the driver, as well as another pedestrian who had tried to help - who, by the way, let us know that he had never seen the car jumper do this before - "usually he just throws stuff, but not himself." Ah. I start to believe in the theory that San Francisco is unusually full of pure madness.

What else was there?
Excellent brunch at Foreign Cinema, even though I must say that I don't believe in roasted lettuce.
Then, wandering around Mission, we found ourselves in a a lecture of the Free University of San Francisco (by following sounds from the basement of a funky shop with altered antiques) by the Godfather of Street Art, Blek le Rat.

It was interesting, but the highlight of the day may well have been the Salted Caramel/Honey Lavender ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery.
The queue of about 50 people that they seem to have at all times, all of them waiting patiently for 20 minutes to get served in that tiny hole-in-the-wall bar, indicated already that there was some real culinary goodness ahead. But... wow. WOW, I say. This topped the apple crumble with rosemary ice cream I had in Dublin a month ago in Coppinger Row, and that is saying something. It was The Best Ice Cream Ever (if capitalisation impresses you, dear reader), and made other consumers of their products exclaim ecstatic things about it being the culinary equivalent of seeing rainbows and unicorns dance about. And it was totally true.

Where did you come from, where did you go?

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:04:00 +0000

Bielefeld

When I meet new people (mostly Germans, and from a certain... shall we call it school of humour?), I don't have to worry about the first few minutes of conversation: Upon hearing my name, they will invariably point out that it rhymes with "danke" (Really! Never heard that one!) and then, when they hear about my home town, they will giggle and point out that it does not even exist. Scarily enough, this pretty little conspiracy proved to be robust and rather viral - I have, in fact, met Americans who had barely been to Europe, much less Germany, and still knew that the existence of Bielefeld, metropole of East Westfalia, seems questionable to many.

Haha. My life is full of humorous highlights, indeed.

But some recent internet surfing led me to a website for people whose home town truly does not exist (anymore): Those who grew up in Pine Point, Canada, now only see some asphalt roads leading through flat land, and if they look closely, all that remains of their city is the basement of the hotel that was overlooked when eradicating all traces of this place. And, it seems, the cemetery, because unlike their old houses, the dead were not relocated. There is a pretty cool site that documents it all.

My own home town is still intact. I must say that some of its neighbourhoods could benefit from having some of the more atrocious pieces of 1950s architecture removed, but apart from that, it is quite alive.

Fluffy coworker

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:42:00 +0000

Ich wollt, ich wär ein Kater, originally uploaded by ankonym.

Working from home: Less food, more plushy cats.
Being in Germany: Within a sentence of introducing yourself and answering the question what you do for a living, you're likely to find yourself trying to react gracefully to being called one of the world's most evil terrorists (killers of privacy, thieves of data).
What I will never understand is - why does the "theft" of the least private data, i.e., the front of your house that every person walking down the street can see anyway, seem to infuriate ze Germans most? Why do those who are most outraged at Google (and who seem to use it as a catch-all term for "the internet" and "modern life") usually readily give up all their private data to companies like Payback and Happy Digits - just because they get a few cents in bonus points in exchange? Why do they allow these people to create highly detailed shopping profiles for them, complete with age and interest, yet bore me with their ill-informed rants about the pure evil that is Google Analytics?
I'm a wee bit tired of this whole discussion. But I do appreciate the fluffy desk buddy.

And since we've no place to go/don't let it snow...

