Spammy Goodness
I don’t really check my junk mail box as much as I should, I mean, just in case some personal email got misidentified as junk. But I did today, and DUDE I was missing out!
“Teach your woman obediency!”
“Satisfy her!”
“When Love Comes Knocking”
“Become a real man…”
“Forget about the problem with your male device”
I should get a couple of them spamshirted for Yut in big block letters across his chest.
Basic Basic Digital Photography For Now
After the crazy English course during the summer (5 5-page papers in 5 or 6 weeks!!!) and Calculus last semester, I thought I’d take Digital Photography this semester cos it’d be fun. So far it has been surprisingly (cos I don’t know much about photography really) way too easy, but from the looks of the syllabus, we’re definitely going to get into stuff I don’t know pretty soon (basically everything else), like shutter speed and aperture and correcting distortion to pick three things at random. In case anyone’s interested, I thought I’d post up some of the more practical stuff we go over in class. :)
For the first class he talked about the half click/recompose technique. The basic idea is that when you half click (hold your shutter button down half way) you set your focus and exposure. So if you know that it’s a difficult situation for your camera (say you’re waiting to capture the moment when someone blows out their birthday candles) if you half click and hold it while everyone’s singing, then the camera’s done all the hard stuff that takes a long time so when the moment is right, you can just click it the rest of the way and the photo will actually take and you probably won’t miss the shot. The recompose bit comes into play when you want the focus or exposure to be somewhere besides the middle (the usual focus spot I guess). So for example if you’re taking a photo of two people, well it sucks if the background in between them is in focus instead of the people. So you center one of the people, half click, then frame your photo the way you actually want it and take the photo. The focus stays on the plane that you originally half clicked on, so it’s all good.
Suppose I wanted a photo of my lotion, but I don’t want it in the middle of the picture. Here it’s all focused on the bottom of the speakers.
If I point my camera at the lotion first, then half click, then repoint my camera at the speakers, the lotion stays in focus.
See? :)
Today, amongst other things, we talked about Image Size and Resolution, specifically how to change image size and resolution in Photoshop CS3 (open a photo, go to Image>Image Size, change the numbers). But every program does it differently, and I dunno this isn’t too complicated except for finding where the option is in the program you’re using to edit your photos. Oh and don’t resize it smaller for the web and then save over your original cos you’ll lose too much data. Oh and if you want to print your photo, 240 pixels/inch is a good resolution for your photos.
Class is Thursdays from 7pm to 10pm with practice time on the computers. :p
A New Computress
Yut’s old computer was getting on in years — 5 to be exact, which in computer years is definitely time for retirement. We thought about just buying one, but building mine was pretty alright fun, so we decided to look into parts instead. Although honestly, I think I saw a Dell ad for a $299 computer, which after some RAM (no more than $50 nowadays) would’ve been fine for most people. It’s crazy. Anyways, Yut’s not too into picking parts so I picked all of his parts. The research and ordering and shipping &c have taken up like 3 weeks! And finally everything came so we spent 3 hours tonight putting it together, and now we’re installing Windows.
So here it is, all the parts for the new computress, all set and ready to go:
I meant to take a bunch of photos, but part way through when things got more complicated I forgot.
Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2 Cache
4 GB (2x2GB) Mushkin RAM (32 bit Windows systems can only recognize a little over 3 GB but it was a good price)
750 GB Western Digital hard drive — I’ve heard really good things about the Samsung Spinpoint series also, but pricewise, this was better
XFX GeForce 8600GT 256 MB GDDR3 OC video card
Corsair HX 520 power supply (same as mine, we love modular power supplies)
Antec P182 case (gigantic!)
MSI P35 Neo2-FR motherboard
Zerotherm BTF-90 heatsink/fan (pretty)
etcetc, total: almost $900 after rebates. It was as little trouble to put together as any computer we’ve ever tried. :)
Ode on an Ice Cream Carton
Today the weather was really nice, 60s! Perfect for ice cream!
