vapiano

© Joselito Briones

I so wanted to like this restaurant. It's so nicely located in Potsdamer Platz, and convenient after watching a movie because it's right by Sony Center. It's even recommended by a friend. The decor is decent and yet friendly. The staff is nice.

The concept is also interesting. It's basically self-service. Upon entering, you are given some sort of a credit card that you present to the staff who makes the food, then when you go out you give back the card and they'll see how much you've eaten. Inside, you grab a menu, take your pick, and give it to someone behind a counter who'd cook the dish right in front of you. Okay, that's kinda pretentious in a it's-so-fresh-and-you-know-exactly-what-goes-in-your-food kind because let's face it, everything is ready-made and portioned just-throw-'em-in-the-pan ready, but at least it's different. In Berlin if it's different enough people are bound to at least try it. So try we did. So hmmm... maybe self-service and waiting on the counter for your food may not be the best idea after all, especially when you can be sitting instead of standing and waiting in front of the cook watching him throw everything in the pan. But wait, the serving actually looks pretty! So hey, this can't be too bad, right?

Then of course time to sit (communal sitting downstairs, didn't bother to check out the sitting upstairs) and do away with the food. And this is where it all falls apart. For a restaurant that serves mainly pasta and pizza, and boasts of having their pasta always freshly made, their pasta is just plain yukky. It would've done them better if they bought the usual boil-em in a big pot ready-made pasta, any kind, because any kind would've been better. Theirs managed to be both soggy and gummy at the same time (I tried two kinds, just to be sure). No bite whatsoever and the thing sticks in your gums! Hahahaha! It's just horrible. You know how when you bake bread or anything with a dough and some part of the dough doesn't get cooked, so it's all like sticky and ewwwy? Well, soak that part in some water and you'll pretty much get the consistency of their pasta. It's so bad that I wasn't able to finish my small bowl of pizza dish. I can't remember when's the last time (must be years) I didn't finish my plate because I always eat a lot, so this gives you an idea of how bad it was.

Can't wait to try their pizza! Ha ha!


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peonies

© Joselito Briones

The peonies we bought last weekend are officially dead. It's kinda disappointing because I was expecting them all to open up. I love fully open peonies. When we bought these two big bunches from the farmer's market we were told by the man selling it that we should put it in very hot water, almost boiling, so the stems won't go limp (who knew?), so in hot water it went, and the stems remained relatively stiff, unfortunately the flowers didn't bloom any further either. Ah well.


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ann and chris in hardwick

© Joselito Briones

more of the loving, camera-friendly couple. this one was taken in hardwick hall.


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ann and chris in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

more from dovedale, this time ann and chris again. was such a lovely day.


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david in print

© Joselito Briones

On a recent Air Berlin flight I saw this magazine advertising a man's bracelet using a photo I took of David. Always nice to discover my work used in such a way. Oddly though, I cannot find any web presence for the company advertised - "Rhino".


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wil in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

i took several photos of wil with the ice cream, the things he did with it tho, this was the only one publishable. Also taken in Dovedale.


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video test

© Joselito Briones

i thought i'd try what sort of quality direct video upload in blogger.com gives, because i recently uploaded videos to youtube and the quality degenerated so bad (a 1080 vid shrunk to about a quarter of the size, so the uploaded version was crisp, but the resulting video from youtube's processing looked like it was taken by an old video phone), so i decided to remove them again. after checking youtube's Q&A forums it turns out that they introduced some new quality (or lack thereof) settings recently.

as you can see from above, it's not worth uploading videos here either.

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death by beauty

© Joselito Briones

i wasn't sure at first if this was wil or marco, but as soon as typed in the title, i knew it had to be the latter. Also taken in Dovedale.


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another useless info

© Joselito Briones

Did you know that in moviehouses in Germany (in the commercials part of the screening in the beginning), the last ad would always be for an ice cream, immediately after which all the lights would be turned on, and from some corner, an usher would yell, "anybody want some ice cream?" (in, German of course), carrying with him a box of the goodies for sale?

Photo above also from the recent trip to Miami.

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ronnie in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

This photo of Ronnie was taken in Dovedale river.


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drobo

© Joselito Briones

i'm drobotomized! finally got to buy this data storage/protection system. i can't really afford it, but since i find myself buying external hard drives more and more, i'm hoping this will be the ultimate solution. i bought the standard 4-slot thingy, together with 2 of 2-tb hard drives. the thing's been absorbing my data since this afternoon, so i don't know yet how good it is. will report later.


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classic english landscape

© Joselito Briones

this picture's taken in dove dale. i thought i'd try to make it look like an old english painting.


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do try this at home

© Joselito Briones

i don't know why but i cook almost everyday but rarely take photos of the food i make. maybe i should always set up the camera even before i started cooking, i think usually by the time i'm done in the kitchen i always just want to eat it quickly.


© Joselito Briones

today's food is home-made potato gnocchi and braised oxtail. i made the gnocchi earlier in the day (i'm kinda messy, as you can see), the oxtail a few days ago (always better reheated), i decided to take out the bones and just serve the meat and sauce. would've been better if instead of the basil i used fresh sage fried to a crisp, but i don't have any sage today. ah well, next time.


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Gau in Bakewell

© Joselito Briones

This photo of Gau was taken in Bakewell in front of the snotty cafe.