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Snow! In Winter! One should think that this does not really constitute anything newsworthy but Europe, this year, is proving this assumption wrong: People are getting stuck in airports, train stations, or both, airlines tell you to rather take trains while the railway operators advise the opposite. When you find yourself stuck on an island, only one of these options applies anyway, and when you are my landlord, you will claim that you cannot even leave your own home in the first place. (This will not keep the landlord's plumber of choice from showing up unannounced at 9am on a Sunday to tear out large bits of bathroom, only to remember then that hey! Dublin shut down water supplies until 11, so we can't even do anything about anything!)
It is a joyful thing that 2011 will begin with a move. (To a HOUSE! Exciting!) Let's hope that moldy walls and unreliable water tanks and undetected leaks will then be a thing of the past.
For now, I am grateful that I made it home (first to Cologne, then to Bielefeld) with only minimal weather-related struggles, and keep my fingers crossed for all coworkers to get home (or at least somewhere nicer than the airport, for those who already know they won't make it home.)
In the meantime, I'm working from home, with a guest on the window sill to keep me company. He looks a bit apologetic though: He personally wouldn't want any travellers to get stuck!

Liquid Geekification?

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:21:00 +0000

Recently, in order to complicate things, I introduced a third operating system into my life: Mac OS at work, Windows at home on my normal laptop, Linux on my shiny tiny new netbook. (This is mostly painful when you use the German keyboard shortcut for the @ symbol on a Mac: It will close things without saving. Ouch!) However, I can't say that Linux has made things as easy as the Ubuntu website had me believe - for example, each time I plug in my headset, I have to readjust the sound settings for it to work. Interestingly, these sound settings are never the same as the last time I tried, nor are they saved for the next time, even when I leave the headset plugged in. Hm.

For the Linux newbie, there are many such situations, and when you are a complete n00b, you sometimes get the feeling that some people on Linux forums enjoy making fun of fresh Linux meat, and some of their help instructions make me suspect that they might just format my hard drive, rather than fix my issue. And I'd rather not learn the hard way.

But then, the office fridge suggested a safer solution: Ubuntu Cola! I instantly downed a bottle and am now waiting for the Linux enlightenment to kick in. (I do fear that it might just re-set my sound settings so that I will lose my communication skills next time I open my mouth. Not having a console to tweak my settings, this worries me a tiny bit, but oh, the things we do for our shiny gadgets...)

This is not what I signed up for

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:02:00 +0000

neuer Freund, originally uploaded by ankonym.

Last February, flying into Dublin, the taxi driver was extremely excited to warn us, repeatedly, about the 3 millimeters of snow that were visible in dark corners of the Dublin cityscape. "It makes a crackling sound like GLASS when you step on it, be extra careful, love!"
Irish people were still in awe of that tiny bit of snow, newspapers printed snowball-making instructions, children maximise the snow output of any surface until they have cleared up the snowfall of an entire playground lawn to make a 30 cm snowman.

THIS is what I had in mind when I moved here.

Fast forward to this year: For two weeks now, Dublin is covered in 10 cm of thick ice. We have seen all variations of wintry weather - rain, hail, sleet, snow, rain that freezes over, snow that melts to freeze over again, and right now, thawing, which means added slipperiness with a bit of water on solid ice. Wheee! It's a wonder I've hardly seen any people with broken limps lately, for Irish people don't quite know what to do with this weather phenomenon. They do: de-ice cars with the help of hot water, and keep water running day and night to keep pipes from freezing and bursting. They do not: wear proper shoes, shovel snow, put gravel on unshovelled snow, have winter tyres on cars, have houses that are built as if we were in a climate zones that might get occasional winters.

So now, Dublin turns off water supplies 12 hours a day (night) because with all those open faucets, there's more water demand than supply. We don't have this issue: A plumber lately diagnosed a leak somewhere on the way to our apartment, only the landlord seems blissfully unconcerned with this, so that we haven't heard back from either of them since. Ireland, you fail at winter.

Macbook: now ankonymised

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:58:00 +0000

Macbook Pros are pretty, sleek, shiny things. Good! However, when everyone at work has the same pretty, sleek, shiny thing, it can be a bit much of all that elegant aluminium glow and not enough personality. (It's also hard to spot your own in a meeting room.) Macbook decals are a solution - however, Etsy offers
a) a limited selection so even your totally unique new work computer may end up being one in many (the same happened with Gelaskins for our Android phones, even if I love my enamoured owl one)
and
b) often horrendous shipping costs to good old Europe.

