Another camera. This has got to be a certified illness, right? Curse you, Urban Outfitters, and your sale and $5.00 shipping to Australia *shakes fist*

SOUTH AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Going on a 10 day trip to South America in May!

A couple of months ago I stumbled upon information about the Holga 120 3D stereo camera and thought the novelty of a “3D” camera was pretty cool despite being a bit silly. This led to discovering the Nimslo 3D camera which I deemed infinitely more awesome than the Holga 3D because it has TWICE the amount of lenses than the latter which means more awesome bullet-time photography.

Needless to say, I was intrigued. Then Pixelhazard made this blog post and that pretty much sealed the deal. So off I go to eBay to try and find me one of these cameras.

The boxes seriously smelled like old.

I think fate brought this camera into my hands. After waking up at ungodly hours (4:45am) to see through ending auctions and subsequently losing three of them, I finally managed to snare one WITH -THE- NIMSLO FLASH, from a lovely eBay seller in the US.

Like brand new!

The real kicker is that this camera and the flash was new-in-box. Never been used, still neatly wrapped in plastic and styrofoam. It even has the original batteries still untouched! It’s odd because this is a thirty year old camera and yet it is immaculate. The other cameras I had bid on in other auctions were used and didn’t come with the Opti-Lite Flash.

The Nimslo in all its glory

It even has a camera strap! And it’s got this awesome spongy soft leather covering the camera body. I think it showcases a little bit of 1980s frivolity and excess (to a small extent). Imagine back in the day, a camera with four lenses, a leather-like body and the ability to get your regular film processed to create crazy lenticular images!

My favourite part! Instructions on how to read the manual IN the manual (so meta)

It’d be pretty nifty if lenticular processing was still around. Haven’t looked into it yet, but I doubt I’d find anything in Sydney. Still, I can’t wait to fiddle around and make bullet-time .gifs out of what I capture.

One of my favourite YouTube channels is Cooking With Dog. Like Maru the cat, it’s another of those weird and wonderful things to come out of Japan. A while ago, I stumbled upon the recipe for natto jiru and was interested in the concept of taking a much-feared legume thing and turning it less awful.

I had never tried natto before now and recall when I was in Japan a few years ago, in a lodge in the ski fields run by a few Japanese surfer dudes, that a Japanese family got served natto for breakfast. We didn’t get the natto option, probably due to the fact that our unrefined westernised palates may not have been able to handle this delicacy (instead we got some sort of smoked and marinated mackerel type of fish … how this is less “weird” to have for breakfast than natto, I have no idea).

Anyway, …

The innocuous looking box of fermented soybean doom

Yeah, soybeans. What's so bad looking about-

щ(゜ロ゜щ)

ヽ(＾Д＾)ﾉ

The soup itself was pretty damn tasty. I guess the next step is to eat natto straight from the box with rice and whatever those seasoning sachets that they include with it are.

For the natto jiru recipe that I referenced to make it, click here.

I couldn’t find taro nor aburaage, so instead I substituted the taro with desiree potato and the aburaage with the regular fried tofu which you can find in pretty much any Asian grocer. I also cheated with the stock and used the powdered dashi stock you can find because meh, effort. I can’t imagine the potato made much difference, however the fried tofu gives a much more meatier consistency to the soup than the aburaage would.

Kanye, you amazing, godly motherfucker. I could go on about the amazing set design, the dancers, you telling us that if you say that we have awesome shoes you are in fact lying because you’re an asshole, stopping part-way through All of The Lights because we didn’t shout the N-Bomb loud enough (and then proceeding to restart the song from the top). Worth the $160.00 I paid to see you.

Image courtesy of my sister, who took it with her camera while at the show last night.