Actually I’m a total liar, we got that carton like a week ago, when the weather was bad. Maeda-en is my fave brand of azuki ice cream (to date, I’m willing to try others!) and it’s quite quite delicious. I know it says “Party Size” but it’s just me — Yut doesn’t like the azuki flavor (foolish fool with foolishly foolish taste buds!). Oh yes! More for me! :D
Drafty No More
In case you were wondering what to do with the huge Guitar Hero box, here’s one possibility (credit Yut):
It’s our “new” under-the-door draft stopper. (Is there a better name for those things?)
Broken
Y’know, I thought the bad weather was done for the winter — I thought everything was all good. But no, it was just one day of reprieve. Today the rain came down hard, and I coulda sworn the wind kept changing direction, so it wasn’t even possible to point my umbrella the right way for long. Short story short, I broke it, my damn umbrella that is. It’s now an unbrella (from Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, fun book). I was walking along an hour or so after noon, and the wind just flipped it inside out and in surprise my arm was pulled backwards so the (now) unbrella was pointing behind me, and oops there was someone there holding a box (thankfully I think it was still in plastic) of chocolate who now had water coming down on her from the rain and a nice extra large stream from my umbrella too, like she’d said, “oh I’d like extra water with my rain please!” Lovely, I’m sure. I got the feeling that she didn’t blame me, but it didn’t make her day any nicer or make her any less grumpy. The splines (or what are the metal parts called?) were all bent up and the whole thing wouldn’t stay open for longer than a few seconds, less if there was any wind. So yes, lovely. Also, my feet were wet all day today again. And after the umbrella broke, my pants too, the legs all the way up, and most of my coat. I keep thinking about wellies (or galoshes!) but the moment I think I’m going to go buy a pair the rain sort of stops so then I think it’s not worth it. Also I’m a little shopped out, even for shoes — I know I know, shock and awe!
Oh yeah, and I’m taking umbrella recommendations if you have one that would fit in a large handbag that’s strong, or whatever makes a good umbrella. Or if you have a fave umbrella. Whatever, tell me about it!
Isn’t it awesome how you can expect at least a couple of weather related posts every winter, like I’m surprised by the cold and rain, AGAIN?! :D
Completely unrelated (I’m totally a tangent loving dilettante-type — is that redundant?) but dude if I ever start spilling my drink, then there’s a good chance I’m not sober cos good lord, who wastes their drink like that?!
Objection!
We just finished Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, omg, it was awesome! I think it was the best Ace Attorney so far (the second was probably the least good, still good, just in comparison). Trials and Tribulations tied so much together and it was just fun. I can’t believe it’s the last Phoenix Wright game! There’s plenty more Ace Attorney games (Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice is out in February), but no more Feenie, alas.
By the way, I lost my little plushy within a week after I got it; too much playing with it on my key chain. I guess really no more Phoenix for me.
Rain, Copious Rain
When I moved to NorCal, where people put on their wellies when it’s drizzling out, I made fun of the weather wimps. I thought seriously, wellies? It drizzled for a minute this morning! But omg, we’re having the worst rainy, humid, cold weather I can remember (around here), and I am totally seeing the appeal. My feet have felt damp and cold all day. The wetness just seeps in everywhere, cold and clammy. Although maybe it’s like central air, just not enough days in the year when you need it to justify it.
Holiday
We went to my in-laws for the winter holidays, down in SoCal, where the weather is nice(r). I mean 60 degree days, maybe one day was colder and super windy, etcetc, can’t complain. We went to the San Diego Zoo, and I helped out CT with her site, and Yut helped his dad with his computer, and we went for eats a lot. But as usual, all this end of the year travel stresses out my immune system. I think it’s like the 3rd year in a row that I’ve come home sick with some kind of cold for New Year’s Day. Not that it’s so bad, Yut and I decided to just stay home and drink sparkling wine, which cures what ails ya! Hope y’all had a fun holiday!
Weather Sense, Lack Thereof
When I woke up this morning, the sun was out, and for some reason I decided that this meant that the weather was nice. So I wore flips and a t-shirt with my jeans. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it was not the proper attire; I was pretty cold coming home. Good thing I had a scarf in my bag. Which I only brought as a cushion for my camera.
