I’ve combined my blogs. So all the posts from the blogsome days are now here. I’ve cleaned up all the categories. Added tagging. Now I just have to work on my site design/layout a little and it’ll be all spiffy, shiny, and new. To, you know, please the 3 people who might read this blog.
Fun little numbers matching game: Chain Factor.
The Four Word Film Review site.
This is old. I’ve never posted a review. But it’s cool nonetheless.
the Japanese Government referred to the expedition as “scientific”. It is a description that infuriates anti-whaling activists. Whale meat harvested on the expeditions is sold on to the Japanese market and the profits used to fund “future research”.
As part of its declared mission to collect scientific data on the age and “mode of life” of Antarctic whale stocks
Admittedly, I don’t know anything about this past the news wire reports. But I guess to learn about the whales you have to kill them.
Japan says it needs to kill the animals in order to conduct research on their reproductive and feeding patterns.
Female “android” groped. via Engadget.
This guy made an android. A female android. Recorded a video of him groping it and it taking offense and trying to slap him apparently. All well and good, but you know he has a switch to make the android a lovebot or something disgusting.
Okay, so I have just manually loaded all the posts from my old blog to here. So that blog will dies very soon. It’s all here. I still need to clean up the entries I made on this site. That will be done over Thanksgiving.
Testing my old ecto client for the new blog. I’ll still live blog via the net at work and such, but otherwise i’ll probably work off ecto at home.
High-Def Digest’s review of Oldboy
It’s a great flick. It’s challenging on any number of levels. It’s visually impactful. I’m not bothering to post my issues with the review at HDD’s site because they are all video/audiophiles and my issues aren’t with that.
In his review, Kenneth S. Brown writes:
Even “ordinary” scenes contain bizarre and often disturbing imagery, including swarming ants, gouged eyes, stark nudity, a nightmarish hotel room, incest, and the actual consumption of a living octopus.
I agree with almost EVERYTHING in that statement, but one part I don’t. Consumption of live octopus isn’t anything strange in Korea. Hell I’ve had it here in the States. Okay, hey, I get it. This is the United States. What is normal to a lot of other places is weird and strange, and I guess disturbing, here. And the scene in question was played for visual impact. But visually impactful doesn’t mean disturbing. And even in the context of the movie, I’d not classify that particular scene as disturbing. I do admit that how the scene plays out in the movie isn’t the traditional method of eating live octopus. So maybe that’s the disturbing part.
It’s so tasty though!
from the movie, a behind the scenes:
Hmm, I guess technically did your parents sabotage you? Hmm, from here on out, please call me Abel Max Power (to half steal Homer Simpson’s other name). Though do I really need A’s anymore? I wonder if Eugene subconsciously made people think “excellent” or perhaps the sound, so “unsatisfactory”?
Oh yeah, blog is back kids… But I’m going to revamp. So categories (once I figure out my schema) will be overarching and tags will be the new categories!
So a friend of mine decided to buy a DSLR for a now aborted trip to Peru. This spiked my ancient, yet rarely touched on, desire to take up some sort of photography. Even if just better snapshots of my social life (of which there is little to speak). And of course as I’m wont to do, I went a bit overboard. Because let’s be honest here, I go big or I don’t go at all. I probably could’ve accomplished 100% of what I wanted with a nicer P&S camera. And don’t get me wrong, while there’s nothing wrong with it beyond a cracked viewfinder (but LCD works fine), I do want to replace my P&S with something smaller and more portable (which isn’t to say my current P&S isn’t tiny). Regardless, I decided to curb my “go big” desire and limit myself to an entry level DSLR.
This of course led to my standard research as much as you can til the decision has been distilled to the last bit and choose. Of course I thankfully also had at my disposal my good friend AYN, who’s something of an excellent amateur photographer. So I grilled him too. I checked out DPReview.com; I checked out photo.net; hell I checked out the notoriously stupid user reviews at Cnet and Amazon. I read random reviews culled from Google searches.
I narrowed my choices to the Canon 400d (or XTi as it’s known here; so I guess I should’ve reversed the names, but whatevs), the new Nikon D40 (and then RIGHT before I made my decision Nikon dropped the D40x which made it that much harder to choose), the Nikon D50. This pretty much kept my initial gear, including a lens because as I was to learn kit lenses are shit, under $1k. After all the research and much soul searching, the differences in tech and features was not all that different. There wasn’t one thing that made the one stand out above the others (save that the D40 was “only” 6MP). So it was a hand test. Went to some stores and handled the cameras.
Now to many people, the newest entry DSLRs are tiny. They will be unbalanced with bigger, badder-ass lenses. This wasn’t a true concern of mine as I doubt I’d ever get to the level where I was going to use real bad-ass glass. And (not to imply anything about the rest of my anatomy) I have somewhat short fingers (though a normal sized palm). So while the D50 was a close contender, I settled on the 400d. It just felt right in my hands. Though it is a tiny camera.
Upon recommendation, I got a prime lens instead of the crap kit lens (which I would’ve gotten if it made the kit less than $10 more, which I’ve seen happend). AYN suggested a Canon 50mm/1.8. It is highly recommended as a starter lens (along with a Sigma 30mm/1.4). The 50 is a great lens that is UBER affordable. Of course since I “skimped” on the camera I opted for the Canon 50/1.4 (with USM), which is more expensive of course.
So I was set. Body + glass = completion. Then of course ancillary costs. I bought a bag (a Crumpler 4 million dollar home). I bought another case so I could toss my camera in my regular bag (a Zing neoprene cover). I bought a tripod (Manfrotto/Bogen 190xProB) and head (M/B 322RC2). I bought a tripod strap (M/B lightweight strap). I bought 2 high capacity non-OEM batteries. I also got a Hoya Super HMC Pro 1 UV filter and a Canon lens hood. And while I don’t need it because I still need to develop my photographic eye and just learn to shoot, I want another lens (something wide, Canon 28mm/2.8 (non-USM) is my current choice because it’s cheap cheap cheap. Though the Canon 28/1.8 USM is nice too, but more than double the price or the Canon 20/2.8 USM or perhaps more “grail” the L, Canon 24/1.4L USM). So it adds up.
I also picked up on the recommendation of AYN, Understanding Exposure. A great book about photography.
I was going to write this post to explain my decision making process. But that’s highly individual and I’m not the most normal person when it comes to things like this. So this post is basically a list of what I ended up getting. Recap (links in the post man!):
Canon XTi/400d
Canon 50/1.4
Hoya Super HMC Pro 1 UV filter
Canon ES71II Lens Hood
Manfrotto-Bogen 322RCR, 190xProB, lightweight strap
Crumpler 4 million dollar home
Zing neoprene case
High capacity non-OEM batteries
Understanding Exposure