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the one who refuses to go away

© Joselito Briones

Back in London. Wil and I went to Putney to look at the house that he's buying. It's a lovely semi-detached in a quiet neighborhood. We did the measurements, which wasn't very easy because the old woman who owns the house is still there - together with all her stuff - most of which are breakable.





© Joselito Briones

First thing that I thought of, since it's obvious that Wil loves having friends around, and everybody invariably gravitates toward the kitchen/dining room anyway, is to suggest to convert this garage, next to the kitchen, to an informal dining room. He's currently enrolled in a car-sharing program and has no immediate plan to buy a car, and visitors can always park in the driveway.





© Joselito Briones

Photo above is Wil talking with the current owner (not shown). At first glance she's the typical old lady, nice and gentle and proper, but when you talk to her it becomes obvious that she's always calculating and that she's rather cunning. All the time that we were there, she kept offering Wil stuff that she won't be taking with her (usually junk) and her effort in making everything sound appealing was just admirable, albeit ineffective. Wil was fuming when we left because she insisted to extend her stay in the house by a few days, at Wil's expense (he'll have to rent a place to stay those extra few days), and brushes Wil off with "Oh I'm sure you got friends who'll accommodate you! If not I've got friends who'll put you up." Shrewd, if not cunning.


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Wall Street Series

© Joselito Briones

This finance website from Poland used some of my photos.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Thanks :)


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Wil at Harthill Hall

© Joselito Briones

This is one of the NUMEROUS photos I took of Wil and everyone else who joined the gathering at Harthill Hall. It would be fun to put it side by side with the original photo and play "spot the difference". haha!


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Duplicity

© Universal

Saw this movie tonight at Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz. Smart dialogue and great chemistry between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Some predictable outcome (SPOILER ALERT!), i.e., when you see that Wilkinson's character became the moral one among the characters, and this being a holywood movie, you just know he's gonna be on top in the end. Over all tho a very entertaining movie.

Verdict: recommended.


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food stuff

© Wil

I've almost forgotten this, but since Wil is the only one who comments on my videos, i had to go check his videos too, no? done by Wil from another trip (early last year), this time in some posh restaurant in Chamonix.


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And the award goes to...

© Joselito Briones

Good news! My sister Irma, ("Neh" to the family) was awarded the "Global Achievement Award" in her company. She's an industrial engineer managing production in Africa and the Middle East of products distributed in mainstream U.S. markets (Saks, Target, GAP, etc.).

Congratulations, Neh! We're proud of you!

(Photo taken in Dubai)

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white belt tip - color adjustment

© Joselito Briones

In the latest issue of "Contact Sheet", the newsletter for iStockphoto contributors, a short tip/article I submitted was used:



*****
Color Adjustment
By: attator

Adjusting the colors of an image also changes its actual or perceived luminosity. If it's only the image's color that needs adjusting, this can be done without touching the luminosity (contrast, brightness) by instructing the software to limit the adjustment only to colors. RAW format processors, for example, usually have an option to apply noise reduction only to colors, thereby instantly solving the problem of chroma noise while preserving the texture of the image. In Photoshop, it's also easy enough to duplicate the main layer and assigning the new layer as "color" and do all kinds of color shifts and adjustments to this color layer. Still in Photoshop, just before saving the file in jpeg format, while still in the color layer, a simple localized gradual desaturation can be applied by running repeatedly (as many times as required) an action that goes:

* select - color range - out of gamut (to adjust only colors that are out of bounds, leaving the rest in their full colorful glory)
* select - modify - expand - a few pixels / select - modify - feather - a few pixels (to avoid banding)
* modify - image - desaturate - a few levels down

Repeat as necessary.


*****

Photo above was taken in Miami on a recent trip, I used the above process to push it to maximum saturation without going out of gamut.

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Back to London

© Joselito Briones

Today we drove back to London. On the way back, we went to Haddon Hall and Hardwick Park ("Lady Spencer's Walk" and the grounds full of cows and cow shit>. As it was when we went to the Peak District, Ronnie and Jerome (photo above) were kind enough to give us a ride. They dropped us by Wil's, then after some time to take a quick rest we met up again in their flat in Baker Street and from there, dinner. Indian.


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macathon

© Joselito Briones

This is what we usually do at night, after dinner. Curiously enough nobody brought a windows notebook.


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lovely dinner

© Joselito Briones

After Dovedale, we all went back to the house for the dinner that Ann's group prepared. It was most excellent. Salmon and vegies on bread and olive-filled mini pastries for starters, perfectly done roast leg and shoulder of lamb and potatoes for main, and Eton mess for dessert. This is what holidays should always be like.

Photo above is Jerome carving one of the two big pieces of roast. We finished all of it.





© Joselito Briones

Chow time!





© Joselito Briones

Ann and Chris making the dessert.


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Dovedale

© Joselito Briones

Today's outing is in Dovedale, to enjoy the beautiful landscape of the Peak District. It was all about leisure walks and setting up a picnic to eat and soak up the sun.

© Joselito Briones

It turned out to be a popular thing to do among locals and tourists alike as there were quite a lot of people there. Enough to give a very lively cheerful atmosphere but not too much to ruin the place.

© Joselito Briones

Another group photo. I'm sure there's a video version somewhere in my files. I've snapped too many photos to keep track.


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