Berrynose - Anything that is Visually Attractive

We’re just human and born to be sentimental. You can’t be rational and do things right all the time, so does your partner. Forgiveness, appreciation and commitment are very important elements of maintaining a good and long lasting relationship. Express yourself in a creative and romantic way will definitely help a lot. 

It’s relative easy to be romantic at the beginning of a relationship. But the real test is the time, particularly when you think you know what your partner will and won’t do, and when everything becomes so routine apparently. Any romantic acts of expression that you’ve done before will probably no longer be as effective if you do it again, especially if it’s entirely not the work of your own hands. This includes sending real flowers, or even buying diamonds for your partner. On the other hand, it’s usually very effective if you handmake or cook something special for your partner, but you don’t always have the time to think about and do that, do you?

If you don’t have the time but still want to express your confession in a special and touching way, perhaps you should think about writing your confession by your own hand this time! As the internet and the computers rule our world for the past decade or more, most of us seldom see each other’s writing by hand especially when we’re out in the workforce. Handwritten text is becoming more and more like a piece of art and treasure. It doesn’t matter if you think your handwriting is ugly. Handwriting is the signature of your character. When people read your handwriting, the feeling is like seeing you and listening to you face-to-face. You don’t have such a feeling when you read typed and printed words nowadays, as you probably are forced to read them everyday, every hour, and almost every minute.

That’s why traditional paper greeting cards still have its market despite of the massive offerings of free or subscription-based e-cards anywhere online, as you can express yourself on paper greeting cards using a pen in your own hand. But unfortunately, the quality of your handwriting often contributes heavily to the overall aesthetics of the card. Another thing, which is also the case for most e-cards, is that the way your words are presented often don’t harmonize with the graphics and design of the card itself. It’s usually the case where the graphics is on one side of the card, whereas your words are entirely on another side, unless you’re artistic enough and have the right tools to fit your words into the graphics and design. Sometimes you may even need to tweak the card a little bit by additional sketching or cutting for such purpose. Again, you’ll need extra time to do all that. Not to mention the additional time it takes to have the card delivered to your location (if you order it online), and in some cases, to your love one. Something that doesn’t apply to e-cards.

Therefore, AniGreetings.com offers a solution that takes the best of both worlds. An anigreeting is a 3D animated short greeting video that can be personalized, downloaded (in its personalized form), and delivered to your recipient(s) in a matter of seconds. You may personalize one or more sections of the animation with your typed and/or handwritten words, drawings, or photos.

All you need to do is to think about what you want to confess. Write your confession using a black felt-pen or ballpoint pen on a piece of white paper. When you’re done, take a photo of what you’ve written using a digital camera (or scan it if you’ve a desktop scanner). Then pick an anigreeting of your choice in AniGreetings.com and upload the image file online. Remember to indicate in the checkbox that the image is a drawing/handwriting, and to adjust the size and the orientation of the image block to be rendered in the section. Then you’re all set for a preview of what you’ve put in. Your handwritten words will be transformed and rendered using the same color shades and appearance as that of the typed words. Fine tune the size and orientation of the image block and run the preview again if necessary.

Example of how handwritten words and drawings are transformed and rendered in an anigreeting. Top: Digital camera capture of words written on a piece of white paper. Above: The preview snapshot of an anigreeting.

When you’re done with the personalization, you may then send it to your love one through email just like sending e-cards. You may also download the personalized anigreeting as a .mpg movie file, which can be shared with your love one through video sharing providers such as YouTube. Alternatively, it can be burnt into a CD for later distribution. As your love one may also download and keep a copy of your personalized anigreeting, I’m sure your love one will have a feeling of commitment from you about your confession made on an anigreeting!

Click here to show the collection of Valentine’s Day anigreetings to date.

I hope you enjoy my comet images. I’m in the process of putting the comet images up in Zazzle for anyone who are interested in getting the images printed on posters, mouse pad, or mugs. There’s also a plan to offer mouse pad & mugs in Cafepress in the next few days as well. I do regret to say that the shipping cost to non-US countries is rather steep from both Zazzle & Cafepress. However I do have good relationship with a local printer. It’s not impossible for me to offer professional poster printing service for Australian & NZ residents if there’s demand for it.