So! All you need is some adhesive plastic film (DIY stores have them), a paper cutter/exacto knife, an idea for a design (using the glowing white apple is tempting) and a lazy Saturday. (If your Macbook has a tendency to crash far more often than your old Windows machine, threatening its innocent fruit logo feels oddly satisfying.)

T-Shirt: Now with added Blesshuhn.

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 22:36:00 +0000

Blesshühner (Eurasian coots, for those whose ornithological German isn't fluent) are beautiful, stylish creatures. The Queen of England may well own all swans in her country - I just lay claim to Eurasian coots (and not just in England, either, and they have it better: I do not plan on eating them. I have it worse: I do not yet have a Coot Upper, whereas the Queen employs qualified personnel in the form of Royal Swan Uppers. I am not kidding, either: Read about it under the link; it takes you to her homepage.)

I decided that swans get far too much attention - they get their own ballet, kitschy glass souvenirs, pastries, and odd, fluffy dresses on Hollywood carpets. Coots, on the other hand, are shockingly underrepresented outside, well, ponds.

This had to change.

And so I dedicated a lazy Saturday evening to the debut of coots into the world of fashion, with the help of two t-shirts, red zigzag stitch and some reverse appliqué. Zaz, I say.(*)

(*) Zaz is what you get if you touch-type Yay on an English keyboard when you are used to the QWERTZ layout.

Detroit: Visiting the Tigers

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Once you've tried the one and only feather bowling, Detroit also offers less niche-y sports entertainment. Like baseball.
To the uninitiated European, this seems equally exotic (if more familiar from Hollywood and other pop culture references) - so you are more acquainted with the general concept, but once you find yourself at a live baseball game, you may still be surprised.
For the Germans, the overall purpose of the game may remind you a little of elementary school sports classes involving "Brennball" ('burn ball') - just with a bat, grown-ups, and bigger stadiums. And more complicated rules. And less noise.

If most live sports events you've seen so far were soccer-related, then the atmosphere at a large baseball match seems very strange: It is awfully quiet. In fact, there is a high risk that you will miss that the game has already started - but if you worry that this might make you look like an impolite foreigner who doesn't appreciate this American sport sufficiently, fear not. I got the impression, observing my surroundings, that a large part of the spectators wasn't all that involved either. No chants, no shouting, no vicious threats to the referee. Silence, or private conversation, and a big focus on purchasing and consuming fast food.
Also, no insults aimed at players who don't move around enough, because frankly - baseball doesn't exactly seem a very active sport. I guess that may be one of the reason why it's so easy to get distracted: The field is large, but most players hardly move - usually, just one or two at a time, in the distance. (The others must get quite cold, just waiting for things to happen.) And if then, you fail to grasp the finer points of the game (you may have to grow up with it - I couldn't really follow all the ways of being 'out' in just one evening), it can get quite confusing. At a very leisurely pace.
However! I may not have understood exactly why, but the Detroit Tigers won in the end, and it was followed by an immense 10 minute fireworks show.
I just wouldn't recommend going to see a live game without friendly company (who know the rules). Added bonus: I can now say that I've been in downtown Detroit (and lived to tell the tale).

Other notable events:
It appears to be an acceptable Midwestern form of greeting a random foreigner in a baseball stadium with "Right. You're from Germany. Are you trying to stay here or are you gonna go back?" (I did not say the obvious - "Gee, of course I go back! You see, our car industry is still doing very well!" - but praised my hosts while still expressing excitement to return to home sweet home in a week. Equally true, more polite. Slightly less satisfying.)

Also: Downtown Detroit has a large number of Greek restaurants, and I am still trying to recall why I believe I remember that from somewhere - from Jeffrey Eugenides' 'Middlesex', maybe? We had lovely Greek food at Pegasus (I really should have taken a picture of their neon sign!). Special recommendation: Grilled halloumi cheese that the waiter sets on fire at your table, exclaiming "Opa!" in the process. It appears that they are required to express their Greek joy in that way for this dish, and it's a very popular starter. So you will hear a more or less excited "Opa!" every few seconds. Hehe. Fun times!

