Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Moving stuff about in my bedroom & received 682B monopod

This morning I was going to go on my comp and have a quick look at the IE6 png transparency Alpha Filter & form elements problem, but decided that I might as well move my PC, subwoofer and UPS before switching the PC on.

I was planning to move the stuff around in my room yesterday, but didn't have the time. I moved the unit with a cupboard and a drawer to where the PC, subwoofer and UPS were, then put the UPS and subwoofer on top of that cupboard and the PC on my desk next to the monitor, where my tape deck was. I moved the tape deck to the other side of the monitor.

I took the 2 boxes of pog stuff (mainly pog games) that were underneath the shelf in the middle of my room and put them behind the cupboard/drawer unit. I also put the DJXII keyboard, Guitar Hero II and the white cardboard box or 12"s behind there.

After I'd moved those I thought I might as well finish off the moving stuff around job as I'd intended to do yesterday. I found there were some spare long Ikea shelves (just the shelf bits, not the legs) in the garage. So I took all the small ikea shelf bits down and moved the wide ikea shelf to where the small ones previously were (between the door and en-suite door). I reorganised some of the tubs of pog stuff so they took up less space.

In one of the pog boxes there were loads of plastic food bags, most of them I threw away but there were also lots of the bags with a seal at the top, so I kept all them. It was amaxing how many bags there, and shows how I must have bought totally loads of pogs when I bought lots of pogs.

In the cupboard part of the cupboard/drawer unit I put the box of 7"s and Soviet poster prints that were in there before. I also put in there all my books that were previously in a couple of piles near the door and in a white bread rolls box. In the drawer bit I put small random stuff that was lying in various places around the room: my tin of Roses; a Roses tin of odd small stuff; batteries; money pot/elastic bands; bottle of Melatonin; nose/ear hair trimmer; hole punch; small LED lantern; and a glass jar of pennies.

The folders of various stuff that were just on the floor by the shelves previously, I put in the wall cupboards on the shelves along with all the folders that were already in there.

The big box of padding/bubble wrap/jiffy bags/small cardboard boxes I threw away. I had to stand out in the cold wind peeling sellotape off the boxes and jiffy bags filled with shredded paper so they could go in the reycling bin. All the selotape and other jiffybags and bubble wrap I threw in the normal bin, which had just been emptied. I filled it up about half way. Doing this took quite a while and hands looked quite trashed after being out in the cold wind for so long so I took some photos of them when I got back inside.

By the time I finished moving everything round, tidying up and vaccuming it was about 3.30pm. I went in the garden and tested my new Manfrotto 682B Self standing monopod, which arrived today. I found that:
  • It swayed around a bit in the wind, so won't be much good for outdoors HDR.
  • On unlevel ground (tried it on the grass) it won't stand upright by itself. I read this thread at dpreview which suggests pushing on one of the legs with your foot to use it on uneven ground.
  • It's quite big and heavy compared to my Manfrotto 676B monopod, though quite a bit lighter than my tripod.
  • It wouldn't fit into the centre column hole of my tripod. Probably it would fit with the 678 removed, but then the pole would be too thin for the centre column grippy thing to grip.
I will probably test it out a bit more tomorrow.

After testing my new monopod I went on ebay and saw that the Lowepro 1N lens case that I was watching would be finishing soon, and it had gone up to (and ended at) £6.95 + £2.50 P&P. I checked ebay and froogle to see what the going price for Lowepro lens pouches is and it seems to be £10-£15, with digitalrev on ebay being the cheapest. Digitalrev website actually came out cheapest on froogle, but with P&P was more expensive than their ebay shop which was offering free P&P. I was surprised how much they cost, up until yesterday the 1N lens pouch I was watching on ebay was only 99p (with no bidders I think). So I guess that £31 for the belt with a few pouches that finished on ebay the other day was actually a good deal.

Then I googled to see what camera pouches are available that fit on the Lowepro belt. On the Lowepro website all the beltpacks are packs that have the belt built into them, not packs to fit onto an existing belt. It seems that what you need to look for is toploaders. The one I read that someone else uses in a dpreview thread was the Toploader Zoom AW. It looks like this is the biggest one they do, and so probably the most flexible. I had a look on ebay and froogle to see the cheapest price for it, and it seems to be £35 + P&P from Warehouse express. On ebay most people seemed to be selling it for about £50. That's a bit expensive, so I'll see if I can get a cheaper one from ebay for the moment.

At dinner time Maccy said that Moley from HFM had come into his work and talked to him! And then Ben said that someone in his class said that DJ Brain from HFM was his dad! HFM is everywhere!!

After dinner me, Ben and Maccy watched Iron man, but it didn't say 'I am Iron Man' in the computerised voice like it does in the trailer, and his voice wasn't even very computery sounding when he was in the suit.

After that I checked the Warehouse express forums, then HotUKdeals, then went to bed. My room is now a lot more roomy than it was before.

The weather today was sunny nearly all day with a bit of cloud around, though very windy (which made it cold). Made a nice change from the last couple of weeks (which has been overcast and rainy). I didn't get up until 8am, so I didn't see whether there was a visible sunrise, I'm guessing there was. There was a sunset, but it wasn't that great as there weren't any clouds around to be lit up by the sunset.

Food
Breakfast: Coco pops; orange juice.
Lunch: Grated mature cheddar cheese with babyleaf salad sandwich; satsuma; mince pie; chocolate digestive biscuit bar; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Ham quiche; peas; potatoes. Pudding was ginger sponge with golden syrup and vanilla sauce (like custard).
Supper: Choc chip chewy cereal bar; cup o' tea.

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