sweasel.com

Optics are magic. Whether it’s microscopes or telescopes, binoculars, magnifying glasses, reducing glasses (did you know there was such a thing?), polaroid sunglasses, loupes, 3D glasses…anything that alters vision is just cool as hell.

Beer Goggles?

“Beer Goggles?”

Those are witchcraft. Completely different.

I was terribly near-sighted for years as a child, and nobody picked up on it. Not even me. I even worked out a whole theory of painting based on things being really fuzzy (I thought the masters were bullshitters, because everything was in focus).

Got glasses for the first time at 16 and just walked around looking at stuff for weeks.

Nice amoebas. What are their names? And, well–add mirrors to the list?

I remember a high school friend doing a presentation in Speech class on what it was like to get glasses for the first time at age 10: “Houses had doors! And windows!” But isn’t there a theory floating around somewhere that in fact Expressionism had its genesis in someone’s poor eyesight?

And, um, this blog is so educational–I had to go look up “beer goggles.” Reminds me of an old Mickey Gilley song…

Mirrors! Of course! Particularly convex ones. I think it was Monet whose eyesight drove his painting.

Aw, Can’t Hark had to look up beer goggles. That’s kind of sweet, in a totally sheltered way. Happy birthday!

Harumph! Thank you for the birthday wishes. . . and thbpt! At least I knew the Mickey Gilley song.

I have read, but have never tested the information, that a spherical mirror presents to the eye images of everything surrounding it simultaneously, except that what is behind it is upside down. I can’t say that my source is reliable–but I love the idea, so I’ve never wanted to prove it wrong.

And, yes, Monet would sure qualify!

It is one of the great regrets of my life that I do not know how to spell a Bronx cheer. AKA raspberry.

Well, you can’t really spell the essentially unspellable. Why I have officially adopted my personal version (see above). Do I gather I just got a backatya?
🙂

That’s a beautiful story, Weasel.

Got my first pair of glasses at 18 months. Blind as a bat! Loved microscope work because it put me on even par. Up the power and I could see all as well as anybody!

I only had to squint my way through the first couple of grades. Still remember walking out of the optician’s, though, and seeing individual blades of grass and leaves on trees – Superrealism!

The Monet comments reminded me of something one of my profs said about Degas losing his sight, so of course I had to google (Sorry – raised by librarians):
http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/PACE/VA-Lab/AVDE-Website/default.html
Wow!

PPPPPPPPPPPPBT, is how it’s spelled, in the Extremely Unabridged Oxford Dictionary of the American Language.

Ack! Berkeley Breathed spelled it phbbt! when spit out by Bill the Cat. 🙂

They are the only culture that she has … 🙂 🙂 🙂

Bill had an accent.

Educational, this blog. Yessirree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_cheer

Not the last unvoiced lingualabial trill on the subject, I’m sure, despite the remarkably cultured nature of the proprietress. There are unplumbed depths to this subject. . .and I feel sure the loyal minions will plumb them, as necessary.

Oh, god.

Those moments where you look back on your life and have a major epiphany really hit you like a ton of bricks, don’t they? 🙂

Reminds me of an old Mickey Gilley song…

I can’t tell… Should I be proud or ashamed that I knew not only exactly who that is, but also what song you meant?

It’s amazing what etymological gems this blog leads you to discover.

I’ve lived all these years not knowing that ‘raspberry’ in the Bronx Cheer sense is Cockney rhyming slang. Raspberry Tart = Fart

I read somewhere that if you wear special glasses which produce an inverted image then (if you wear them all the time) after about 3 weeks the brain adjusts and everything appears the right way up.

Are weasels like amoebas? Cause this morning I visited your website (like I always do) and when I went back to my homepage, the little stoatie icon was there instead of the “Boeing” symbol. Weasels multiply!!

“I was terribly near-sighted for years as a child…”

So was my former wife, Marla. Her mom took her for an eye exam and to order glasses when she was about 8 or so. After her glasses came in, and they picked them up, they walked outside and Marla asked, “What are all those things on top of all the buildings?” It took a few moments for her mom to realize that Marla was asking about TV antennas, which she had never been able to see before. Her mom started crying….

We had a stereoscope at school with some aerial photos. Amazing how compelling the illusion is. And of course my mother had one of those View-Master things with the cardboard disks of stereo pairs. She had a ton of the disks from places like Lake Lucerne and Amalfi. I would look at them for hours.

Has anyone got one of those microscopes that plug in your USB port? Worth getting?

Funny you should ask, David — we were just talking about that. I got a USB scope for Christmas and it really is very good, but I haven’t gotten around to setting it up properly. I don’t have a very good workspace set up for myself in here.

It isn’t a toy.

Do you have a make and model recommendation?

I feel your pain, Stoaty…we have several scummy aquaria in our downstairs prep room that we use for our biology students’ microsafari. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we don’t. And they make it look so easy in the books.

🙂

I lied a bit, David. It is a toy, but it’s not as much of a one as I expected. I mean, it’s plastic and video…it’s never going to measure up to high-end optics, is it?

I’ll post about it. It’ll give me something to post tonight.