Wednesday, July 01, 2009

the gayest usb hub of all


© Joselito Briones


i bought this one last weekend, made by LaCIE, because i can imagine the effort that the designer must have gone through. ha!. it also comes with a usb lamp and propeller at the end of those stiff cables. seems to work, if a bit difficult to set up. i can return it within two weeks if it turns out it doesn't do its job, so i thought I'd show you now, just in case. ah who am i kidding, i'll prolly keep it.


XXX

Monday, June 29, 2009

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!


XXX

Sunday, June 28, 2009

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.


XXX

Friday, June 26, 2009

ann and chris in hardwick


© Joselito Briones


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


XXX

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

ann and chris in dovedale


© Joselito Briones


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


XXX

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

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".


XXX

Monday, June 22, 2009

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.


XXX

Sunday, June 21, 2009

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.

XXX

Saturday, June 20, 2009

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.


XXX

Friday, June 19, 2009

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.

XXX

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

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.


XXX

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

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.


XXX

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