I was a little bit bored today and sometimes if you are bored, then it might be a good idea to go through own photo material or photoshop project´s and so. And it was a good idea because I found one lolcat meme which I thought needs a little improvement.
I disliked the clearly visible reflection on the eye of my cat. I also thought that it would be funny to change the eye color with a more aggressive green colour value. I am not a photoshop professional but removing a reflection with the stamp tool or changing the colour of eye´s, is something I can do.
Also the image appeared too pale in my opinion. I thought it would be fun to create a new layer and paint with black over the black fur and with white over the white fur to give the colours more power. But I did so with less than 40% opacity on my brush tool.
And then I have noticed that there are several memes out there with the text “I don´t have nightmares, I create them!” and I thought this is too funny and fits better to my own meme, which is why I added this text to the new image. Here are both images by comparison… on the left the new one and one the right the older image…
I do think the new image looks more synthetically but anyhow interesting. What do you think? Which one do you like more? You can also find more lolcat memes on my blog if you like.
My favorite fish for fishkeeping is the Mosquito Rasbora. This is a gorgeous little fish. You can see them in my fish tank in the video above, swimming near the water surface, seeking for food and enjoying the flow of water near my self-build filter and pump. The Moskito Rasbora is also called Boraras brigittae (scientific name).
This is a pretty tiny fish (1-3 cm depending on their age) and great for smaller fish tanks. The fish tank in the video above for example contains just 60 liters of water. I have round about 15 Mosquito Rasbora´s in my fish tank and it is possible to increase the amount even more because they are so tiny and this is what I will do soon. The Mosquito Rasbora is the perfect nano fish, I mean for nano fish tanks. You can even put larger groups in a 60 liter fish tank. My target for example will be that I have round about 30 of them in my tank someday.
They are a little bit more difficult to care and it should be mentioned that they prefer very soft and acidic water (pH 4.0-7.0 and KH 5-10 as water parameters are pretty fine). I do mix osmosis water and normal water to achieve these good conditions. I also do add a small peat bag in my filter. The result is then a brown, soft and acidic water similar to the water in their habitat in Borneo, Indonesia, Southeast Asia. The water temperature should be round about 74-82° F which means a water heater might not be necessary depending on your room temperature. My room temperature is always above 74° F which is why I do not increase the temperature with any extra hardware.
While Mosquito Rasbora is a very peaceful fish, you must be careful if you think about putting in another species of fish. Depending on the size of the other fish you would like to put in the tank, the bigger fishes could hunt and eat up your Mosquito Rasbora´s due to their tiny size. They are agile and know how to hide but I just mention this because they are potentially threatened by bigger fishes. I did hold them together with Harlequin rasbora´s and my experience was that it was ok. But as said, bigger fishes could be dangerous for the Mosquito Rasbora.
It should be mentioned that they also like densely planted fish tank´s. As you can see, my fish tank is not completely densely planted but there is one corner full of plants where they could hide. They love darker areas and you should at least set up a little densely planted area. But a darker fish tank can also be achieved with floating plants like the Common duckweed or with floating Riccia fluitans Moss.
Brief summary…
Common Name: Mosquito Rasbora, Mosquito Borara
Scientific Name: Boraras brigittae
German Name: Moskitobärbling
Family: Cyprinidae
Species : Rasboras
Habitat: Borneo, Indonesia, Southeast Asia
Maximum Size: 2- 3 cm
pH: pH 4.0-7.0
KH: KH 5-10
Temperature : 76-82° F or 23 27 °C
Reachable Age: They can reach an age of 7 years under good conditions. This kind of Fish is then definitely long living.
Strata: Swims often near the water surface and in the middle but sometimes also beneath
Have you ever asked how the most commonly used Meme Font is called? I can give you the answer. The Font is called Impact. Impact is included in the Core fonts for the Web and has been distributed with Microsoft Windows since Windows 98, which means you should have the Font on board of your Operating System already. The very thick strokes of the Impact Font are aimed, as the name suggests, to “impact” and in other words to stand out. The Impact Font is commonly used for funny internet Memes like on the Lolcat Images.
