I uploaded the pics I took over the last week and while they seem to look okay on Flickr, the quality isn’t very good. They are quite grainy and this shows up badly on the few I had printed from Photobox. I was quite miffed because usually my camera takes great little pictures. Then, I remembered I messed about with the settings for the Edinburgh Tattoo and never changed them back. Grrr! Obviously, the ISO setting was too high, hence the noise. I don’t usually print my pictures anyway so it doesn’t really matter. I did think about getting a photo printer but the are total ink monsters and I decided it wasn’t really worthwhile if I was uploading the majority of the time. Besides, it is cheaper just to upload them and order prints.

Some photos are open to the public, while others are private so you will have to friend me to see them if you haven’t already. Flickr

I also finally found a graphics programme for the Mac that I like called Pixelmator. It is still very basic but it does everything I need and doesn’t require a NASA degree to operate. It looks very promising and hopefully will continue to grow.

I finally succumbed to the Twilight hype while on holiday and stayed up until 2 am on Thursday to finish the first novel. I’m a huge fan of the vampire genre and have read many, many books with Anne Rice still solidly perched at the top of my all time favourite list, even though the last novels failed to grab me. When she stopped writing her vampire series, it left me searching for another author to fill the void left behind. I like my vampires sexy - that cannot be denied.

The fact that the Twilight series is aimed at young adults doesn’t phase me at all because if a book is well written, it will eventually crossover into the adult market anyway and that is exactly what has happened here. The comparisons to the Harry Potter fandom is inevitable but I don’t think that is fair to Stephenie Meyer who is a very talented writer. Twilight, the first in the series, is an easy read but it definitely doesn’t lack substance and you can’t help falling in love with the characters. From a personal viewpoint, I would rather the vampire be the main protagonist and as such the Cullens interest me more than Bella, our heroine, but that’s just me being biased.

I was a little afraid the books would be too teen-orientated for me and the whole high school thing tends to bore me to tears but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Yes, the whole teen angst thing is there but Meyer refreshingly doesn’t focus on the usual themes of sex, booze and drugs.

It’s been a while since a book hooked me so thoroughly and I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series but what’s even more exciting is that Stephenie Meyer has just released her first adult novel, The Host. If I like a series of books enough, the author has a dedicated reader for life.