We gulped it down.

No, it wasn't a binge. 6 Mondays in a row, 1.5 hrs each, doesn't quite count as a binge. But we were eagerly looking forward to it.

That was the Brokenwood Mysteries on Acorn, season 12. We were waiting for it, and now we're done and we have to wait another year for season 13, if it gets made, which I'm assuming it will. 

We found it several years ago, and fell in love with it right from the start. There's no spoilers here, so don't worry about that. I like the quirky characters, but what I really love is that the female lead is a strong character who actually contributes to solving the crime. She isn't there just to look pretty. The situations are pretty tangled, but we sometimes figure out whodunnit, and mostly it's pretty fair. Plus, of course, the New Zealand scenery, some of which we've been to. That's worth the price of admission right there.

Speaking of price of admission, as a digression, and foreshadowing, here is Michelle in an outtake from the noir detective series. That series was (mostly) planned, well executed, told a story, and was wrapped up to the satisfaction of all involved. Might there be a sequel? Stay tuned.

All too often we discover a series after it's been unjustly cancelled. Firefly. Dead Like Me. The Sarah Conner Chronicles. 

Sometimes we catch a series while still in production, and follow along till it ends, sometimes rightly, sometimes not. Elementary. Sherlock. Lucifer. Battlestar Galactica.

Sometimes they're still running, long after they should have been cancelled and we bail out. Grey's Anatomy. The Midsomer Murders. 

Sometimes we discover them long after they came and went. Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister are probably the wittiest and cleverest programs I've ever seen. I have them on DVD and still put them on every now and then. There is nobody who has a command of the language like Sir Humphrey. Who else could look entirely sincere while saying, "In view of the somewhat nebulous and inexplicit nature of your remit, and the arguably marginal and peripheral nature of your influence within the central deliberations and decisions within the political process, there could be a case for restructuring their action priorities in such a way as to eliminate your liquidation from their immediate agenda."

Sometimes we stop watching part way through, and there might be a variety of reasons. Mostly though, it's because we got bored with the story. Medium (season 4 I think), or the story got stupid beyond the conventions of drama, Grey's Anatomy (season 15 or so, though we nearly bailed out several times along the way).  Leverage (I liked the first one up to about the second last season and then lost interest, and haven't got into the reboot.) The Mentalist (I made it to about the end of the first season, and might come back to it, while Linda has rampaged through, devouring it while staying up late.) There are other examples with variations on these themes.

My take on it is that a story naturally has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The viewers need to know who the characters are and what they're up to. From there they can settle into the murder or monster of the week, and as long as they can keep the characters and situations fresh, things can repeat for quite a while. Or the writers lose their edge and just start turning the formula crank and it gets boring. 

But eventually at least one of three things will happen. Most likely the show will jump the shark. Sometimes that will happen and then it will get cancelled abruptly leaving the audience hanging. Or maybe the cancellation will happen before the show finds it's legs or audience. More rarely, the writers know the end is coming and they wrap things up in a more or less tidy package. Some better than others, of course. Sometimes the writers have noodled themselves into a corner and there is no satisfactory conclusion.

Once a story ends, leave it. Go on to something else. Enough with the sequels. It's lazy storytelling. Don't get me started on time travel or musical episodes. Even worse than that are shows set in high school. Worst of all is superhero shows.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

Film and 90 days, or so ago

Flower

The start of this year's dahlias. The bees have already discovered them.

Landscape

First 2026 Flowery Friday

No idea if people are rolling their eyes at the return of Flowery Friday. But Linda has been out getting flowers, and the ones that live here are starting to come up. Least I can do is appreciate and encourage them.

These ones are from very late April.

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These are from May 7 with a really wide lens, knowing there'd be a bit of edge distortion. I'm thinking about trying some new things with the flower photos this year. Stay tuned.

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5. Some of the plants Linda just bought.

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8. More of the new plants. They are up on the table and chairs because we have a baby bunny living in the back yard, and we don't want to have it nibbling expensive plants.

9. Look carefully. The very first peony shoots are coming up.

I got asked for an example of one of the unposed photos of Antje.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film and almost 90 days ago.

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

Flower, or rather, sort of a flower. This is what's left after all the peony blossom petals fall off and a long hard winter.

Landscape

Bonus. Michelle from the noir detective session, working on Antje.