So you should add a text with the Impact Font with your graphics software. The messages on memes are very often completely written in white capital letters and there is often a stroke effector let me say a small black border added around the text. I can´t explain it for every graphics software but as I am a Photoshop User, I can at least tell you how it is done there…
First we should load our photo which we want to use with Photoshop to add a Meme Text. Most of you know how to add a text to the image but for those who don´t know it, it is easily done. We can either press “T” on our keyboard which would activate our Horizontal Type Tool and then we just have to click on our image to place the text or we just click on the Type Tool Symbol in Photoshop and click then on our image to place a text…
If we have done this, then we just need to choose the Impact Font and we should be sure that the text color is white. Also we can already change the font size. After we have done those settings, we start to type in our funny or not so funny text completely written in capitals if we want to do it on the common way…
But we know need this black border around the text like in all the other funny memes of the internet. We have to right-click on our new text layer and a menu pops up where we choose and click on “Blending Options…”.
In the opening Layer Style Window, we just activate and click on “Stroke”. This will paint the mentioned commonly used black borders around our text. I think it is always standard on black but we can proof this in the settings windows there. What we also could do is controlling the thickness of the border around the text.
I think it is standard on 3 pixels and for my taste not enough. I change the value sometimes to 5 pixels. But this is just a matter of taste. Once we did the settings here, we can press ok…
What we now still could do is moving our text. Just click on the text layer again and move the text until you feel it fits in the image. That is all. Hope this small guide is a help for those who want to create their own memes with Photoshop as well
My mother and her husband invited me on Wednesday again for a barbecue. At the end of april we had our first barbecue of 2013. But this week we had our second barbecue. And it was again very tasty.
We grilled paprika spiced pork meat for example. This meat was so delicious even without dip. I did eat them with and without dip. We also ordered a salad for each of us. Usually my mother would create the salad but it was pretty late to get cucumbers or tomatoes. We ordered the salad from the Kebab Store where the husband of my mothers works sometimes as a driver. I mentioned that they have great food there and that their salad is always freshly sliced. And they brought us again a very fresh salad with some tasty bread.
Ok the salad was truly a highlight already but the meat as well. I don´t find words. Just delcisious… and my mother did warm up a french baguette too. Everyhing was tasty and here are some photos of our nice barbecue…
I took the photo in the St. Marien Church in Lübeck when my me and my mother walked through the Historic Downtown of Lübeck. The church is like most churches in Lübeck pretty huge.
I am not so religious but anyway interested in culture and I count the churches of Lübeck to culture and that is why I still like to take photos of them. Because they show what kind of great brick gothic architecture, you can find in my city. Here are two more photos…
The son of my mother´s husband did send me a pretty good photo of his cat. The overall quality of the image was not that great but I changed the image to black and white with Photoshop because I know that this effect can improve the quality of slighty overexposed photos. I also added a little bit more contrast and also made some gamma corrections. I think the photo is now a little bit more respectable.
He caught his own cat in the right moment. His cat gave a yawn and looks like he took the photo in the right moment. I thought this photo would be great as a cat meme and then I added the text “Never mess around with me! I´m a black panther! Raaaawww..” because I thought this fits to the image. I think the result is that we have now another new Lolcat Image in the interwebs.
Sega and Creative Assembly did announce the release date for their upcoming strategy game “Total War: Rome 2″. The release date of the “Rome: Total War” sequel is set to September 3rd. It was already sure that the game will come out anytime at the end 2013 but now we know an exact date for the release.
This is one of the games of 2013 I watch for. Not that I am only a fan of the Total War Series, I especially loved the roman setting of “Rome: Total War”. That´s why I pretty much wait for “Total War: Rome 2″.
At the same time I am a little bit afraid that there will be too many DLC´s. Sega said that pre-orderers will get the first DLC, the Greek States Culture Pack, for free. The pack adds three more playable factions (Epirus, Athens and Sparta) to Rome II’s roster. I really dislike all that about DLC´s because this content could be in the game from the beginning like it was in the days, when you bought a game. Today they do add such content with DLC´s and you have to pay again.
Anyway, let´s see what happens. I still await this game. I loved the whole Total War Series and I guess it won´t change this time as well.
I was a little bit bored today and sometimes if you are bored, then it might be a good idea to go through own photo material or photoshop project´s and so. And it was a good idea because I found one lolcat meme which I thought needs a little improvement.
