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So then after our journey across the Doubtful Sound, we went back to our room (picture #1) and relaxed for a while. Then we went back to the office to figure what we'd do the next day. Whilst we were standing there doing nothing in particular, Fenny got all excited and started saying "Tim! Tim! Tim!" in an urgent voice. Then I looked out the window (since that's where she was pointing) and I realised she wasn't saying my name, but the name of Other Tim, the Extraordinary American Man named Tim. Other Tim had decided to come to Te Anau, led by the guidance of the One True Prophet (Mike) to our presence. To prove his undying -- uh -- happiness in finding us, he offered to sleep on the floor of our room with us. He paid the office for a tent space and pitched his bedroll and sleeping bag on our floor (it had begun to rain, after all). Then, the next morning, I took pictures of the kitchen with Fenny and Tim and I all hanging out whilst Tim made 'pancakes.' It turns out, Tim's pancakes weren't quite like pancakes at all. For some reason, they didn't rise. They were quite flat. And a bit doughy (is that a word?) too. Not that I'm complaining, just that they were DIFFERENT. I actually quite enjoyed them. Fenny did, too. She put pepper and soy sauce on them and ate them that way. Tim tried it that way, too, and somewhat seemed to like them. I was disgusted. Here we are, in the kitchen, doing what each of us does best. Tim, cooking. Fenny, examining the exotic spices. Me, proving that hair really CAN do those things. So whilst Tim and Fenny made pancakes, I took pictures of the view outside our little backpackers hostel. Here is THC: the faucet for the discerning pot smoker. Here is the interior of our room. The board under our bed is part of the bed which fell off when we were sleeping. Here are the finished pancakes -- or should I say 'pancakes'? Best with soy sauce and black pepper. I tried with honey and strawberry jam. The honey was thick and tough, so I mixed it with hot milk, which made for very runny, milky, honey-tasting 'syrup.' The whole 'breakfast' should be put in quotes, I think. We went to the beach. There were rock stacks. I added a couple of rocks to the top of a rock stack and took pictures. Fenny put the little pebbles on top of these rock stacks then claimed them as her own creations. Here Fenny shows us one of her creations. She's topped off this rock stack with her own rock, so it's hers, right? If memory serves correctly, I stacked the second through fifth rocks down from the top myself. The entire stack you see on the left is my creation. Me with my creation. I'll give you hint. There's no way in hell any more rocks were going on top of that stack, let alone the jagged misformed piece of junk I'm holding in my hand and considering. Later that afternoon we saw that the stack had fallen. It wasn't a very stable stack, as you can probably tell by looking at it. Fenny, Tim, and I all hang out next to a big, blue bird for a photo opportunity. Here's a picture of Lake Te Anau. I took this picture because we were planning on going out on the lake in a hired boat (this is Kiwi speak for a 'rented boat') and if we got lost, we wanted some map to get back home. This would be stored in my camera for safekeeping. Lake Te Anau had some rather odd wildlife. Here Fenny considers destroying a symbol of capitalist decadence. Oh. Did I just go off on a political rant? What I mean is, she saw a dog in this car and wondered what kind of dog it was. The sign says "Give Way" which is Kiwi for "Yield." Here is a picture of the business centre of the bustling metropolis that is Te Anau. If you close your eyes and spin around twenty times and try to walk home without opening your eyes, you can get lost in this town. We are fully licenced. With two c's and everything. We went to a little store. They had a drive shaft. I don't think it's so much that they had one of everything. More that they had a large number of things no-one wants. You could tell from their selection that people would come to them with a box of junk and say: "Do you want this?" and they'd say "Yes!" and then see if they could sell it to gullible travellers. I personally wanted the drive shaft. But if drive shafts aren't your ball of wax... ...how about a concise and clear map of United States foreign and domestic policy in the last twenty years? The red lines represent the calm and rational oil policy. Green dotted lines are the policy on assassination. White space represents policy on jailing United States citizens that perpetrate victimless crimes. Notice that's the biggest bit. It's always safest to just put someone in jail just in case they do something nasty in the future. Anyway, people like being put into jail. Oh. Am I going off on another