January 10, 2010

At the Goldfish Café...

DSC06862

... keep swimming around so ice doesn't form.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ice forming on the river here in NC. Only the second time I've seen it in 20+ years here. Old timers recall only twice that the thing has completely frozen over. I was here for one of those times. Maybe I'll go look at my old Cancun pictures.

wv: preezzl...makes me hungry for a pretzel from a vendor in NYC, hold the mustard, please.

bagoh20 said...

"keep swimming around so ice doesn't form."

This year's political rally call.

chickelit said...

Maybe it's the blue hue too, but your photo conveys a feeling of greater viscosity, just as water gets when approaching its freezing point.

The Crack Emcee said...

I like the photo, Ann - as well as the one from the wallpaper cafe'. I really wanted to tell you that, earlier, but didn't get the chance.

Hope you guys are having fun,

The Macho Response

sort of runic rhyme said...

A coy pic.

vbspurs said...

I've been to Texas, but I don't remember it as gloriously hued as it seems to be from all of Ann's photologues.

Actually, thanks to these photos, I'm putting Texas back on my list of travel destinations. I've never been to Austin, the Alamo, and I didn't do much in Dallas, other than one macabre JFK tour.

Scott said...

Yeah, nice pic. I wonder how goldfish taste grilled?

It's cold here in New Jersey too.

I bought a car yesterday - 2010 Honda Civic. Only one on the lot that had a stick shift. I really needed a car, but I hate the idea of making car payments again. :(

Wince said...

Now there's an idea for the dweeb in the NYT story that let his swimming pool go to crap.

And a pool's big enough to have sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads.

vbspurs said...

Scott, I would never go back to a stick, but I know purists adore it. Don't worry about the car payments. Every time you enter your brand new car, with its new car smell, and no need to worry about your transmission falling off on the side of the road, you'll be a satisfied man. Happy trails!

Scott said...

Victoria, you really ought to explore Texas, it's a very interesting place. Be sure to go up to Johnson City and take the tour of the LBJ ranch. Apparently Ladybird (r.i.p.) was allowed to continue to use the ranch after she donated it to the National Parks Service. She would swim in the pool, and wave to the people in the tour buses. She was a great woman.

Scott said...

Victoria: Yeah, my '99 Altima was making a whining noise in a place that would require the engine to be pulled to fix. At 170,000 miles, it was time to replace it.

My last car with a stick (also a Honda Civic) died around 1989. It was great to find that I hadn't fogotten how to drive it. Driving it smoothly is a trick, though. I'm still learning.

Wince said...

vbspurs said...
I've been to Texas, but I don't remember it as gloriously hued as it seems to be from all of Ann's photologues.

Wait a minute. Aren't memories supposed to be "gloriously hued"?

Well, maybe not as glorious as photos taken in...

Kodachrome

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of edu---cation
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks WORSE in black and white

Fred4Pres said...

Perfect Timing?

chickelit said...

My last car with a stick (also a Honda Civic) died around 1989. It was great to find that I hadn't fogotten how to drive it. Driving it smoothly is a trick, though. I'm still learning.

Sticks are fun to drive. Like my dad used to say: "four on the floor and one under the seat."

Fred4Pres said...

This Harry Reid Double Standard Racism argument (while Democrats hypocritically hold others to a much more strict standard) is just another example of if you lie, lie big:

Here is another:

British government insists this is one of the warmest winters ever in Britian.

Reality.

Unknown said...

Very pretty, Madame. I like it when you let the saturation and intensity sweep you away.

Windbag said...

Ice forming on the river here in NC. Only the second time I've seen it in 20+ years here. Old timers recall only twice that the thing has completely frozen over. I was here for one of those times. Maybe I'll go look at my old Cancun pictures.

It may keep you sane.

Or...

vbspurs said...

I've been to Texas, but I don't remember it as gloriously hued as it seems to be from all of Ann's photologues.

Actually, thanks to these photos, I'm putting Texas back on my list of travel destinations. I've never been to Austin, the Alamo, and I didn't do much in Dallas, other than one macabre JFK tour.


I like the word photologues. Your coinage?

Also, do go to the Alamo. Yes, they have a gift shop, but it's treated pretty reverentially, I thought. Not quite how the Navy does Pearl Harbor, of course.

Granted, I saw Davy Crockett in its first run on Disneyland, so getting to go see it last year was something of a lifelong dream. I really wasn't that disappointed although I wish the weather had been better. Go in May or June.

PS EDH, you're too cynical.

Rose said...

LOVE that shot!

Ann Althouse said...

Take a lot of pictures of water -- in sunlight with reflections. Then tweak them in iPhoto. You have to tweak them to bring out the shapes. You can't even tell what you've got until you start cropping and fooling with them. That's the way to photograph water.

vbspurs said...

Your coinage?

Yes. :) I first used them for my South Florida photologue posts.

wv: shinemic. Is it now. *looks*

Unknown said...

Ann, if you're still in Austin, I suggest you try Fonda San Miguel Restaurant on North Loop. Exquisite food from the interior of Mexico. A favorite for many years.

Anonymous said...

@brer rabbit- There's something fishy about your comment.

Anonymous said...

Not goldfish. They are koi carp, as brer rabbit first noted. Goldfish are a type of carp, too, but are not the same as koi (from the Japanese).

Chip Ahoy said...

I was watching a nature photographer on TV who said he uses a filter that covers 1/2 the lens for photographing water so the tone of the sky matches the tone of the water. I forget now which side was filtered and I didn't catch exactly what type of filter, and it seemed like a lot of bother to me.

[Then that night I dreamt I went to Tierra del Fuego and met that photographer out in the rough. Except the photographer was young and female. In the dream she wanted to take off my clothes and sex me. And I'm all, "What? They have automatic door openers out here in the rough and the rocks?" And she goes, "Sure. It may be sparse and primitive out here but they do have modern conveniences. You dunce." But all that is apart from the point of photographing water and sky with filters]

Fred4Pres said...

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.


Look on the bright side, the skiing and snowmobiling should be excellent.