What’s black and white and #173? Today’s Top 200 Photos entry.

photo #173 is:

For about a year, we were obsessed with Tai Shan, the baby panda at The National Zoo. We went at least once a month to go photograph him and watch him act all cute. This triptych is from his first birthday. The giant pink Popsicle is his birthday “cake”.

Reflective Top 200 Photo.

photo #174 is:

This is a continuation of a series that was born of Danielle’s boredom in February 2006. It involves this mirror, black and white photography, and us.

A little past the end of February I started having problems with my internet connected devices.  In the basement we have a Roku box that the wife uses to watch Netflix.  She reported that it was no longer connecting to Netflix.  We’d had issues before with it needing to be re-registered with Netflix, but that did not seem to be the case.  I’d click on the Netflix channel and it would say “retrieving movies” for a while and then pop back to the main menu.  At first I thought something was wrong with the Roku box, so I tried the Amazon channel, but that worked and I was able to watch my content.  I figured it’d resolve itself.  So she just popped in the latest DVD from Netflix into our DVD player.  Later that night she was in the bedroom and learned that our Samsung BluRay player was no longer connecting to Netflix.  I thought that was weird, but figured maybe it was a Netflix problem.  I checked on my computer and I couldn’t log into the Netflix site.  Neither could Danielle on her computer.  These were Linux boxes (Fedora and Ubuntu respectively) so I tried on my Windows computer.  Strangely, that one could log in.  That’s weird.  I tried on both Firefox and Chrome with no difference.  So then I tried the guest computer - that computer hadn’t been used since December and I knew it was working for Netflix back then.  That would help me eliminate the possibility that I’d installed a distro update that had killed it for me.  (I knew that didn’t totally make sense because of the BluRay Player and Roku) That one could reach it either.  What was going on here?  Was Netflix blocking Linux?  Well, I figured it might go away so I waited until the next day.

A still life photo makes it for today’s Top 200 photos entry.

photo #175 is:

Danielle likes to create decorations that add to the ambiance of the house. This involves taking elements from different places and creating something that’s her own. Here she’s taken candles from a bunch of different stores and combined them with seashells we found on a trip to Florida. Some of her other creations might appear later as well.

No #177 because it was already covered.

photo #176 is:

John Cleese is a comedic genius. I think that history will eventually give him and his Monty Python collaborators a place equivalent to Charlie Chaplin. They helped transform not only British comedy, but American comedy. Many in the US, most notably the creators of South Park, were inspired by this strange brand of humor and created a special blend of American and British humor.

I’m back with another Top 200 Photo entry.

photo #178 is:

For a while I was doing yoga at our local gym at work. It was quite a revelation. Media usually portrays it as a girly exercise that’s just a bunch of weird stretching poses. Yoga actually requires quite a bit of strength - especially in the “core” muscles. A lot of the poses left me feeling as tired as a weight training workout. I enjoyed it a lot and I only stopped going because my schedule changed and made it hard for me to attend. I’d definitely try it again if I could.

No #180 because that photo was already covered and it ended up moving up the rankings before I could get to #180.

photo #179 is:

From the date, I must have been at my parents’ house for my dad’s birthday. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, whenever I get a little bored I start taking candid photos. So I ended up with this good one of Dave working on a puzzle. This photo actually ended up inspiring a flickr friend of mine to do a painting of the photo.

Today’s entry in the Top 200 photos.

photo #181 is:

Christmas at my parents’ house where my little sister opens up one of her presents.

This one’s a little more on the uninteresting side.

photo #182 is:

When my cousin got married I somehow got my wife to let me rent this lens. While I was at it, I decided to review it. The photo above is part of the review. The lens was great and really helped me to get the best photos I was capable of taking.

This is Sandy, a jackass penguin.  They are originally from South Africa, but her parents are at the Baltimore Zoo.  Click on the desktop you want and then right-click and select “set as desktop background”.  If you don’t have that option, save-as to your computer and then set it manually.

[caption id=“attachment_4197” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“March 2011 - 1024x768 for Square monitors”] [/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_4198” align=“aligncenter” width=“480” caption=“March 2011 - 1680x1050 for widescreen monitors”] [/caption]