Uni Qlo Robot

Uni Qlo Robot, originally uploaded by blackavar21.

We went by Uni Qlo on Saturday and ran across their new robot. His name is Wakamaru.

It was late enough that no one was really playing with him. I felt like I should have asked him something, but quite frankly, he creeped me out.

It’s Like A Having A Weekend In The Middle Of The Week

So a couple of weeks ago we moved. Our lease was up, and our landlord was gouging up the price way higher then we could pay. After making a reasonable counter offer, waiting a long time for a response¹, we got word that it was pay his new price of nothing. So the apartment hunt was on.

While both Jane and I agreed that we wanted to move out of the city, with both of our jobs still here, now wasn’t the time. This kept the search pretty tight to the Upper East Side, and eventually we found a new place only a few blocks down, but a good deal east, from our old place.

Now our new place isn’t exactly better then our old², but it’s nice in its own right and I like to think we settled in quite nicely.

Now one of the best things about the new place is its location. Alright I’ll grant you that it is farther away from the subway then I was before³, but it is closer to two of my favorite things in the city. An Oren’s Location, and Carl Schurz Park. Oren’s I’ve talked about⁴, so you know my love for them and how it’s a huge plus to be able to walk down and get a cup on my days off. Schurz Park, besides being the home of Gracie Mansion, is one of my favorites parts of the city. The park isn’t huge, but it has a great river walk looking out to Roosevelt Island, Queens, and beyond.

My new day off routine is to walk down to Oren’s, grab a cup, and walk back to our apartment through the park. It’s been a chance to start my day, and a way to get a few pictures in. I keep forgetting to bring my D-SLR, so I’ve been stuck with my iPhone’s camera. It’s normally a pretty crappy camera, but I’ve been playing with CameraBag, which doesn’t so much as make the camera better, but it at least runs some filters on the photos to make them interesting.

Today, having the day off I did my usual walk. I still didn’t have my D-SLR, but I still think I got couple good shots.

All were taken with CameraBag.

This one was with the “Cinema” filter. The way the app works, you take the picture, and then apply the filter later. After shooting, and before the filter, the shot just looked like a wide angle shot, and the “cinema” filter seemed right.

This is with the “Ansel” filter. I really just wanted a clean shot, but the pigeons took off just as I got the phone in place so I hit the shutter and caught them in flight.

Same shot, only with the “Helga” filter.

 

Another shot with the “Helga” filter. A good example of what would be a crappy shot if it wasn’t for the filter.

Yes, I really like the “Helga” filter. This one I actually took last Saturday, but I really like the way this one came out. It was raining here so I had to cover everything, but I like the mist over the background building and the slickness of the ground.

Just thought I’d share these, and I thought I’d start posting some of these so I can come back later for when I take some more shots this weekend. I’ll try to bring my D-SLR this time.

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1. He was vacationing in Europe for about 2 months and didn’t respond to his lawyer’s email for that time. This tells me that he really doesn’t need the extra money he wanted to charge us.

2. It’s smaller, more a month then what we were paying, and a 4 floor walk-up.

3. For you non-NYC people, the only subway over here on the East Side is the Lexington Ave line. Before we were only three streets down and one avenue over from the 96th St. stop. In the new place we are only three blocks up from the 86th St stop, but we’re now we’re three avenues over from the subway and avenues are a whole lot longer then the streets. Basically for every one avenue it’s about two streets.

4: Still the best coffee in the city. Hands down.