If only I could play like BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn or Eric Clapton!

“What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity — for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Late afternoon in the Dandenong Ranges
A steel string guitar
Cowboy paradise

self portrait, effects applied using the GIMP with FX-Foundary plugins

weekend snapshot entry

I decided that it had been far too long since I had pulled out the ol’ camera and took some shots. I walked around this morning with my daughter and took a few experimentals. While editing them on my favorite editing software, the GIMP, I accidentally choose the Threshold option. This gives a very stark black and white image. I was impressed with how the stripes on the shirt contrasted the other elements in the composition.

I decided to use the threshold edit and layer it with an alpha mask and a circular gradiant. This pulled in color and gave me a great color and texture contrast. If all this sounds like goobledy gook and you wouldn’t know your GIMP from a lame Pimp, then check out the GMIP tutorials located on the site here. The second part of this tutorial explains the threshold tool and how to use it.

Many people, except us, had moved on. Our lost corpses had been dumped in a small, claustrophobic crevasses; no name, nothing. We missed everything – the celebrations, the parties; we never got to tell our story to the new generation. Never. How would you feel being dumped in a cold dark grave? Especially when you’re thrusted into a small compartment with no headstone. How would your family know where to put the flowers? We, nameless soldiers, spirits hang around, watching our families at home, eating peacefully and seeing their fathers and sons return home from the traumatizing war. Seeing them throw celebrations for the return of their relatives. But some never return. While our body rots and deteriorates into nothing but a clump of ash, our bodies shake with fear on what will happen to us, what the afterlife will be like. I wish life was a time machine and could turn back, but who would want to turn back to a disastrous war when you hear ear splitting screams, blood curdling gun shots, and even worse … death?

We spirits hang around. When we return home, unknown we’re dead, we feel heart broken – families grieving, pets looking like they were dumped at the pound’s doorstep, and then you see the letter, that letter. The letter that tells you your loved one has died, and then that’s when it happens. When they bury your corpse, you can never return. Never again will your heart beat, never again will you feel the sensation of new born air soaking into your lungs, when you’re joyful and feel victory bubbling inside you, tingling your finger tips. But that is all left behind, that will never return. All you must do now is follow your heart and decide what to do. Let your spirit glide in the graveyard, watch your family all solemn, or look at all the returning soldiers, all proud and they tell their sons and daughters their destructive journeys.

When you leave your body, you feel awkward, like a stinging sensation, then a huge lump in your throat when you turn around and gaze at your corpse. Your eyes poise attentively to it – like it’s the ugliest thing you have ever seen. Your face scrunches up in disgust, and then a ghostly tear falls from your face. We always know we’ll be remembered, remembered as those who tried.

Several years later your spirit has left this world. Everything had been modernized. Houses, cars, buildings, clothes, everything, but we have been left untouched. Everything had changed around us, as quick as lightning bolts crackling in the sky. Then after years, you join your family again. You watch the world from a distance with them, just like modern families sit at the lounge and watch television, back in our days, we didn’t have entertainment. I remember me as a young soldier, representing my country with pride. I was as prouder than a Wedged Tailed Eagle grasping a fish with its talons. I was grasping my pride with my talons because I know we will never be forgotten, and I will always keep that saying in my ghostly mind…

Lest we forget …

Juniper, 10 years old

I hear the train a comin’
it’s rolling round the bend
and I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when,
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
but that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Anton..
When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son,
always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
now every time I hear that whistle I hang my head and cry..

Well if they’d free me from this prison,
if that railroad train was mine
I bet I’d move just a little further down the line
far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay
and I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away…..

-Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash

Yesterday I posted a photo of the elusive Ghost Man of the Dandenong Ranges. Today, I am proud to announce that Ghost Man has been the catalyst for gaming greatness. Yes, that’s right, Ghost Man was the inspiration for the next Olympic sport – Ghosting or sometimes referred to as Personal Space Invading.

Earlier in the week, Australian radio personalities Hamish and Andy demonstrated this new crazy on the ROVE TV show. Have a watch and get ready to see some exciting Ghosting action in Beijing.

Have you Ghosted today?

After living in Australia for over 12 years, these mobile doughnut kitchens still intrigue me. I was a sucker last weekend and stopped at this one. Got meself a half dozen jam filled very hot doughnuts. No complaints from me!

Zenwalk Fly Free Wallpaper Download (3848 x 2592 px – 4GB file)

So far, I love using Zenwalk Linux 5.0.  It’s a very nice lean linux distribution. I had the hankering to create a nice background for my Zenwalk box’s 20″ monitor. I started with a photo I took of some interesting clouds. To that, I added a photo of my youngest daughter jumping on the trampoline. I used the GIMP and also Wine running Photoshop CS2 to cut her away from the original background and blend in with the sky photo.

Above is a screen shot of my desktop using XFCE. Feel free to hit the link and download the large file. If you wish a smaller version, you can find it on my flickr account.

• Camera: Canon 400D
• Downloaded to Zenwalk with DigiKam
• Edited using the GIMP and Wine with Photoshop CS2

This poem is copyleft,
you are free to distribute it, and diffuse it
dismantle it, and abuse it
reproduce it, and improve it
and use it
for your own ends
and with your own ending

This is an open source poem
Entering the public domain
Here’s the source code,
the rest remains
for you to shape, stretch and bend
add a hash bang slash if you want
share it out amongst your friends

Because I didn’t write this poem, I molded it.
picked up the lines in cyberspace and refolded it
as I was surfing on over here, Steal This Poem v1.3
rescued leftover ideas
on their way to /dev/null.
Found screwed up fragments
and put them to use
as complementary tag bits.

Because, think about it
I can’t tell you anything truly new.
There can only be few more new ideas to be thought through.
So should we treat them as rare commodities, high value oddities?
Probe the arctic reserves and other sensitive ecologies
for new ideas buried deep beneath the permafrost?
hunt them out of the cultures till the cultures are lost?
then suffocate them with patent protection?
No! we should re use and recycle them
Pile our public spaces high with ideas beyond anyone’s imagining..

So I steal a riff here and a rhyme there,
a script here and a argument there
pass them on around the net,
roll the words, add a tweak
here go on…
now don’t you feel like a supreme geek?

This poem is indebted to Linus Torvalds, Eric S. Raymond, Stephen Hawking and Richard Stallman,
This poem is indebted to all the words I’ve read and the codes I’ve known
This poem is a composite of intellect, yours and mine.
This poem is RIPPED OFF! every single slash bash and line

Because intellectual property is theft
and piracy our only defense left against the thought police.
when no thought is new
its just rewired, refined, remastered and reproduced
The revolution will be plagiarized
The revolution will not happen if our ideas are corporatised.
So STEAL THIS POEM
Take it and use it
for your own ends
and with your own ending

This poem is copyleft,
All rights are reversed