When I rounded the corner on the track to the beach and glimpsed this shape at a distance, I thought it was a seal on the move …
But no, it turned out to be driftwood.
Heyyyy, check out the ring!
Up in Smoke (Kansas Cozy Mysteries Book 6) by Charlene Weir just didn't really gel for me — I even skimmed several (rather irrelevant) chapters rather than reading them. A couple of characters with very dark back stories, endless political discussions and few appearances by the detectives. 📚
Waking a sleeping language – our plan to revive the speaking of ta rē Moriori:
Moriori's closest linguistic relative is te reo Māori, with many grammatical and lexical similarities. But there are also significant differences. For example, Moriori has 15 ways of saying "the", a pattern not seen in any other Polynesian language.
When it's a good summer it gets way too hot in the tunnelhouse. Today we installed shadecloth over the internal framing. The difference was immediately noticeable.
It's loosely hung and can be used like a curtain — pulled to one side if needed.
Yesterday, reading some of the things our new right-wing government plan to do, I felt angry. I didn't relish the prospect of feeling angry for the next 3 years.
However Stoicism reminds me I can't control what the government do. I can control how I feel and what I do.
I plan some email actions …
Went to a community get-together yesterday afternoon where I drank 2 small glasses of no-brand lemonade. Came home, ate dinner and basically then crashed out and slept to 5 am. Today I have a headache. 😵💫
No more fizzy drinks for me. Moving from rare to none …
Mummies was quite a fun movie. Lightweight, not meaningful.
The film follows three mummies from the underworld who … end up in present-day London in search of an old ring belonging to an Ancient Egyptian Royal Family that was stolen from a tomb by the ambitious archaeologist Lord Carnaby.
Whew, with NCIS Sydney S01E03 they've finally got over themselves. Instead of cringeworthy "Hey hey hey, we're in Australia where they talk funny and have venomous / poisonous / weird wildlife" we finally have a plot with an actual storyline and characters who have a chance to be someone.
I knew the conservatives with their awful ideas won the recent election, so why did I torture myself reading details of their awfulness now the 3 parties have actually signed off on their Coalition of Awfulness? ! Bah!
Too many photos! 🤣
I tried Pre-shot ES on the X-T5. 📷
This adds photos to a buffer if the shutter is pressed halfway then stores them on taking the shot. It requires high-speed burst mode and electronic shutter.
I came home with 511 photos @ about 20 MB — 10GB of photos!
Much deleting lies ahead!
This sparrow sized bird didn't look quite right to be a Banded Dotterel. On checking I found they were actually Black-fronted dotterel. See more photos at A new bird joins the estuary crew: a Black-fronted Dotterel.
They run around so fast and erratically — it's hard to get sharp photos.
I was concerned 2 years ago when I bought my M1 MacBook Pro that 8GB RAM wouldn't be enough. It's been no problem at all, until today, importing 511 photos @ 20MB each (10 GB). No biggie: I just quit a bunch of apps that didn't strictly need to be open.
Every single thing about this 9 minute video is astonishing — J.S. Bach : Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 / Liene Andreta Kalnciema live at Riga Cathedral 🎶:
- that Bach could conceive of and write such music
- the organist's skill and deftness at playing such a complex piece on such a complex instrument, with hands and feet
- that anyone could conceive of and build this instrument
- the music itself
- the sound
A long read, worth every second — Goodbye, Kim Hill: a day with the doyenne of NZ radio:
Unlike most, she asks questions to which she does not know the answer. “A lot of the time I genuinely don’t understand things I think other people do,” she says. “I think I must be the only person not to know this. So I have to overcome a certain amount of shame and embarrassment to ask some questions. But it turns out some other people don’t know the answers either.”
First BEV fail: for some reason the car didn't charge overnight, leaving not enough juice for Deb to drive to Wellington and back for work. A long busy day makes it impractical for her to charge during the day.
The petrol car is on its way to work now. 🚗
I've been wanting to grab a photo of a Pahirini | Chaffinch for a while now. Finally one flew in while I was waving my camera around learning about settings. 🐦
I've enjoyed previous books in this series by Alice Bienia, and this was another engrossing read: Knight In The Museum (A Jorja Knight Private Investigator Mystery Book 5). 📚
When the daughter of a former police officer asks Jorja to look into her father’s death … Jorja is determined to find her the answers she’s looking for.
Yumm. Just like the last time I made them (a year ago, thanks On This Day): Lemon Butter Biscuits. So delish!
Oliver's input into the competiton ruffled a few feathers, but saw donations to organiser Forest and Bird soar.
Boosted by the publicity, the conservation organisation received $600,000 in donations associated with its Bird of the Year competition - six times higher than its previous record set last year.
Via: John Oliver thanks the pūteketeke after Bird of the Century win.