1. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
4. I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?
5. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
6. That’s enough, Nickelback.
7. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
8. Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “ people you may know ” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
9. Do you remember when you were a kid; playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no Internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.
10. There is a great need for sarcasm font.
11. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.
12. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
13. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
14. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
15. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
16. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
17. A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
18. Was learning cursive really necessary?
19. Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.
20. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
22. My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.
23. Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.
24. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?
25. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
26. Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”
27. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
28. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
29. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighbourhood.
30. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
31. I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
32. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
33. I would like to officially coin the phrase ‘catching the swine flu’ to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: “Dave caught the swine flu last night.”
34. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
35. Bad decisions make good stories
36. Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
37. Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?
38. If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
39. Why is it that during an icebreaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from; this shouldn’t be a problem….
40. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
41. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.
42. There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
43. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
44. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.
45. I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’
46. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
47. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
48. When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
49. I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
50. Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for paedophiles…
51. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
52. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
53. It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
54. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
55. Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
56. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the Gspot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…
57. My 4year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?
58. It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
59. I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
60. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
61. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Clubs I'm part of

It seems that as photography is progressing, people are becoming more concerned with all the built in features (marketing fluff) instead of actually just trying to learn the basics first. So I have decided to set up this journal as a guide which I hope many of you will learn from. Just note that this journal will not go into too much detail (Might go into more detail at a later stage). Here are some of the basics that every photographer should know.

Light
Outdoor: Best time to shoot is before and a short while after sunrise. After that the sun becomes way too harsh and contrast becomes too strong. On the other end it's also best to shoot right before and after sunset. Both of these conditions provide for soft lighting results where highlights are not blown out. I am of course not speaking about shade or night time shots. Shade does work quite often even in mid day (Just make sure that your background is not too bright). Night time photography has the potential to give great shots. But if you are going for that, you would need a fast lens (with a wide aperture) and/or a tripod to eliminate any shake. A camera with above average noise handling will also allow you to push up the ISO(Light sensitivity) without degrading the image too much.

Indoor: Indoor lighting is not that important when it comes to the time of day. You can produce great shots at 7:00 in the morning just as you would at 14:00 in the afternoon. It all depends on where and how the light is entering the indoor space. Natural light coming in from a window can provide the perfect light for portraits.

Composition
Rule of thirds: Imagine that the image is divided into 9 equally sized blocks.



To put it roughly, rule of thirds states that a subject or any strong lines (like the division between earth and sky) should be placed on the lines that make up these blocks or their intersections. Now this is something I see increasingly on DA, a total disregard for rule of thirds. You should have a very good reason for placing your subject in the center. Having a person appear dead center in the image with either sides being empty is something you do not want. There are some definite exceptions, for instance when you want a symmetric image. Obviously for this to work the subject has to be in the center, like a flower. The composition that makes a portrait shot even more difficult to “grasp” is when the subject is in the center and the image is taken horizontally. This creates masses of space on either side and too much negative (empty) space can really bring down an image. Also remember that rule of thirds does not mean a large part of the image will be empty. Change your point of view and distance to the subject. That way you can still follow the rule to a certain degree and fill the frame, thus eliminating any distracting negative space.

Lead-in objects: This relates mostly to landscapes. Basically it states that the foreground should have something of interest that leads the viewer into the image. Making sure that the foreground is not empty and has something interesting can really lift an image.

Aperture (The “F” designation on your lens)
Wide: This creates a shallow depth of field (DOF). Meaning that not much is in focus. This works well with most portraits. The idea here is to make your model stand out and a shallow DOF will help you achieve this. Just remember that a lot of lenses do not give you pin sharp results at their widest apertures, so check the lowest aperture of your lens that provides these sharp results and try not to go any lower.

Narrow: This creates a deeper DOF and is ideal for landscapes. Now don’t just go put your lens on F22 and expect sharp images. The problem is that when you go beyond F16, diffraction kicks in and causes the image to not come out as sharp as it can be. For full focus, make you focus point the spot about a third into the image from the bottom.

Shutter speed
There’s not really a good or bad aspect here when it comes to fast versus slow shutter speeds. It all depends on the type of image you are trying to take. Just remember that if you do not have any type of vibration reduction, 1/60th of a second is the slowest you should go for when shooting hand held. Below that the chance of you creating blurry images is dramatically increased. Fast shutter speeds is ideal for sport where as a slow shutter speed could help illustrate movement.

Essential SLR accessories
UV Filter: These are very cheap, clear filters that help protect the “glass” of your lens. What it also helps with is removing the haziness you find in some landscape shots. This is a much cheaper alternative than to replace the entire lens.

Cleaning kit: At some point you will need to clean you camera and lenses. I suggest buying a soft cloth and brush to remove any smudges and/or dust. Remember to clean your kit as soon as you get home from the beach. Sand and sea air can really do some serious damage.

Tripod: Although not a must have, a tripod can really help with those low light conditions where you don’t want to sacrifice shutter speed for noise levels.