Detroit: Home of feather bowling

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 06:41:00 +0000

While getting into the USA wasn't very pleasant, actually being there was great, starting in Detroit. Now, once I reached California, the standard reply to "I just got here from Detroit" seemed to be "But why would you go there?" or, a little more subtle, "Oh, do you have family there?" - California residents seem very fond of their state, and at the same time, Detroit does not exactly have a splendid reputation.
People from the Detroit area seem to agree - both on the filght there, and on the flight back, and from most people I spoke to while in the area, I didn't hear anything good about Detroit itself.
I don't actually know anything about the city (beyond watching a baseball match and eating at a Greek restaurant) and spent most of my time in a lovely suburb where the world seemed peaceful and green. Still, the repeated shock at my choice of pre-California destination made me feel strangely defensive of Detroit, and so I would like to declare that there is in fact one cool thing in Detroit that no other city in the USA can offer (if Wikipedia is to be believed): Feather Bowling.
It is said to be from Belgian, but the two Belgians I asked about it had never heard from it, and so it is well possible even that the Cadieux Café in Detroit is now the only place in the world that lets people play this amusing mix between bowling and boules. Basically, you form two teams, and each one tries to roll some small cheese-shaped wooden wheels as close to a feather as possible. (Who came up with this? Was Belgian beer involved in the creation of the rules? Did they first use real cheese? Were any birds harmed in the process? Nobody knows.)

So, in case life takes you to Michigan, try it. And spread the word that there actually are good things in Detroit.

Illegal alien, continued

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:57:00 +0000

Something I had not noticed while I noted down my first bit of fun with entering the US:

So, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has teamed up with the manufacturers of expensive luggage to offer TSA locks - locks that will keep your suitcase shut to spontaneous access from those who have no business going through your things, yet accessible to the good people who protect the US borders from people with changing fingerprints or suspicious luggage. They have a key, and so they will not have to break the lock (or, if the lock is part of the suitcase, the whole suitcase) in order to check your belongings for anything they would not like to see in the United States of America.

Sounded good! So I paid a substantial amount of extra money to Rimowa to get a fancy suitcase that TSA could open.

Right.

Only that I was informed by a remarkably rude Delta employee that the US of A's border control is under no legislation whatsoever, and nobody can make them use those locks if they are not in the mood, and noone will give you back your money if they decide that they're up for a little destruction.

The result: My expensive luxury suitcase's TSA lock was ignored. They just broke the lock, and, for good measure, the suitcase zipper as well, for their routine check.

"You were taking too long, Miss."

That's right: I was taking too long because your coworker had problems operating the fingerprint scanner. Interestingly, when I asked a TSA official later in Detroit if he could check whether there was a problem with my lock so that the key didn't work, the lock opened without any problem. However, he refused to write me a note with a TSA stamp saying that my lock worked perfectly fine - "I'm absolutely not going to get involved in anything like this." Great. Thanks.

I'm really, really annoyed with this.

World: Do not shell out money for TSA locks. They are absolutely useless.

Also, don't fly Delta through JFK. They seem to recruit their personnel in hell.

I'm a German girl in new York (I'm an alien)

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:53:00 +0000

I made it to NYC now, after 30 non-fun minutes as an illegal immigrant ("May I use the bathroom, please?" - "You will first have to discuss that with an officer at the back of the room." - "May I go to the bathroom, please?" - "Just walk out of the room and to your left." So out I walk... or try. "Do you have permission to leave this room, Miss?" - "Would you like me to go and get a written statement from the officer I just asked?" - Evil look. Oops. Thou shalt not be flippant with important US officers. But I did pee with permission, in the end. Oh, and the problem was in their fingerprint scanner, not in my personal background.
Grrrr, USA, neither your airlines nor your border control win my heart today - when I arrived at the airport this morning, I looked at the screen with the flight times and my 12.30 pm flight displayed a "delayed to 20.30". I spent five blissful seconds thinking that it was an error... then saw the queue. So I stood in line for two hours, during which time the delay was extended by three more hours to 11 hours delay in total. So... I had a free afternoon in Dublin (how very exciting).