If you’ve any suggestions on other alternative poster/mousepad/mug printing & fulfillment services like Zazzle/Cafepress (especially if you know any that offer local shipping in any non-US countries), or anything else about the product offerings in my gallery please feel free to comment below or let me know.

I’m still building the gallery. Please check back often for updates.

If you still haven’t got any chances to watch this comet, better be hurry. It’s not just the weather that matters. As the moon is getting brighter and higher up the sky for the next few evenings, combined with the reducing brightness of the comet itself as it travels away from us, you can on longer see it if you’re not far enough from city lights.

For the next few nights till the end of this month, you should be able to watch the comet in early morning as well, an hour or two prior to sunrise. By that time the moon is well set under your feet. If you’re in Victoria, Australia, the best time should be between 4:30am - 5:30am. Look for it in the SE to SSE direction of the sky, about 5 to 15 degrees above the horizon. You should go to a place that is completely free of city and suburban lights, at least in the direction of viewing. Far country is the best. In Victoria, most part of the coastline except that within Port Phillip Bay should be good for the purpose. If you can’t get to the coastline, Brisbane Ranges is probably the closest possible weatern inland location from the city. Avoid the alpine areas in the north east as the sky may be affected by bushfire smoke. Forget about Mt Dandenong as well as it is pretty much surrounded by offensive suburban lights.

Of course, if you’ve the luxury and weather permits, places like the Grampians, Wilson’s Promontory, or Port Campbell are probably the best bets. Good luck!

First, I’d like to thank spaceweather.com for featuring my comet photos on its Comet McNaught Gallery.

Here’re the rest of my comet McNaught Collection. Click on the thumbnail for an enlarged version:

22 Jan 2007: This was captured between 30 - 60 minutes after sunset in Mt Donna Buang, Victoria, Australia.

24 Jan 2007: These were captured between 60 - 90 minutes after sunset near Torquay, Victoria, Australia. The sky was lit by the quarter moon towards the western horizon. It wasn’t a good day for real astrophotography as there were cloud patches. But they were definitely candies for landscape photos.

I personally like this one. The ground & the towers were pretty much dark as the moon was behind a small cloud.

This is for the star trail enthusiasts.

The effect of the moon was at its fullest in this one. Even the towers & the ground were slightly lit.

So what happened on the 23rd? Well, I went to Mt Dandenong that evening but the city lights were just too offensive to the night sky. Although the comet was clearly visible, as I underestimated the effect of light pollution, all the shots on that day were hopelessly overexposed.

Since the beginning of the year, it had been numerous predictions & sitings in the Northern hemisphere that comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) would be a very bright one, and it was confirmed last week that this comet was the second brightest one since 1935. People living in the Southern half of the world couldn’t watch it until, in theory, the 13th of January. Unfortunately, Melbourne only had clear sky on the 13th & 14th, which weren’t the best time as the comet was too close to the horizon & the sun.  Even though I had had experience on observing comets, I could only manage to see it on the 14th for a couple of minutes and it was very faint. Then Melbourne became smokey (because of bushfires from the alpines in the east) the next day & I rushed so far away to the Grampians ranges after work hoping for a chance to spot it better at higher altitudes. But it was still smokey there & the comet was still faint because of the smokey air, though I tried to take a couple of
photos (which turned out to be plain rubbish). Then the low pressure trough came in on the following days with lots of clouds & rain for the rest of the week until the day before (the 22nd) … finally… it was Melbourne’s turn to watch this spectacular comet. Although it was running late & the comet was leaving us, the most spectacular days seemed to lie between the 18th and 22nd, where the super-long aurora like dust tail could be clearly seen in the dark sky. We the Melbournians managed to just make it to the last day. I was one of the lucky guys to capture this on Mt Donna Buang the day before.
 
When I re-visited the site again yesterday (the 23rd), a large part of the dust tail faded away. The moon gradually brightened up and stayed away from the horizon day after day, contributing light pollution to the dark sky.

More photos are on the way. Stay tuned.