Been trying to find a suitable location to dump my files for the Ayvarith website as a beginning, but none was there. Angelfire and Tripod were not available for free as it seems (both under Lycos). Homestead had some good choices, unfortunately it is not completely free. I did that some days ago, and I shall continue later. There are some websites that I really cannot tell if they are good or anything, since I didn't hear of them and, some of them seem a bit awkward just by looking at the website address! I need somewhere, with no less than 15 MB space, for the time being. After all, I think I've settled on Fortunecity, it has a free service and it offers 1GB! Too good to be true to me!! But well, We'll see what will be going later. Right now, I'm doing nothing, just will dump the files whenever I'm having some time for this.
Afterall, I think I'm going to design the whole thing again and maybe do some sounds clips again, hoping that they become clearer than the other versions before that required the RealPlayer.
I think I've underestimated the abilities of Photomatix. Last Thursday I was out with a friend by night, and I liked the view of that restaurant by night, and when no one was around, except of few cars of course belonging to the night bats like my friend and myself. It was funny though how we tried to set up and shoot; we went around the parking lot that was far away a bit in circles around just to find a nice spot. Finally, we got that spot but with the tree in front, but it was OK to me, since other angles were worse, far worse, than this one.
Our favorite icecream place
I had to sit at the back just behind my friend and turn off the lights of the car, just like spies snapping photos of their prey! It was a hard shoot; no tripod and no stable hands, plus to that that I had to use my telephoto. As a rule, if you have a telephoto and worked on a zoom, then any simple shake to your hand will be apparent in the shoot later on, and needless to say that even the mirror inside the camera (which clicks up when you press the button) do shake the camera a bit. That's why there is an option in these cameras to "lock up the mirror".
Hence, you can imagine how it went while I was sitting in the backseat trying to snap the building with that telephoto. I tried to sit in many different ways just to stabilize my hands without using the tripod, yet my trials failed. At least, I got 2 shots of different exposures that were fine.
Back home when I downloaded the images, I decided to try out the 3 main shots, with the brightest being the shakiest (since it is the brightest which means a longer time for the shutter to close and open again, i.e. more shake). With Photomatix, it was almost like magic; most of the shake is gone. Some noise would be apparent in a 100% close up look for sure, and I think this is even obvious in what so-called, "stable shot". But this time, the shaky part is indeed like almost gone with no trace. Could it be that, somehow, the exposure information are extracted from the RAW file and fixed up to the general image without having to adapt the features of the image itself? I wonder. Afterwards, cleaning and contrast boosting was done, as usual.
By coincidence, I found out that my poem, O Shannon, was published in www.writing.com in some newsletter sent to other users for St Patrick day. I received a message in the websites internal email system about a review made by a reader. Judging from the rank (a number beside the nickname of the user) I can say it was a high ranked user. They liked the poem and told me it was in the newsletter, which I usually delete. How embarassing. He forwarded the newsletter back to me and found it under "Editor's Pick" column. I think being published in a newsletter is awesome, somehow it means like your poems are read by "high ranked" people, i.e. those who make out these newsletters in the website itself! The funny thing is, although it is about something Irish, but the newsletter was about Romance and Love. Is memorizing the childhood considered something romantic? I really don't know, but anyway, it got published that way!
Still in Ireland and its stories, I've finished the first book from a list of books that I got from Ireland last October. The Irish Ghosts book, by John Dunne.
The cover of the book I have is different by the way. Now, after unpacking the other books and some of them were just TOO much to read, I realized here that I have another ghosts book, this time by Geddes & Grosset. I don't know why I bought two already, but well, this should be fun I guess... I hope! This one looks fatter in contents, and maybe that's why I did take it in the first place! There are books on Irish music and Irish dancing (or a story of the Irish dancing) and a book about the Irish myth. This last one is a tough one to read. SO FAT.
__________
457. the hero got ready for a hand combat
458. then he tried to view clearly the face
459. and he found out it was but a human like all
460. while the stranger approached with a smile
461. and from under his cloak he grasped something
462. then said with a harsh slow voice like a nomad
463. in a weak Caqobian tongue
464. "is this what you are looking for?"
465. and the stranger showed the Charnagút
466. then the stranger continued the speech
467. while Alexander was checking his dear Charnagút
468. "you suffered so much from the desert,
469. and fever attacked you like locusts on green leaves,
470. then you fainted near our place"
471. and Alexander praised God for His grace and said
472. "thank you O generous one, but you speak Caqobian,
473. how did you know I am a Caqobian?"
474. and the huge man laughed and said with a smile
475. "you think we do not know the Charnagút?
476. the sword of just that was once for Pilippánút,
477. the fair king of Caqobia, who protected us long ago,
478. and this tongue is spoken around by the literate
479. along side with other ayvaric tongues of other tribes"
480. then Alexander forgot his pains when he heard of the Ayvar
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