Random Flickr photo of the day – September 21, 2011

This is another personal favorite from 2009. I was on my way to meet a buddy at Hooters in NYC coming in from a photo shoot in Connecticut. I was stuck at a light about 2 blocks away, and in NYC, that’s pretty much a traffic jam anywhere else.

Anyway, as I crept up, I saw a crowd forming maybe 3 car lenghts, and they were all taking photos. When I finally crawled my way around them, I saw this beautiful formation of clouds, which I later learned was Mammatus. The sun was setting also, so it gave this nice orange hue to it.

I had my camera packed, no lens attached. Luckily it was in the front passenger seat, so I quickly opened my bag, grabbed my D700 body, and screwed in my Nikkor 24mm. I quickly set my camera to what may be a good exporsure, metered real quickly, I was off by +1 stop, so I quickly adjust, and snapped off a few frames. I re-set to -1.5 stops and fired a few more.

When I finally got to my destination, I quickly reviewed my shots, and was satisfied with them. Later on, in Lightroom, the best shot turned out to be the very first frame I took.

This was one of those moments where your experience just really kicks in. I had no time really to get a shot off properly, as just after firing my first set of shots, the light turned green, and soon there after we were moving. I came walked back after I parked my car, but the sun already set too low, and the colours were not as vivid as it was no more than 5 minutes prior.

Odd clouds


Nikon D700
Nikkor 24mm

Random Flickr Photo of the Day – September 20, 2012

Cheesecake is probably my single most favorite piece of dessert, EVER.  I need to have different cheesecakes at different places whenever possible.  I’ve had hundreds of slices all over, and while some are better than others, nothing really stood out.  None was perfect, until that faithful weekend in May of 2009.  It was during a trip to Philadelphia, to eat at Morimoto’s restaurant, we had some hours to kill before our scheduled reservations for dinner that night, so my friend and I took a tour around Philly.  We stumbled upon Darling’s Famous Homemade cheesecakes, and I just needed to try this place.  They had a variety of flavours, but I ended up picking the Banana’s Foster Cheesecake.  I also have a thing for Banana flavoured foods.

That first bite was just magical, I have found at the time the perfect cheesecake.  It’s funny too, that I found it in Philly, and not in NYC.  Each silky smooth creamy bite easily glided down my throat, that hint of banana flavour tickling my taste buds, just utter epic-ness.  Dare I say, I had a mini-crisis while eating this perfection.  I must admit, it wasn’t much too look at, but like a book, never judge it by it’s cover.

Banana's foster cheesecake

Pure Epic-ness
Nikon D700
Nikkor 24mm
1/200 sec.
f/2.8
ISO 1600

 

Sadly, this was unseated earlier this year as the best cheesecake.  That throne now belongs to a place up in Vancouver.  Maybe another time, i’ll tell you about it.

Earworm: 80’s Theme’s Edition – Mask, Silver Hawks, Bravestarr, Defenders of the Earth

Continuing with our Earworm Cartoon’s Tehem’s  Edition, we start off with M.A.S.K. or Mobile Armored Strike Kommand.  They went against the evil criminal organization called V.E.N.O.M or Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem.

What’s cool about this cartoon was that the vehicles can turn into other vehicles, like M.A.S.K.’s leader Matt Trakker’s Camaro can transform into a plane.  The drivers,  also wore Masks with special abilities.  I can’t remember much, but it was quite entertaining, and the toy’s were super cool too.

 

[youtube http://youtu.be/M0BzBFWt8V8]

 

Next up is Silver Hawks.  Basically space cops fighting space mob’s.  They were partly metal and partly real. The theme to this was catchy, really catchy, and I think ranks 2nd in my list of cartoon theme’s (Bionic Six ranks 1st).

The cartoon was also essentially a space version of Thunder Cats.

[youtube http://youtu.be/jyukifAmPNo]

 

Next up is Bravestarr.  A futuristic cowboy with the strength of a bear, eyes of the hawk, speed of a puma, ears of a wolf  and the kicker, a kick ass horse for a partner, as a kid, sounds like a winner.  The theme is not as catchy as the above, but hey, still gives me nostalgic chills whenever I hear it.