political rant? This is a set of about thirty different clothing patterns, all on a single large piece of paper. But damn, it sure does resemble US foreign and domestic policy. Here is the Taiwan flag on a Taiwanese store. The name of the store, Fenny assures me, is the same name as a major store chain in Taiwan. Any Taiwanese visitor should recognise this store name. But the store likely has no other relationship to the other store of the same name. The guy just uses it to make Taiwanese people consider coming here to buy souvenire trinkets. Tim eats some of that fine New Zealand cuisine! It's a cinnamon raisin bun or something. Here Fenny walks by very quickly. She's searching the store for some Meusli cereal. Everyone in this store is in a hurry. Except the people standing in line. They don't move at all. It isn't just an optical illusion. It's really how it was. If you're guessing the man and woman in this picture with identical hair were together, you'd be guessing right. And whilst Tim and Fenny searched for flax to make flax weavings with, I took pictures of the sunset... ...and boats and sunset... ...and Fenny trying to get the sandflies off her legs... ...and boats...and the sunset... ...and then I made my very own improbable-looking rock stack and took some pictures for you to view. But why take one picture when twelve will be better? Or how about fifty or sixty? I know you like pictures of rock stacks. I know this because you like static objects that, once thought about, never need thought about again. Like the entire Jerry Bruckheimer production, all of which are EXACTLY THE SAME, or every Aaron Spelling production, which are not only all EXACTLY THE SAME, but are exactly the same as every Jerry Bruckheimer production!!! Wow. Just like a rock stack. And so, in the grand tradition of those media masters, I stacked my own rocks. The most beautiful woman in the world, who is also a very talented flax weaver. She wove this flower, then planed it amongst my rock stacks! Rock stacks. Woven flax flower. Wonderful wife! What a great picture. Here are some pictures of me with my rock stacks and Fenny's woven flax flower. Some oddly-angled photos of the flower and rocks. Here is Fenny with her woven flax flower. How many pictures of ducks do you think would be sufficient? Ten? Twenty? Done with the duck obsession, and back to the mountain obsession, right? Oh, no! Ducks! And seagulls! Birds! Anyway, I like birds. Deal. The next idiot who claims 24 bits (8 bits of colour per three colour channels) is enough to store more colours than the human eye can see gets a fist in the face. I think we're at least an order of magnitude off from how many colours the eye can see. In real life, these hills were NOT silhouetted against the sunset. All detail was plainly visible. And yet, the highlights are burnt out, and the darks are just bordering on black. I figure we need another order of magnitude or two values for colour before computers can represent all the eye can see. Simple math, then. You need four bits to go beyond ten. So maybe another 6 or 8 bits would be enough, per colour channel. So we need 48 bits per pixel to get it just right. The experts will talk about how we can't see so well with our blue-seeing cones, so we don't need so many bits there. This is fine by me. But for God's sake, give us more bits in the red and green channels, folks! I like pictures of ducks. And mountains. And boats. And sunsets. And waterfronts. And lakes. So let's get all those elements into one set of pictures, shall we? What could be better?... ...oh! All those things plus some rock stacks! Hee hee! These rocks stacks were both creations of mine. Save me some typing. Just imagine I go off on the same rant about the bit-depth of pixels again here. This one is fairly cool. I got a bird between the two rock stacks! 'ray! Here I used a fill flash (I almost NEVER use a fill flash) to illuminate the rock stacks and allow the sunset at the same time. Even using this visual compression technique to even out the highlights and darks, a 24-bit image still can't capture the whole scene correctly! Rant rant rant. I'm waiting for 48-bit images, folks. I might have to start by buying a professional camera (pain). How many pictures of my rock stacks did you say you wanted to see? Oh! "Not many!" I thought you said one-hundred twenty. Okay, here are some mountain pictures. Satisfied? Not satisfied? Okay. More rock stack pictures. Ah! Finally! This is what I was waiting for. Excellent pic. Fenny's woven flax flower now spends its time in front of the room where we once stayed, in Te Anau at the Te Anau Backpackers (or something just like it). Now we've moved on, but it remains. Forever a reminder that the best woman in the world was once here. |
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