Annika's New Place

Friday evening, shortly after officially moving in, Annika called me up excited about her new place. She wanted to show it off. So, I called and apologized to the guys I had just agreed to meet for dinner (Montie from Veto! plus a friend), went home to get my camera, and promptly drove out to see what all of the fuss was about.

Oh. I see. Yes, it's beautiful. Technically, the Grey Goose Vodka bottles belong to a roommate that doesn't drink any more. Yes, I'm an *amateur* photographer. Any serious photographer would have noticed and MOVED the freaking camera case that was in the way of the nice photo.

There was a basket of candy on the island in the kitchen, and I kept telling myself that if I started in on the Life Savers, that I would never stop. I tried. I really tried. I tried for a really long time. Then I gave in and took a photo of the first.

Prior to arriving at the house, I went with Annika to Ikea (the mother ship) so that she could buy some new dishes and traditional Swedish food. I have no idea if I like the food she kept showing me, since I had to ask her what it was. Of course, I've never had smoked roe before. I've had caviar on sushi, but never simply as caviar. I don't know how to tell you if I like it or not.

The Pool Boy was waiting for us back at the house. He had the chicken wings. None of us knew how to properly cook buffalo wings. They had already been marinaded in buffalo sauce. So, Annika puts them in the oven. Not a bad idea if I do say so myself.

We had no idea what temperature to set the oven to or how long to let the wings cook. Since Annika didn't have a candy thermometer, I left the meat-cooking to her. The only way I know to cook meat well is with a thermometer. It involves a bunch of elbow grease and heat from friction. Are you up to the task?

Do the wings look done to you? Just kidding... this was just a gratuitous photo.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the room, Annika's manfriend has had a long, hard day working on blueprints. Errr, I mean, The Pool Boy has had a long, hard day of cleaning pools and keeping women happy. Yes, that's the ticket!

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Seriously, though. What the fuck is up with the low-carb barbecue sauce? BBQ is supposed to be high in sugar. It's not BBQ without the brown sugar. There is something seriously wrong with any diet that tells you it's okay to drink a glass of lard, but it's not okay to eat an apple or an orange.


It seems he really was working on a blueprint.

For those of you that are sickeningly curious, this is what the comforter looks like up close. The texture! Oh, the texture! And for the record, I didn't get to see what it was really like under the covers. The Pool Boy had too much work to do. ;)

Somewhere along the line, Annika got a hold of my camera and went crazy taking photos of her bookshelves. She's really proud of her book shelves. Here are the few photos that looked good:



Anyway... Queen Annika had to log onto MySpace to check up on her loyal subjects. She went through all of her photos and showed me what all of her minions/slaves do in order to praise her.

Hey, he's asleep! Now we can have some real fun with the camera... Well, not really. We didn't do anything we wouldn't have done with him awake and in the room.

I was on my way out, and I saw something that I thought would make a really cool photo. So, I asked Annika to go back to where she was just standing, and I took a photo.
Crap... It's out of focus. That's not going to work. Well, maybe it will work as a small image.

The flash is a very bad thing. Very bad. Very, very bad. I'll say this as many times as necessary to get the point across. I don't like using the flash unless absolutely necessary.

So, I took a few more shots without the flash before heading out the door. I think these are a bit better. By the way, it was Annika's idea to climb up on the counter top. I had nothing at all to do with this. I just took the photos. O:-)

To Annika's credit, the above photo was a five second exposure, and the next photo is eight seconds. She did a fabulous job of staying still for the camera.For the next shot, I tried to add a little bit of light with my flashlight, but the LEDs were way too blue, so it looks like Annika is watching TV. The original was much bluer. This is the best I could do without making it not look like a real photo.
While I may bitch about her breathing causing her left hand to blur, this was still a 3.2 second exposure with a two second lead-in. I didn't expect her to hold her breath for the photo. The lighting in the room made the original exceptionally yellow. This photo has been adjusted to reflect the actual color of the room, as seen in the close-up of the comforter (there was more light available at that time).

Looking at this last photo's time-stamp, I've realized that I didn't adjust the time on the camera when I came back to California from North Carolina. The time stamp is 3:48AM. You do the math. I didn't overstay my welcome that much.

Lastly, the larger photos that blogger shows you when you click on the images are still a quarter the size of the originals. See this version of the last photo for comparison.