[youtube http://youtu.be/UaMo4k7iG7s]

 

And lastly, Defenders of the Earth.  Basically a team featuring characters from Kings Features Syndicate comics.  I never got to see this in it’s original run, but thank goodness for syndication, re-runs were showed in the 90’s and even though I was older, I still enjoyed watching it.  The theme is pretty kick ass too.

[youtube http://youtu.be/-Nm_jJBkHtU]

 

 

 

 

 

Earworm (Cartoon Themes): “Gotta Catch Em All!” Pokémon Theme Song.

This theme song is one of the very best. Like no one’s ever was. It caught all fans. Sorry. Getting too corny here. Pokémon is hands down one of my all time favorite shows. This theme song is insanely catchy. Prepare to be Earwormed. (Although I couldn’t quote exactly find the real video to accompany this wonderful example of my childhood, this should suffice.)

[Edit: added video – Big Cheese]

And the full version.

Most viewed Flickr photo of the day – September 19, 2012

And today’s most viewed photograph on my Flickr photostream with a whopping 9 views is….

2012 Golf .:R

2012 Volkswagen Golf .:R
Rising Blue
Nikon D700
Micro Nikkor 60mm
1/5000 sec.
f/5.0

This was shot during a Euro Car meet sometime in February.  It’s an acquaintances Brand New Golf .:R, one of the first to be delivered in NY in fact. It’s a thing of beauty, and while some might say it’s an overpriced GTI, and I sort of agree, but, you have to be a Dubber to understand.

I think I do need to re-process this shot.  It looks too BLUE!

Random Flickr Photo of the Day – September 19, 2012

This is one of the shots from my failed attempt at doing a 365 series titled ‘Where is Garfield Now?’ or WIGN for short. The basic premise was to shoot a Garfield Pez dispenser in different places/scenarios for 365 days. It was totally random, and it all started when I picked up a Garfield Pez dispenser at a garage sale. I did over 150 odd some days. I do have about a dozen unposted shots, but after falling behind in posting it, I ended up scrapping the whole thing.

I’ve been meaning to do it again since, but just haven’t found the main subject as appealing as Garfield.

Anyway, this was Day 28 and the description I put was as follows;

“Garfield decided just to stay at home today, and chill w/ some buddies.
He also told Optimus and Soundwave that the new movie didnt wiggle his tail, unlike the first one.

(I was stuck at home….so i know, this was a lame one)

Where is Garfield now?

Day 28: Kingswood village @ B-burg, NJ”

WIGN - Day 28

Earworm: 80’s Cartoon Theme’s Edition – Bionic Six and Centurions

I think I mentioned something about doing an Earworm with 80’s Cartoon theme’s.  I think I was going to do it last week, but some reason or another, I didn’t.

In any case, here is the first entry.  Due to the shortness of the videos, I will probably be doing a few per entry.

First up Bionic Six.  It possible has one of the best themes to date.  I didn’t get to see this cartoon much back in the Philippines.  Only sometime in the late 90’s when they started doing re-runs at like 5:00 am, I was able to re-enjoy this classic cartoon.  It still bring a smile to my face when ever I hear the opening drum beats, and the bubbly music.

Up next is Centurions.  This one I got the pleasure of seeing when I was younger, and I remember playing pretend with my old friend back in the old country.  I always used to like Max.  “Man and Machine, Power Extreme”, was their catch phrase.  The characters were all cliched, but as a kid, you didn’t care.  I always wondered if Crystal ever got lonely up in that space station.

 

 

More to come tomorrow!

Most viewed Flickr photo of the day – September 18, 2012

And today’s most viewed photograph on my Flickr photostream with a whopping 12 views is….

Very attractive Saria

I thought this was Link at first. The dude in the back appeared in a few more of my photos….FAIL!

Again this was from 2011’s New York City Comic Con.  This year’s is less than a month away, and we will be on hand for more photos!

Random Flickr Photo of the Day – September 18, 2012

Nothing really special today, another photo testing out how the bokeh looks on my then new Canon Powershot S95.
I wasn’t expecting much, but I do like the creamyness that it produces.

S95 @ F/2

Halo Spartan
Canon Powershot S95