Recent photography kick

As some of my regular Twitter followers may know, I've been on a bit of a photography binge the last month or so. My Flickr has been ticking over regularly and attracting a fair few hits on certain days after I've uploaded some new pictures. It started when I purchased my new camera for a Muse concert I went to, Canon Powershot. I picked it because of it's high resolution and powerful zoom, 14x optical. Paid off as I got some fantastic shots from the concert, especially given I'd take all of 2 photos with it before heading into Rod Laver with it. And that made me realise that I had a pretty good tool at my disposal, so I may as well use it.

As people who have followed my Flickr realise, most of my pictures have been taken in Melbourne CBD. And it's a fascinating place to take a camera, although I'll never get why so many people focus on the architecture and the like. That's gonna be there for the prolonged feature, no need to take pictures of it. It's been done. The people and character of Melbourne is much more interesting. It's an incredibly multi-cultural city, like most of Australia, and as such you get all sorts of sights and sounds.

Most of the photos I've taken have been on my way home from work. When I'm with my camera I'll endeavour to head back to Flinders St Station a different way every day; Elizabeth St, Swanston, King, Russell etc. Sometimes going up different alleys and side streets, just looking for ways to find new sights. And as such I get different types of photos every day. Usually I'll just walk around, looking, taking my time to ensure I don't miss anything. And when I come to an intersection I'll just stand there for anywhere from 5-20 minutes just taking pictures of what I see. And trust me, you'll be amazed by what you see if you take the time to look. Especially in this city.

What's surprised me most is how indifferent the people of Melbourne are to seeing a camera and realising they're in the picture. Part of you always expects some idiot to ruin it but for the most part they carry on as if it's not there. I've said before it's like the people of Melbourne realise they're part of the picture and understand that. Which just makes getting good shots that much easier.

I shan't be one of those dolts who posts a picture and then spends 10,000 words summarising the meaning and hidden messages in my pictures, I see no point in that. To me a picture, like a drawing or painting or any form of art really, means whatever the person looking it thinks it means. That's the point of it. One thing can (hopefully) have different people think incredibly different things. If everyone just looked at something and said "Oh that's X" then there's no purpose in it, as it's just there for the sake of being there. No, instead I just put them up and if people want to they can make up their own minds. That's the whole point of being alive.

My new laptop

Because I'm sure you're all dying to know...

For the last couple of months at work they've been running this competition where you accumulate "money" for various things. And on Friday they had an auction where you could use this money to get prizes. I scored myself a $100 JB Hi-Fi voucher. Went down to JB that night and given my PC was A) 10 years old and B) slower than Aquaman outside of water, I decided to go for a laptop. Only cheapskate that I am I didn't wanna spend thousands of dollars on it, so I picked up a HP G62 for $570, $470 after using my voucher.

Came complete with Windows 7 Home Premium so I'm no longer the sole remaining user of XP. So far I'm enjoying 7, it feels like Vista only more refined. I'm a fan of "Sticky Notes", I can use it for what I use Notepad for, only it loads up straight away when you next turn your PC on. Very useful.

Comes with three USB ports, one on one side two on the other, a network cable slot, HDMI out outlet, and an SD Card slot, which given the amount of photos I take is going to come quite in handy. Also has a CD burner drive, there were laptops with Bluray drives but I didn't see the point, if you get a Bluray you want to watch it in HD, not on a small 15 inch screen. Defeats the purpose.

So all in all, a fairly standard notebook but since I've been using a PC older than the Australian cricket team, it's a sizeable step up. Also I find it far easier to Flickr and Blog on a notebook than on my old PC, which would routinely freeze for 10 seconds or so, and had an unbearably slow internet speed despite us having ADSL2+. So hopefully this means my work should be more regular this time around, and if not then you can just yell at me until it is.

Since our last episode...

While I'm establishing this new blog I guess I should post an update of what's been happening since my last interwebs update, which would've been about 3 weeks ago now.

Work wise things are pretty much same old. Had a great celebration night thing the other night (more about that later) but apart from that not much has been happening, not much ever does at the start of a new year in this industry. We're usually busy dealing with customers whinging about rates going up. Has been pretty quiet though, which I'm somewhat conflicted about. Part of me likes the easy days, but another part of me wants more sales. Paradox I guess.

Another development is that I bought a new laptop on Friday night (it's now Sunday). Hewlett Packard G62. With my $100 JB Hi-Fi voucher I got from work (my third in 2 months, loving it) it only cost me $450 and I'm loving it so far. Although when I got home with it Mum yelled at me saying HPs are rubbish and that her & our neighbour both had one and both broke very quickly. However my opinion is that my Mum and our neighbour won't have treated them properly. So I guess we'll find out in due course.

The other big development since my last update is VTAC offers being sent out. As some may know I'd applied for Journalism at several places and didn't get a Round 1 offer. Disappointing but not the end of the world. All I can do now is just wait till Round 2, and if I have no luck there then I guess I'll just have to go about teaching myself. Bring it.

Anyway, that's all for now. There'll be more later no doubt. I'm off to play my new game, DC Universe Online. Yes, I'm a nerd. But if you're reading this, you must already know that.

My new internet home (Again!)

The city of Melbourne
Originally uploaded by Straffo

Hello once again children. Yes, I have moved from my old blogging home a Live Journal to here. So I suppose I'd best introduce myself again to any new readers (yeah right).

Name: Jarryd
Age: Soon to be 23, sigh I'm getting on in years.
Job: Currently working at TRU Energy, one of the major energy retailers in Australia.
Interests: Many and varied. Sports, movies, TV shows, music, photography, writing (hence the blog), politics etc. I'm a person with whom many people have something in common.

I realise that most of the above could've just been found in my profile but let's be honest, who actually reads those? Nobody, that's who. Plus it gave me something to write for my first blog here, and you have to give the punters something new to come for otherwise you'll never get anywhere on the internet.

Suppose I should share why I disposed of Live Journal, simple really. Nobody goes there. It's unheard of and nobody likes it. And I'm far too egotistical to just write without people actually reading it. So I immediately left for the trendy, hip, popular option. So here we are; me, my iPhone and my crazy frog ringtone. The cutting edge of cool.

Anyway, the title of this blog is, as you can see, Unnecessarily Brief (god bless random adjective generators). So I guess I'd best follow my own rule and keep it brief. To keep you tied over until next time, I've included a picture I took of the city of Melbourne. I'll blog about Melbourne often. You'll be sick of it eventually.