What's going on?

Okay, I haven't blogged in ages. It's not that I've given up blogging or the Whoathon. Far from it! I moved. I'm in the middle of moving chaos. I love my new place. I walk out my front door and see mountains. But I still have a lot to accomplish. Blogging to resume soon!

Learning to use my ND filter

I always liked the look of long exposure photos. When I upgraded my camera body, I thought, this is my chance to up my game and get creative and really explore what I can do. So I got a ten-stop ND filter. For those unaware, a neutral density (ND) filter attaches to the camera lens and blocks light from entering, so you can leave the shutter open longer than you normally would. You can get flowing or misty water or streaky clouds on a sunny day. Take photos like that with no filter, and you'll get photos that are all white from too much light.

Check out that ocean.

After work one day, I drove to the beach in Ventnor to take some photos of the fishing pier. Since this was my first time using a filter like this (my only other filter is a polarizer), there was some trial and error. By the time I got the hang of it, the sun was setting. In fact, the first photo in this post was taken at sunset.

The more stops, the darker the filter. Ten-stop is pretty extreme. It blocks most light. It's so dark that I couldn't compose or focus with the filter on the lens. I had to compose and focus, then switch to manual focus so the autofocus wouldn't kick in and mess up the focus, then put the filter on the lens, then take the shot.

It was a fun evening. I love being by the ocean, and I love taking photos. For a comparison to what it looked like without the filter, here's a pic I took with my phone when I got there, more than an hour before the two other photos in this post were taken, so the sun was higher in the sky and it wasn't casting all those pretty colors.

From underneath the pier, the beach looks deserted, but there were a handful of people there. If you want to see bigger versions of the photos, you can find the color one here and the black and white one here. 

Doctor Who: The War Machines

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the Whoathon. But I'm so close to the end of the 1st Doctor! So here we go. At the end of the last story, he finally ditched Steven. Now he needs to get rid of Dodo. Oh, wait- he does! In fact, she gets sent away early on and never comes back. Huzzah!

The Doctor and Dodo arrive in London in the 60s and immediately somehow get involved with Professor Brett and his super-intelligent computer, WOTAN.

Professor Brett and the Doctor, in front of WOTAN

WOTAN is SO SMART. WOTAN can think for itself. If you ask WOTAN questions, it answers you...like Siri. WOTAN somehow knows what TARDIS means. Huh. So what are the governments of the world going to do? Turn all other computers over to WOTAN's control. This is not a bad idea at all. Someone brings up this disaster waiting to happen at a press conference about WOTAN, and everyone laughs at him. Nice.

Random lady, Polly, Ben, and the Doctor

Meanwhile, we meet Polly and Ben, who are likeable and nice and fun. Not like Dodo. The anti-Dodos. Polly is Professor Brett's secretary, and Ben is a sailor. At this point, I should also mention that WOTAN can control people's minds and has decided that the world can't progress any further under human control. So WOTAN will just run things from now on, okay? And if you don't like it, he'll destroy you. WOTAN takes over Dodo's mind and she becomes even more annoying. But the Doctor cures her and sends her away. And we never see her again!

War Machine

WOTAN decides that London is first on the quest for world domination, so it has twelve War Machines built by more people under mind-control. It's going to conquer the world with these twelve things. Not by controlling all the world's computers. That bit is never mentioned again. But look out, the War Machines spray deadly mist!

They also have giant bashing arms. War Machines are scary in the way that Daleks are scary. Which is to say, they aren't. I actually like this story, which you may not be able to tell because I'm poking fun at it a little. I enjoyed this story a lot more than I've been enjoying First Doctor stories recently, and I'm chalking that up to the introduction of Ben and Polly and the absence of Steven and Dodo. Polly and Ben are going to be the new companions, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them.

So the Doctor has a plan that involves capturing one of the War Machines rampaging around London and reprogramming it to go destroy WOTAN. Of course this works perfectly.

War Machine in London

So WOTAN is destroyed and all the mind-controlled people are free. Dodo sends Polly and Ben to tell the Doctor that she has decided to stay in London. (See, she never comes back. And she can't be bothered to say goodbye to the Doctor in person after all they've been through? Sheesh.) The Doctor gets in the TARDIS, and Ben realizes that he forgot to give the Doctor his key back. Polly and Ben step inside, and the TARDIS dematerializes.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First
Companions: Dodo, Polly, Ben
Episode: #27, "The War Machines," four parts
Adversary: WOTAN
Classic Lines: WOTAN: "Doctor Who is required. Bring him here."
Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: WOTAN calls the Doctor "Doctor Who." In no other story does anyone refer to the Doctor by this name.
Next Up: "The Smugglers"

One-skillet orecchiette with shrimp, spinach, and mushrooms

I like the website Serious Eats. It has lots of good food info- not just recipes. Of course I've saved a ton of recipes from the site, but I haven't tried any of them yet. Until now.

I went with one-skillet orecchiette with shrimp, spinach, and mushrooms. I wasn't sure how it would be, but all the ingredients are things I think are delicious. As Dave said, "You could throw all those ingredients in a bowl and microwave it and I'd be happy." He is not a foodie.

So, for the ingredients, it called for oyster mushrooms, but I used shiitake instead. Still yummy! The shrimp was ridiculously easy to cook, and Dave was a huge help as my sous chef, peeling the raw shrimp while I chopped a shallot and garlic cloves and prepped the fresh spinach and mushrooms. Oh, the spinach. In chicken spinach pasta thing, I use frozen. Wow, the difference when I used fresh in this recipe was astounding. SO GOOD.

What attracted me to this recipe, besides all the delicious ingredients, was that this is all cooked in one pan. You pour a quart of chicken broth into the saute pan, dump in the pasta, and cook it like that.

I've never cooked pasta in that way. And it was amazing. It was creamy and had a fantastic flavor. All the ingredients worked really well together, it was easy, and it was healthy to boot. I'll definitely be making this again.

Milk chocolate cookies and cream cookies

Oreos and chocolate chips in one cookie? I had to try this.

I got the recipe from the Joy the Baker blog. Right off the bat, my expectations were too high. This cookie will be the greatest cookie of all time! No cookie can live up to that. The dough was very delicious. Because as all bakers know, you just have to taste that. Of course you do.

These cookies were pretty good, but not the best cookies ever. They were chewy and tasty, and they were definitely better the next day.

I did end up liking them a lot, once they recovered from my overblown expectations. Good stuff.

Siri's bedtime stories

I talk to Siri. So do lots of other people. In case you don't know, if you have an iPhone, you can talk to the phone and it will answer your questions or perform certain tasks for you. This "digital personal assistant" is Siri. My Siri sounds like a guy, but you can have a woman's voice, too.

There are plenty of posts out there about all the crazy things you can ask Siri and Siri's funny responses. But I've never seen these...

Sometimes I ask Siri to tell me a story, but I never tried asking for a bedtime story.

Huzzah! I tried again the next day. What would Siri tell me now?

And another?

I love Siri.