Some of the rest of the photo session

On Sunday my friends Michelle and Antje came over for a fun photo session. Part of it was the two noir detectives. That story is here. It also includes a couple portrait photos of Antje by herself, but which are part of the noir series so I put them there.

While I've taken many photos of Michelle over the years, some posed, some not, all the ones of Antje so far had been unposed, in outdoor light. She wanted to be part of the session, but was a bit nervous about formally posing. We decided to start with her, and play with light. These photos show the evolving sequence.

My thoughts around portrait photography is that I like to work with real people to capture a flattering image of them as they are. People have wrinkles, freckles, errant hairs, skin blemishes, and any number of other "flaws" that they think make for a poor photo, and I say bah! I think people are sick of perfection, and now are suspecting that an image that looks too good is AI generated. Yes, some poses work better than others. Subtle makeup and lighting can change the image, but I'm not going to turn a real person into a magazine cover.

1. One of the fun things is capturing unposed photos behind the scenes. We were just getting started, with Michelle touching up some lip gloss.

2. Starting off with soft lighting, seeing how the shadows looked. 

3. Conversion to black and white, trying to see what the texture of her skin does with varying levels of light.

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5. Starting to relax in front of the camera. 

6. Another sort of behind the scenes look. I'm not sure what was happening here.

7. Finally getting the light to show up on her hair, but without overexposing her face.

8. Michelle fluffing and arranging hair. I think she was trying to make that little curl go away. It's really nice to have an assistant for this sort of thing. That way I don't have to touch anyone. As it turns out, this is one of the really nice photos from the day, with Michelle framing Antje.

9. Yes, there actually was coffee in the mug, so it's not just a prop.

10. And we get to the winners!

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12. Antje had always wondered what her eye would look like in a macro photo. I was happy to oblige.

As with the noir detectives, I could work on these forever in Lightroom. Mostly it was careful and subtle adjustments to highlights and shadows, overall exposure, and darkening the background. An editing pro might wince at what I've done, and take the images in a different direction entirely. That's their vision. As long as my models are happy, I'm happy.

It was a fun session! We all worked together trying different ideas. Some worked, some didn't. There's already been some thoughts about another session. Stay tuned.

May 1, post me, pre Linda

Maybe I did a bad thing. Several bad things. No, nothing perverted, get your minds out of the gutter.

I took my winter boots downstairs. Again. Each time so far it's snowed. It has to stop doing that sooner or later. Doesn't it? Then again, it has snowed every month of the year, even August.

I took the snow shovels downstairs to the store room under the stairs.

I got the water barrels set up, since there's a chance of showers this evening. Plus City Council passed a stupid boneheaded bylaw about mandatory water conservation measures that regulate when people can water their lawns. This, while the City loses more than 20% of it's treated water through infrastructure leaks. Another bylaw boondoggle. Don't get me started.

I opened the outdoor taps and set up the hoses.

At least I didn't wash the car and I haven't taken the snow tires off yet. That's on May 6.

This is the state of the garden on May 1, after I got the water barrels set up, and before Linda started cleaning up. She was looking things over, wondering where to start, and thinking she was behind already, but no. There was snow in the back yard only a few days ago. We startled a baby bunny living under the big bag that is covering out patio chairs. It can eat all the grass it wants, but we don't want it chewing on the flowers. The cherry and apple tree are beginning to bud out.

This is all what it looks like, in a documentary sort of way. So many that I'll skip the Of the Day feature.

1. The green barrel is new. It's a collapsable barrel from Lee Valley, source of all sorts of amazing stuff that you never knew you needed. 500 l capacity. It took a while to figure out how to set up, and I hope this works. The plywood is because the bottom of the barrel is the plastic fabric, so I'm thinking it wouldn't be happy sitting on the patio stones. The white barrels are 200 L each. 

2. I used to set the barrels directly on the bricks, but that was a pain in the butt to set up. Plus this gives an extra bit of elevation for the siphoning to work. I hope.

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4. The Barcelona barrel. 375 L capacity.

5. A new post that captured Linda during a shopping trip. This corner of the back garden gets a surprising amount of sun, so it's no surprise the spring plants start here.

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11. The blue vase that we use as a water barrel mainly because it looks so nice, but I've no real idea what the capacity is. Maybe 100 L? I was thinking of putting the collapsible barrel here, but it's really a bit too big for the space, and only a small part of the roof drains into it.

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