Article writing

Today I was mostly just working on an article for my photo tips website.

In the evening I went out to photograph the sunset, but I got to the field just as the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud. I did try to take some photos anyway, but all the gypsy horses came to see me. There was an annoying brown one that kept getting in the way and following me whenever I moved.

After a bit the horse started stamping its back feet, and it also (lightly) kicked my bag, so I thought maybe it was getting annoyed with me being there. So I packed up and went home (since the sunset was nearly finished and wasn't that great anyway). But when I looked it up on the internet, apparently horses stamp their feet when they have mites.

Writing and olympics watching

This morning and part of the afternoon I was working on an article for my photo tips website. Most of the rest of the afternoon I watched various Olympics events. I also watched some Skull Trumpet videos, and Mauser showed me some Twitter photoshops of Boris Johnson stuck on a zip wire.

In the evening I watched Billy play on Zelda for a bit, then we watched some more Mahabarat. After that I did some more work on another article for my photo tips website.

Various

This morning I finished off the article I was writing for my photo tips website yesterday.

I received an email that Topaz Labs had a discount on their new FX Lab software, but the discount expired in 24 hours. So I downloaded the software to give it a try. It includes a clever way of applying the tones / colours of any image to the image you're working on. I tried using Image > Adjustments > Match Color in Photoshop, but it wasn't the same.

In the end I decided not to buy it. Other than the color matching part, it doesn't do much that you can't do in Photoshop. It includes intelligent masking, but you can't save as a layered file. If you could save as a layered PSD file including masks, then I probably would have bought it. Maybe they will add this in the future (and hopefully run a heavy discount promotion again as well).

For the rest of the afternoon I watched the Women's gymnastics team final. Britain was 6th out of 7 I think, but that's quite good really. USA got gold, Russia silver, and Romania bronze. China came in fourth, so that was unexpected.

In the evening I painted the sculpey models I made yesterday with Billy and Mauser (who painted their models).

Various

This morning I packed up Billy's shoes, which sold on eBay, and took them to the post office. It is quite annoying because eBay only let you charge a maximum of £7 for shipping and handling on shoes, but the cost of just the postage was about £10. If you include the costs of packaging and my time it would be quite a bit more than that.

I also finished making the cake / bread stuff I was making yesterday, and had some hot for a late breakfast. It was very nice, but more like a pudding than a cake.

The rest of the morning, and some of the afternoon I worked on an article for my photo tips website.

In the afternoon I watched some of the Men's team gymnastics finals as well. Britain did very well, almost getting a silver. At the end of the competition they were in 2nd place, but then the Japanese appealed a decision, and they were given an extra half point, which put them into 2nd (from being 4th), so Britain got a bronze. China held on to their gold medal.

In the evening I did some sculpey with Mauser and Bo.

Pogging and cooking

Today I updated my pog website, did some more pog sorting, and did some cooking. The stuff I was cooking didn't rise on the second rising, so I have left in the oven (switched off) in the hope it will rise overnight. It will probably be nice hot for breakfast as well.

Pogging and Olympicsing

Most of today I was sorting and scanning some new pogs I got as part of a swap. In the afternoon I also made a cake.

In the evening I watched the Olympics opening ceremony. It had been hyped up quite a bit by the British press, so I wasn't expecting much. But actually, it was very good.

The bit I liked best was where they had a pre-recorded section showing James Bond (Daniel Craig) going to Buckingham Palace and fetching the Queen in a helicopter. Then a helicopter flew over the stadium in real time. The pre-recorded bit showed the Queen and James Bond moving to the door of the helicopter, then in real time two people jumped out of the helicopter. A couple of minutes later, the Queen walked in with Prince Philip.

Another bit I thought was very clever was the Olympic Flame. There were lots of small 'torches' coming out on long rods from a central point. They didn't really resemble torches, but had gas flowing through them, and were lit by a team of young athletes. The 'torches' then rose up above the central point, to form one large Olympic flame.

As well as this being very clever, the idea of using young athletes to light the flame was very good. I don't mean from the perspective of this games' slogan 'Inspiring a generation' (though it did fulfil that). I mean from the fact that betting activity on who was going to light the flame had been quite high. But the people who did light the flame wouldn't have even been in the running. A nice stub to bettors from the Olympics organising committee.

There were only I a couple of things I didn't think were that great. They weren't really bad or anything though.

• There was a period of remembrance for those who died in the 7/7 bombings in 2005. After this they had a hymn with some people doing a dance or something, but I didn't really get what it was on about. It wasn't visually exciting anyway.

• The other thing was Paul McCartney played Hey Jude to end off the ceremony. But he seemed to start off with a backing track, and he wasn't on the same timing as the backing track. But they fixed it reasonably quickly, cutting the backing track. I think that was what the problem was anyway.

Throughout the ceremony they played a large range of music by different artists. I think most of the songs were by British artists, though I did notice they played "My Boy Lollipop" by Millie, who I think is Jamaican.

For live acts, they had Evelyn Glennie (a deaf person that plays the drums), Mike Oldfield (of tubular bells fame), Dizzie Rascal (Ex-grime pop artist), Arctic Monkeys, and of course Paul McCartney.

One of the songs they played as part of the opening ceremony was by the Jam (I can't remember which song it was). I thought it would have been quite funny if they'd played 'Down in the tubestation at midnight', since most of the people watching the ceremony would have to go back to their hotels via tube after midnight.

I enjoyed watching the athletes parade as well. It's nice to see all the different countries, and many of them had their athletes (or at least the flag bearer) dressed in traditional dress.

The opening ceremony was quite pro-Britain, and didn't really mention anything that Britons should be ashamed of, but I guess this is not surprising. I can't really remember the opening ceremonies from past Olympics (possibly I just watched the games and not the ceremonies), but I expect that they were similarly pro the host country. I didn't feel it was overly biased towards the UK anyway.

Writing and poggin'

This morning and part of the afternoon I was finishing off the photo tips article that I started writing yesterday.

The rest of the afternoon and most of the evening I was sorting and scanning some pogs I received recently.