1/100 NG 00 Raiser Kit

After more than a month of thinking about it, and allowing it to run out of stock all over the place, I've decided to finally buy a 1/100 00 Raiser kit. I've yet to open it – since I bought it just so that when I do want to buy and build it (which is after exams) – I actually have a kit to buy. It's been awfully difficult to find at the right price – but I've finally bought it.

You can guess what this means: more photos in May or June once I'm done building it – of course, I don't paint, so it's bound to look like crap (although it does mean it'll only take me one afternoon, rather than one month).

The starting point.

(Don't worry about the white line in the original, that's part of my selection work going a little awry.)

After a little selecting work, some third party filters, and the result is this:

The end result!

If you think it looks fake – look carefully at the table – and compared the two photos. You'll realise that only a very specific portion (or distance) from the Coke can has been blurred!

Taken with a Nikon D90 and 18-200 VR at 112mm, f/5.3, 1/30 sec, ISO 450.

Abusing out-of-focus as an effect on flowers. Hehehe.

Taken with a Nikon D90, 18-200 VR at 34mm, f/4.2, 1/40 sec shutter at ISO 200.

And so now I present to you – a crop from a high resolution photo which gives pretty good detail on what the texture is like on the tile. (Hint, look at the red tile.)

Click on the photo and get a much better look.

I know the photo isn't the best, but it's painfully difficult to capture the texture of the smooth tiles since they look a little bit like noise too.

Cubesmith smooth tiles are awesome. Buy them if you need them.

I'm currently staying at someone else's place at the moment – which should be obvious since the table looks different.

The optimized stack of coins - 8 coins - $4.95.

And the stack behind it? The remaining 25 coins that won't make my coin pressure any higher. Here's a photo if you feel like counting:

The remaining coins after optimization - preferably kept for feeding into machines.

(If I'm not mistaken, that's about AU$4.40 in change.)

So, optimize your change – your wallet will thank you for it by lasting longer.

Dead PHILIPS Tornado 20W CFL

Several days ago, the bulb in my room died. One that had faithfully served me the past few years. That night, I noticed that it began to flicker erratically. As I was telling chewxy that, my room was suddenly engulfed in darkness – the only light source being my computer monitor.

And so, in the middle of the night, I went outside to salvage a light bulb from the living room so that I could continue my studies in peace. That bulb is also a Philips, but it's only a 14W CFL. Now, I've replaced it in its rightful place in the living room. In my room now is a PHILIPS Tornado 24W CFL – and it's nice and bright. (The photo is using illumination from this new bulb, of course.)

No longer used in my decision making process. I think.

Of course, two years later – I don't use dice for decision making any more. I've learned that planned consumption is significantly more rewarding, not to mention, I don't eat out quite as much as I did in 2006. Of course, my subjects are a lot harder this semester than they were that semester.

I realise after I took the photo that I should've shown you my full sized dice set instead – but I guess we'll leave that for another day when it comes time to show you more dice – which could the day after tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now – or maybe even: NEVER!

(The photo didn't turn out as I intended – I focused the camera on the wrong die, not to mention I probably shouldn't have put the 4-sided die in front, and put something a little more round instead. Oh well.)