Advanced SLR accessories
Flash gun/Built-in flash
For those who do not know, a flash gun is the piece of equipment that you can use as part of your body(which you attach onto the camera body) or separately when using multiple flash guns.
Examples: [link] | [link]
Some of you might be surprised about the fact that I list flash equipment under advanced. That is purely because a vast majority of people abuse it. I have seen countless photos where a person did not bother to consider all the aspects of flash and whether natural light would work better or not. Now if you truly know what you are doing, then flash can be an incredibly powerful tool, but until you know your camera well enough and have the basics under control, try to use natural light where possible.

Reflectors
One of the biggest issues I have seen using reflectors, is people taking a full body shot but only lighting up the top half. This can really degrade the image and artistic value, especially if you are using a gold reflector (One half is normal and other half is very warm). Before purchasing reflectors, go read up on the different types and what they are used for.
Example: [link]


I hope this helps. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. Just remember that you can’t always incorporate all these elements into a single photo. So compromise and see what fits best. Also remember that after you have the basics under control, practice is the most important thing that you can ever do to become a better photographer and artist...Comments are always welcome.

_{P.S.
Please note me with any possible corrections and/or additions.}

Clubs I'm part of

Customer: "I've been ringing 0700 2300 for two days and can't get through to enquiries, can you help?”
Operator: "Where did you get that number from, sir?”
Customer: "It was on the door to the Travel Centre".
Operator: "Sir, they are our opening hours".


Samsung Electronics
Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?"
Operator: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about".
Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?"
Operator: "I think it means the telephone point on the wall".


RAC Motoring Services
Caller: "Does your European Breakdown Policy cover me when I am travelling in Australia?"
Operator: “Doesn’t the product name give you a clue?"


Caller (enquiring about legal requirements while travelling in France)
"If I register my car in France, do I have to change the steering wheel to the other side of the car?"


Directory Enquiries
Caller: "I'd like the number of the Argoed Fish Bar in Cardiff please".
Operator: “I’m sorry, there's no listing. Is the spelling correct?"
Caller: "Well, it used to be called the Bargoed Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off".


Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven
Operator: Woven? Are you sure?"
Caller: "Yes. That's what it says on the label; Woven in Scotland".


On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: "I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on".


Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop".
Customer: "OK".
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?".
Customer: "No".
Tech Support: "OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No".
Tech Support: "OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?".
Customer: "Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'".


Tech Support: "OK. In the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?"
Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"


Caller: "I deleted a file from my PC last week and I have just realised that I need it. If I turn my system clock back two weeks will I have my file back again?".


Operator: "Ridge Hall, computer assistance; may I help you?"
Caller: "Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
Operator: "What sort of trouble??"
Caller: "Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
Operator: "Went away?"
Caller: "They disappeared."
Operator: "Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
Caller: "Nothing."
Operator: "Nothing??"
Caller: "It’s blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
Operator: "Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out??"
Caller: "How do I tell?"
Operator: "Can you see the C: prompt on the screen??"
Caller: "What’s a sea-prompt?"
Operator: "Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?"
Caller: "There isn’t any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
Operator: "Does your monitor have a power indicator??"
Caller: "What’s a monitor?"
Operator: "It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on??"
Caller: "I don’t know."
Operator: "Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that??"
Caller: "Yes, I think so."
Operator: "Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall.
Caller: "Yes, it is."
Operator: "When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one??"
Caller: "No."
Operator: "Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
Caller: "Okay, here it is."
Operator: "Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
Caller: "I can’t reach."
Operator: "Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is??"
Caller: "No."
Operator: "Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over??"
Caller: "Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle it's because it’s dark."
Operator: "Dark??"
Caller: "Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
Operator: "Well, turn on the office light then."
Caller: "I can’t."
Operator: "No? Why not??"
Caller: "Because there's a power failure."
Operator: "A power...................................... A power failure? Aha, Okay, we’ve got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in??"
Caller: "Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
Operator: "Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
Caller: "Really? Is it that bad?"
Operator: "Yes, I'm afraid it is."
Caller: "Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them??"
Operator: "Tell them you're too f*%king stupid to own a computer!!!!!"

Clubs I'm part of

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake
up every two hours?

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the
batteries are flat?

Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know
there is not enough?

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion
stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you
throw a revolver at him?

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"?

What is the speed of darkness?

If the temperature is zero outside today and it's going to be twice
as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?

If it's true that we are here to help others, what are the others
doing here?

Do married people live longer than single ones or does it only seem
longer?

Do you cry under water?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it
would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in
binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at
you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the
window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Clubs I'm part of

Did you fart, cause you blew me away.

Are your parents retarded, 'cause you sure are special.

My Love for you is like diarrohea ... I can't hold it in.

Do you have a library card, 'cause I'd like to sign you out.

Is there a mirror in your pants? Because I can see myself in them.

If you and I were Squirrels, I'd store my nuts in your hole.

You might not be the best looking girl here, but beauty is only a lightswitch away.

Man - Fat Penguin !
Woman - WHAT?
Man - I just wanted to say something that would break the ice.

I may not be Fred Flintstone, but I bet I can make your bed-rock.

I can't find my puppy, can you help me find him? I think he went into this cheap motel room.

Your eyes are as blue as window cleaner.

If you're going to regret this in the morning, we can sleep until the afternoon.

Your face reminds me of a spanner, every time I think of it my nuts tighten up!

Clubs I'm part of