3D Geology Tours, Birthdays and Blegs
I was noodling about looking for pictures of an abyss full of gin, as one does, and I got sidetracked into reading about canyons generally when I found this page of 3D image tours of notable US geological features, from the US Geological Survey, a US government institution the wingnuts have yet to ruin. (Though there’s still time.)
Here’s a sample:
The trouble is you need 3D glasses. I did have a couple of battered pairs stashed away somewhere when the kids were small, as they’re one of those things they give away free on the front of comics, but heaven alone knows where they are now after so many moves and upheavals. So I shall to find another pair somewhere.
That’s another thing to add to the search list for Waterlooplein flea market, along with a replacement Playstation copy of Tomb Raider I, which you’d think’d be easy to find, but no. (I could order it from Amazon, but the postage costs more than the game). As it’s my birthday on Friday and I deserve a day out after being so poorly so that’s where I’ll go.
I’m very ambivalent about birthdays and I need something like a fleamarket trip to take my mind off them. Waterlooplein, being very close to the Rembrandt House, is a bit of a tourist trap but you can still find some excellent bargains if you pay attention. It can be very sad too; there are increasing numbers of Central African refugees who are obviously selling anything they can and some of the items laid out for perusal can be heartwrenchingly pathetic. But it’s then it’s that mixture of pathos and hard-nosed Dutch hucksterism that makes Waterlooplein what it is.
Having had such dire medical prognostications as ‘You’ll be lucky to live to fify” then every birthday – this year I’m 47 – can be seen either as a big fuck you to the doctors or a step nearer to death, depending on my disposition at the time. If you add to that a big dollop of empty-nest syndrome now my sons are adults, plus the naturally mixed feelings of any woman growing visibly older in a youth-obessed society, you can see that birthdays, at least for me, are a very mixed blessing.
It’s much more calm-inducing to go to a fleamarket and look at old stuff or to contemplate the vastness of geological time, putting my existential panic into perspective by reminding myself just how inconsequential we actually are as a species.
Hey, it works for me.
Nevertheless I never say no to birthday presents – I’m not so ambivalent as to eschew self-interest – so if anyone’s got a spare pair of 3D glasses handy or Tombraider I for the Playstation I’d be very much obliged. Email is above.
Read more: Internet Gizmos, Geology, Photography, 3D, Amsterdam, Waterlooplein