Right now, I will have three hours of rest at the JFK Sheraton. Meh. Will flop down now and try to get as much sleep as I possibly can squeeze out of this, for tomorrow, Detroit awaits me!

Cats as productivity enhancers

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:32:00 +0000

It's late. I'm at the office.
That's not too horrible, considering I had a moment of inspiration, and spent a bit more time than usual during the afternoon honing my foosball skills.

However, thinking back to Monday last week, what I really miss is a cat eyeing me from behind the screen, rubbing against my shiny Macbook (the cat certainly has good taste in gadgets) and occasionally forcing me to take a break by trying to conquer the space of my keyboard. (I also had a few moments of malicious joy when I saw it battling balls of hair when it currently sheds like MAD - pet it for 5 minutes and you will have a mountain of cat hair next to it that roughly equals the original cat in size. Sadly, the cat owner does not allow me to test hair-prevention ideas like some friendly attention with the vacuum cleaner, or a full-body suit that can be emptied out once a day. Not even if I volunteer to knit that suit.)

I still think that cats are good for productivity at work. Nothing like doing repetitive tasks to the sound of two snoring kittens, nothing like the sudden sound of feline vomiting to wake you from the post-lunch sleepiness. I really think we need office cats.

(Not cat-related, but: I would like to give credit for my desktop background picture, which has been amusing me as well as office passers-by for some time now. You can find it, among with a nice selection of desktop background and icon sets, at pixelgirlpresents.com. Here's the direct link to my background, "Monstruitos".)

I want to flyyy awaaay (yeah, yeah...)

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:42:00 +0000

I just got back from vacations (in France) and I'm almost gone again (to the US). Wheeee!

France was good (pictures to follow in future posts) - the seagull in the picture is one of the happy creatures that get to fly around the airspace around Mont St. Michel, lucky not to have to wade through the Disneyland-ish masses on the Mont itself. (As pretty as it was, it was TOO CROWDED. It might help things if they introduced some kind of system like Granada in the Alhambra, and only allow a certain number of people in at a time. It might also help small dogs and children to survive the experience.) We decided to skip the actual abbey on top of it because the queue looked like it could take well over an hour to set foot inside, and there, I imagine it would not have been any more peaceful or empty than on the narrow streets leading up to it.

More pictures of Mont St. Michel to follow, but for now, I mostly want to remind the world of my theory on the origin of the species as far as seagulls are concerned:

Let me point something out

noreply@blogger.com (Anke) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:46:00 +0000

Arrows are overrated! Use more hands!
But I actually wanted to point out something else. I realised a while ago that my name for this project was misleading: I called it Poladroid and felt very original about it. How wrong was I! Turns out there is software by that name out there (free and pretty nice - get Poladroid here and turn your pictures into virtual polaroids, much like that one above).

My friendly little virtual polaroids, however, were made using the only Android app I have ever paid for (and went through some trouble to do it, even: It required borrowing a German sim card for my phone because Ireland, absurdly, does not offer paid apps for Android yet) - but I digress! What I really wanted to say is: If you have an Android phone, get Vignette. It is an awesome camera application that lets you tweak the picture right on your phone (like, for example, add virtual polaroid frames), but for those less amused with this than me, there are lots of other lighting options. Tilt-shift photos! Colour filters! Really, I obviously like it a lot or I would not be writing promotional copy here.
Also, thanks to Tomek for first telling me about it (visit his excellent Wroclaw photo blog too).

All that to say that I am now renaming my idea to "polandroid". I'm not sure I'll stick to the polaroid frames forever, but for the moment, it represents the fact that I have neglected my blog horribly but tried to find my way back into that habit by taking, well, instant pictures rather than dedicating time and effort to photoshopping and other such time-consuming enhancement techniques.