Thursday, June 16, 2011

(Still) Not a Garden Tour #7

The Human has lived in San Francisco for more than 40 years. In that time, she has been to just about every cheesy tourist trap delightful city attraction from Fisherman's Wharf to Chinatown. Many, many times.
But, until this very afternoon, she had never entered the Camera Obscura at Ocean Beach. Today, however, she ponied up the $3 admission fee and here's what she saw:

A camera obscura is basically a pinhole camera which projects an outside image via a lens onto a special surface in a darkened room. This one was built in the 1940s as part of the long-gone Playland at the Beach. The sign, she sadly notes, has a completely unnecessary comma after "astronomers," which hurts her English teacher's heart.


The Human was unexpectedly super-impressed! The live image projected on this slightly concave disc, about four or five feet across, is moving (the external "pinhole camera" revolves) and incredibly sharp and detailed.
As cheesy tourist attractions go, it was pretty cool and totally worth the three bucks.

(Oh, but the "Holograph Gallery" advertised on the big sign above the door? Ha ha ha! It consisted of a few dusty, crookedly-hung, badly composed 3-D images strung along the walls. Now that was the cheesy part!)

Well, that's our Not a Garden Tour for today, Kitties! Hope you enjoyed it!

15 comments:

Ivan from WMD said...

Well, I'd say that was definitely worth the price of a very small cat toy. Even the cheesy Holograph Gallery (which was, after all, in much smaller letters on the sign).

P.S. My mom also goes off on bad punctuation. Maybe it's a mom thing.

Brian's Home Blog said...

Hey, looks pretty interesting to me!

Photo Cache said...

we live just across the bridge and mama says she's never been here before.

thanks for the tip.

emma and buster

Summer at sparklecat.com said...

Hm. I'd like to see a little more obscura and a little less camera around here.

Clooney said...

Wow, that's a pretty cool tour, I wouldn't mind hangin' out there myself. Uh and Spitty about unnecessary punctuation, I thinks your Human needs to have a little talk with my Human...my Human loves punctuation and uses it quite excessively...I'z a bit concerned for her...especially with theese "quotation marks"...

ANGEL ABBYGRACE said...

Now that is what we call a good (non)gardening tour! We enjoyed this jaunt and it's nice to be reminded a bit about the past! (and like Cloon's Mom, my Mom is a little punctuation challenged too!) See what I mean?

purrs
>^,,^<
♥Abby♥

Tamago said...

Hi Spitty, thank you for the tour! We are pretty impressed, too!! How cool it was built back in 1940s. I would love to visit there if I got to San Francisco.
I've been to SF once long time ago..and of course I visited many cheesy tourist spots :-) I enjoyed very much.

Mr Puddy said...

That's interesting, Spitty !!!
For me, I imagine myself play on the concave disc ; ) Must be fun !
xoxo

The Florida Furkids said...

We think that's cool!

The Florida Furkids and Angel Sniffie

(angel) Grrreta and Fam said...

Very, interesting! Thanks, for sharing, your human's, adventure, with us. Unnecessary, commas drive, us, crazy, too.

Katnip Lounge said...

Spitty, Our Mommy goes apesh!t over apostrophe usage. Or mis-usage...

Do you KNOW how much Gerber's baby food three bucks would buy? You Human needs to priorizse.

40 years!?!
heh heh.

Cat and DOG Chat With Caren said...

I would love to visit San Francisco (I'll be sure to "wear a flower in my hair" lol)

I have never been there. you are so lucky to live there!
That looked interesting!

Athena said...

Cool, but why is she going places wifout you?

The Island Cats said...

Pretty cool, Spitty! Thanks for that non-garden tour.

Teri and her Stylish Adventure Cats said...

We did not know about the "Not a Garden Tour' sightseeing trip before...but it was a trip, hahameow (and you San Franciscans know all about trippin...)