[ObMeme] five questions: cozy edition
Oct. 4th, 2018 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tbutlerBy way of yhlee, five questions.
1. What's your favorite thing about cats?
They are excellent emotional blotters. :) Having a cat curled up in my lap, or next to me, does a great job of 'soaking up' stress, anger, and anxieties, leaving me feeling pretty mellow in ideal circumstances.
2. What's your current favorite lens and why?
The Lumix 20mm f/1.7. It's the one I leave mounted on my camera by default.
It hits the trifecta of tone for me: vivid color, good contrast, and able to register subtle tonal shades (for example, with a billowing cloud of smoke, it can capture the slight shading differences between parts of the cloud closer and further away from you, giving it more of a three-dimensional look). It's sharp. The focal length (magnification) is slightly wider than the unassisted eye, so it's a very comfortable length for me to shoot at. It's a small lens; which makes it easy to aim and shoot with, easy to move the camera in and out of the camera bag with it mounted, and easier to carry around in my hand for long periods.
3. Which BBQ would you recommend to someone visiting the USA for the first time who wanted to try it? (i.e. they're fine eating meat and trying new things)
Arthur Bryant's, I'd say. They use high quality meat, smoke it well, and have two very different sauces that represent distinct BBQ traditions. They have a good variety of smoked meats, and serve large portions. (I still remember the time when a friend from Germany came to visit, about 15 years ago; his flight got delayed and didn't get in until late at night, so I drove to the nearest Bryant's to grab a sandwich for him. The look on his face when he saw the size was suitably bogglesome. ^_^ )
4. Favorite music for a long drive?
Hrm. That's hard to say; a lot depends on my mood and where I'm going, not to mention how hard I need to stay awake. ^^;; My normal listening mix is highly eclectic and shuffled at random, so it's entirely possible to go from Styx to Mozart to Mannheim Steamroller to Three Dog Night to Afro Celt Sound System to Yoko Kanno to the Beatles to John Williams. And normally I love the variety; it keeps me stimulated and entertained. When I'm fatigued, either mentally or physically, I've got a playlist of directly stimulating songs with 'drive' - Eastbound and Down, March from Superman, Let it Ride, Tank!, the Green Hornet Theme, Dance of the Comedians (i.e. the Road Runner chase music), Duel of the Fates, etc. When I'm stressed or frustrated, I'll go for one of the soothing instrumental playlists I've done - Blue Sky of the Adriatic Sea, Bellavia, Classical Gas, Feels So Good, Space Lion, A Taste of Honey, etc.
5. Best summertime beverage?
Just plain ice water, most of the time. It's hard to beat the cleansing cold feel of it sluicing through your mouth and down your throat. A favorite trick of mine is to take water bottles and fill them about half-full, then freeze them; the resulting giant block of ice usually lasts a lot longer than a handful of small cubes, and it seems to keep the water more uniformly cold. (If you decide to try this at home, it's best to rest the bottle at an angle when you freeze it. That increases the amount of ice surface area in contact with the water; and reduces the chance of the freezing ice splitting the bottle, because it has more room to expand.)
yhlee, five questions. 1. What's your favorite thing about cats?
They are excellent emotional blotters. :) Having a cat curled up in my lap, or next to me, does a great job of 'soaking up' stress, anger, and anxieties, leaving me feeling pretty mellow in ideal circumstances.
2. What's your current favorite lens and why?
The Lumix 20mm f/1.7. It's the one I leave mounted on my camera by default.
It hits the trifecta of tone for me: vivid color, good contrast, and able to register subtle tonal shades (for example, with a billowing cloud of smoke, it can capture the slight shading differences between parts of the cloud closer and further away from you, giving it more of a three-dimensional look). It's sharp. The focal length (magnification) is slightly wider than the unassisted eye, so it's a very comfortable length for me to shoot at. It's a small lens; which makes it easy to aim and shoot with, easy to move the camera in and out of the camera bag with it mounted, and easier to carry around in my hand for long periods.
3. Which BBQ would you recommend to someone visiting the USA for the first time who wanted to try it? (i.e. they're fine eating meat and trying new things)
Arthur Bryant's, I'd say. They use high quality meat, smoke it well, and have two very different sauces that represent distinct BBQ traditions. They have a good variety of smoked meats, and serve large portions. (I still remember the time when a friend from Germany came to visit, about 15 years ago; his flight got delayed and didn't get in until late at night, so I drove to the nearest Bryant's to grab a sandwich for him. The look on his face when he saw the size was suitably bogglesome. ^_^ )
4. Favorite music for a long drive?
Hrm. That's hard to say; a lot depends on my mood and where I'm going, not to mention how hard I need to stay awake. ^^;; My normal listening mix is highly eclectic and shuffled at random, so it's entirely possible to go from Styx to Mozart to Mannheim Steamroller to Three Dog Night to Afro Celt Sound System to Yoko Kanno to the Beatles to John Williams. And normally I love the variety; it keeps me stimulated and entertained. When I'm fatigued, either mentally or physically, I've got a playlist of directly stimulating songs with 'drive' - Eastbound and Down, March from Superman, Let it Ride, Tank!, the Green Hornet Theme, Dance of the Comedians (i.e. the Road Runner chase music), Duel of the Fates, etc. When I'm stressed or frustrated, I'll go for one of the soothing instrumental playlists I've done - Blue Sky of the Adriatic Sea, Bellavia, Classical Gas, Feels So Good, Space Lion, A Taste of Honey, etc.
5. Best summertime beverage?
Just plain ice water, most of the time. It's hard to beat the cleansing cold feel of it sluicing through your mouth and down your throat. A favorite trick of mine is to take water bottles and fill them about half-full, then freeze them; the resulting giant block of ice usually lasts a lot longer than a handful of small cubes, and it seems to keep the water more uniformly cold. (If you decide to try this at home, it's best to rest the bottle at an angle when you freeze it. That increases the amount of ice surface area in contact with the water; and reduces the chance of the freezing ice splitting the bottle, because it has more room to expand.)
