Christmas Day – toys, toys, toys!
So then, what was the final thing that I said to the kids last night when I put them to bed… apart from “Night, night – love you both”? It was very clearly that they shouldn’t get up really early. Lately they’ve been good, not getting up until 7am, so like butter, we’re on a roll there on that front.
4:30am today.
Our door creaked open (really must get some WD40 on those hinges) and our two children shouted with glee, “It’s morning – Happy Christmas! Time to get up.”
Um. No. Rather grumpily I told them to go back to bed as wasn’t time yet in the slightest, the big spoil sport that I am. “Awwwwww!” and down-turned mouths ensued, but Mum and Dad could resume throwing out the ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Take two. A reasonable hour. Three of them later, even. The signs at the front door were good; the mince pie and the carrot had both gone, so Father Christmas had definitely been here! Then, the door to the living room was swung open and much joy and jumping around was had, to which the kids then told me to calm down, which I tried to. It’s difficult you know, I really like Christmas! Honestly, I do. It’s great.
Above is one of the first images taken on Mummy’s brand new camera, a proper DSLR – with two lenses.
I’ve missed this type of camera over the years – they just take such better pictures and I was devastated when my old SLR’s mirror broke, rendering the entire thing utterly useless. All that will change now, now we can take decent shots of the family without it constantly being out of focus or the lens having an error and jamming in the open position.
Obviously this is a shot of one of the kids’ haul of toys. Had I tried taking this shot with the old camera, it’d have been totally out of focus, rather dark and loaded with noise grain.
This one’s taken on a longer lens, just look at the soft focus of the background, while the subject matter is in focus… well, apart from the Auton, he was slightly forward of the focal plane, but hey – a massive improvement. Okay, so they aren’t perfect, but these shots are just the initial trial run, point, shoot, then see what it looks like without using the manual over-rides.
Righto, I ought to go and help with the cooking, but I just thought that I’d put up a quick blog to say Happy Christmas and this is what we’ve been up to thus far. I may come back and update this later on, so we shall see.
We hope that you’re all having a great time out there!
UPDATE:
Well, we watched the new episode of Doctor Who last night and yeah, it was pretty good.
I wasn’t overly fussed with the actual snowman story itself as it was all just a bit of nonsense fluff dotted around the real story, that of the introduction of Clara. Great character! The humour was great as well, especially the scenes revolving around the memory worm – all too obvious humour, but it had to be done. Then there was the new opening titles and music…
To be honest, I think it’s a vast improvement, though the graphics look like someone’s spent half an hour in After Effects, playing with layers loaded up with stock HD images of stuff and every particle generator that they could lay their hands on. Some of it feels rather random and I’m not sold on the cartoon TARDIS at all, especially in the way that it moves. The biggest thing that stands out to me is that whoever created these titles have clearly referenced the Superman Returns opening title sequence, go and have a look for yourself. I also really like the theme tune, though I’ll need to see if I can listen to it again somewhere.
There’s a new console room too, designed by Michael Pickwoad. It’s not bad, the console is fun, and for those of you who are fans of Ghostbusters, check out some of the controls on the panels – the same as those used on the proton packs.
Oh what fun folk can have trying to come up with a cross over explanation for that… either that or they can just say that both machines got their supplies from the same place.
Over all, it’s all good. Roll on the 50th anniversary episodes.
wow ,worlds smalllest xmas tree lol
Looks like you them to both curly and your looking good but woa that shirt realy get the wife to take you shopping
yeah kids toys uhuh i belive you
the cyberman looks like he is grinning like the joker
the auton is slightly soft edged but wow what quality pics and small to so wow and double wow i am totaly impressed
hope it was a fantastic xmas was great hre feasted and that i think tho need to watch again has to be one of best who episodes since the return of the program the weathering on the box matts costume all superb and a ok story no to daft and think she might grow on me new titles and console erm ill have to see again but much better i think that is smallest one since return 5 drs scale looks smlller than hartnells but what do i know looking promising
hope wife and kids had as much fun
It’s not the size of the tree that counts, it’s what you do with it that really matters… and as for my shirt, I love it. I have no need to go shopping.
Everyone had fun thanks, I trust you did too.
The Christmas WHO special. Wasn’t over keen on the snowman story itself, it just did nothing for me, but all that surrounded it was great. New console room, good. New opening titles – looked like half an hour spent in After Effects, still, I liked it. Theme. Very nice.
Very interesting notice on the similar knobs on the new console by the radar panel and the proton back. I know a couple guys who will be looking at this in greater detail as they are both into Ghostbusters.
Yeah, they’re not just similar – they’re identical. The black versions. Didn’t GB1 have black ones while they were grey on the GB2 proton packs? Or was it the other way around?
Either way, I know that the supplier has had a whole bunch of them in black for a few years now and this is where the BBC guys got them from.