CD Player from OUTER SPACE

(Today was a bit of a rough day, so no post over at the Writing Blog. My sister had a bit of a setback for one of her webcomics, so the day was kind of draining.)

Sometimes I derive a lot of amusement out of little things.

The little thing this time around was a new CD player. (Yes, for you iPod freaks, I listen to CDs. I like them. Plus, they can actually be a tad cheaper than buying individual songs on iTunes or whatever. It's 99 cents a song, right? I recently picked up a CD for under ten dollars with twelve songs.)

Anyway, this CD player is partly replacing an older one. I had asked for one that was a bit smaller, and this one indeed fulfilled that request, being perhaps a third smaller in volume than its predecessor. (It also has a randomizing button, which is nice.) But what I really like about it is that it's a very pretty, rather space age little thing:

(You might recognize this fancy photography stand, which is actually just a mild-mannered kitchen stool, from this post, where I put it to the same purpose.) It also reminds me of an insect's head. It looks a bit like an ant's head particularly.

As for my sister, she wants to hug it. Yes, really. That was literally the first thing to come out of her mouth.

My sister is awesome.

Anyway, it also has one of those slowly rising spring-loaded latching lids. This thing will probably wear out inside of three years (especially since I'm prone to playing with it), but I love it anyway.

I mean, it's reminiscent of a car hood or the "brain hood" of a cartoon robot. That's pretty cool.

And now for some terrible photography!

I can't take clear pictures to save my life. My hands shake like there's an earthquake when I try to hold them still for it, and sometimes the camera's anti-shaking sensor won't even let the camera go off. (My sister provided the above photographs, by the by.)

Usually, it just results in awful pictures, but sometimes it makes something amusing instead, such as this rather nifty blurring effect:

It's interesting that all the blurs are in one direction from the main image. (It's also interesting that they're all on the CD player.)

Then there's this interesting little image, which is the result of a certain camera-happy dog trying to hog the spotlight:

I've never seen this effect with a modern camera-at least, never seen events that cause it to happen by accident. (That's my hand and arm yoinking her out of the way, of course.)

I never know how to wrap up these silly little trivial posts...

-Signing off.