A photo from a road trip to a dam in Kalasin (a neighboring town) last month.
I just had to stop the car to walk among them even though it was 100 degrees outside. In other news, I am still trying to perfect my channel mixing skills – the grass in that field wasn’t actually orange, it was green, but I think it looks better orange.
Category: Photos
Khon Kaen University Amphitheatre
(click image to open a larger version in a pop-up window)
No HDR here, just channel mixing. HDR looks like fun, though.
Impossible Fish
Why not ride on the coattails of the Impossible Fish Tank? (See that? That’s how to give credit, bitches…)
We somehow acquired a small fish tank at the house and went out to buy some fish to keep as slaves (not slaves in the sense that they will work our land for a share of the crops, but in the sense that they exist only to amuse us, since freshwater fish make such shitty companions/rescue animals).
We went to the local pet shop and found mostly a bunch of fat, quivering goldfish and mollies, which I detest, as I like my slaves skinny (and preferably, forlorn/amusing). In a tank wedged between the goldfish, however, we found the fish pictured above. Rather than thinking about how I’d never seen fish like these before, or how unnatural their coloring looked, I instead thought about what a stunning resemblance they shared with some fishing lures in my tackle box at home:
So you may understand that I reacted with some surprise when the worker at the pet shop, while scooping these specimens into a bag for us to take home, told us that they had in fact been artificially colored. And I do not mean to say that they were painted or dipped in some kind of dye, either. It was INJECTED into their bodies!
…………..
Fucking third world!
Poor fishies!
I no longer think of them as slaves; they are my babies and I shall care for them tenderly (feeding them processed food pellets once a day) until the time of the Big Flush.
My favorite breakfast joint in Sarakham
Sorry, no time for captions. Maybe no need, either! ; )
(Click on any image below to open a larger version in a pop-up window.)
museumr
Go play, if you have a flickr account.
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Here’s the original:
http://flickr.com/photos/cbuddha/433197026/
And there’s a story behind it: Went fishing in crazy hot weather a few weeks ago on a ghetto pontoon boat; caught a few fish and saw this little guy hit the water and start drowning. Fished him out with my Thai “fish hell” rig just as he stopped struggling. Put him on my finger and blew on his wings, and he came back to life! It was pretty cool.
Nam’s ducky cowboy hat
We came across a roadside vendor selling cowboy hats at the end of last year, and this one just stood out.
In related news, I found a hidden horse ranch on the dirt road behind our house.
Now all I need is a good set of spurs!
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UPDATE (transcribed from Google Talk session with Adam):
me: oh wait i just realized something
it’s not a duck is it
Adam: no
chicken
me: oops
always thought it was a rubber ducky
Adam: nah, dude, its like a chicken in a biscuit
me: godammit
oh well the name stays
this is nam’s ducky hat godammit
Adam: cool
What is this blossom?
Note: This is an update post to What is this tree?.
Click on any of the photos to open an enlarged version in a popup window.
The tree.
The vibrant variation in color is one reason why I call this tree the “super sakura.”
Pistil porn.
Note the fig-shaped buds.
I had to cheat in order to get a good frontal shot since the trees are so tall and the blossoms face upwards.
What is this tree?
karma karma karma karma karma
The thing is, it looks like an iguana. Could it be a false chameleon? A quick Google search shows that opinion is split as to whether iguanas can change colors on the spot or not. Whatever the explanation, this particular lizard changed the upper half of his body bright red when he climbed up this tree, right before my very eyes. I had just parked my car (I park under this tree every day) and remembered that my camera was on the back seat, so the timing was lucky.
What is this tree?
On the road to the next town, these magnificent blossoms are dropping everywhere. Kinda like sakura on steroids.
Secret Stacks of Silk
A couple months ago we visited a famous silk shop on the outskirts of a nearby town on behalf of a Japanese buyer. She wanted samples from this area of Thailand because of the Khmer and Laotian influence that provides the Isan region with a special mix of so many things, including silk patterns. Basically, this was one of my biggest fantasy scenarios of all time – shopping for stuff I like, unrestrained, with a huge budget – and we attacked this job with zeal.
We started by having the staff crack open the glass cases containing the good cuts of choicest silk, and buying a sample of each. We then moved on to the (merely) high quality stuff, then the normal quality stuff. Eventually, lost in a sea of conversation between my wife and the shop’s owner in a language I still don’t understand, I got bored.
I wandered to the back of the shop, where the shopkeeper’s mother was sitting perfectly still in a wicker chair and just getting older, and noticed a door that was cracked open just enough to see the goldmine…
Like thumbing through old vinyls…
I conveyed to the old lady that I wanted to enter and she gave the signal OK… I stepped in to find a storage room filled with unsorted silk sheets stacked from floor to ceiling…
I had died and gone to heaven; it was a silk junkie’s Nirvana.
I spent an eternity in there…
I was in there so long, my wife urged me to hurry up because she was tired… I had done the impossible!
I had outshopped my wife, shopping for girly stuff!
THE END