So I installed one of the latest Snow Leopard builds earlier in the week, but my obsessive compulsive tendencies convinced me to install the boxed version I preordered from Apple. Are they the same version? Yes, they are exactly the same. Am I having fun anyway? Heck, yes.
It’s been said, by others more informed than I, that unless you have New England roots, you can’t truly appreciate the impact of the life of Edward Kennedy.
Being born and raised in Southern California, excludes me from this group. However, I am old enough to appreciate the impact of his life’s work. Society is better because he spoke for those who had no voice. His achievements include, Title IX, SCHIP, minimum wage reform, national fair housing, voting and civil rights.
Most of all, I will remember that Senator Kennedy never shied away from being labeled a “LIBERAL“. It was a label he wore as a badge of honor. His causes were our causes and he was our voice.
“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
-Senator Edward Kennedy
What? Dude, don’t judge me ’til you’ve tried one.
Update: So these are nearly impossible to find in SoCal, USA, and I realized that they’re manufactured by Oak Leaf in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This explains why they are hard to find AND why I love them so much.
my friend, keira-anne reminded me on the twitter that this video existed while simultaneously reminding me why canadians are the coolest of all north americans.
PUNCHED!
more times than not I find myself shooting photos in the harsh incandescent light of my living room. even with my fastest lens (a 50mm f/1.4), I often find myself needing some help from a flash. on my Canon 50D, I use the Canon 430 EX II and an Stofen Omni-Bounce diffuser to help soften the light.
Last week, I ordered a Gary Fong Lightsphere II
from Amazon and put it through a few tests this weekend. Once I accepted the fact that my flash unit looked like it was adorned with a piece of tupperware, I was pretty happy with the results. The Lightsphere (I bought the “cloud” variety vs. the translucent type) does what it claims, it spreads out otherwise harsh strobe light and gives the appearance of what you would expect from a small lightbox.
Per the usual, Buster agreed to be photographed ONLY if he were allowed to do so with a mouth-full-of-bed.
[flickr]3850114801[/flickr]
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[flickr]3850123053[/flickr]
…and the rest of the Flickr set:
[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157622124767418"]
chances are that i should be getting ready for the big-fuck-thing happening on campus tomorrow. normally, i would be happy to do so, but tonight i made the mistake of telling the iTunes to play “The Colour and the Shape“. Alas, it is one the best albums to ever crawl out of 90s-grunge and the entire album should be put on repeat while being played over a giant-outer-space-orbiting-megaphone for the entire world to hear.
if you don’t believe me bc i’m some jackass on the internet, i understand, but give a listen to ‘monkey wrench -> hey, johnny park” and try to talk to me again without getting a rather snide look.
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chances are good-to-even that i’m actually more apprehensive about tomorrow’s big-fuck-thing than i’m admitting. when this happens, i like to take my feelings and put them where they belong…hidden deep under a lifetime worth of anger and resent…ah…safe and warm.
experience has taught me that such a practice, while momentarily effective, invariably leads to FAIL.
so bc i can’t make sense of this crazy life—and bc i’m a hipster doofus—i read a lot of buddhist-inspired works to try and keep myself normal. a few weeks ago, i re-read this piece of enlightenment:
“stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be be ‘there’ ” -tolle
a few times around the brain followed by a few mantra repetitions…
and i can breathe again.
Nigh on three years ago, I was at the Greek Theatre listening to death cab and cutie from up close. good times.
Sit back, relax and enjoy an archive redux from this day in 2006:
because my life is a never-ending-party, we went and saw death cab for cutie this week at the greek theatre. yes, i know, this makes two trips to the greek in the same week, but damn, it’s a nice venue and you only live once.
death cab was great, even if they felt out of place in a large amphitheater, and were lonely for the seattle scene. if you’re interested, there are blurry-out-of-focus concert pictures up on flickr.
oh yeah and “jesus’ favorite” was there too and that means that nearly 1/3 of socal’s greatest bloggers were in attendance.
just so that you wouldnt feel left out, i uploaded a playlist of the concert’s setlist to the iTunes Music Store. see! it’s just like being there with me!
damn i’m good to you…
so today school tried to get all up in my grill and I had to back hand it before it got too out of line. crisis adverted.
when I walked home for lunch, I saw that the FedEX guy had delivered my fancy new Glen Fong Lightsphere. What’s a Lightsphere you ask, why it’s a $40 piece of tupperware that you slip onto your flash, of course.
the idea is that it takes your otherwise harsh and spotlight-like-flash and diffuses it into a soft-milky-tub-o-fun. after a few shots, I’m undecided. also, because I’m stuck out here with out misty, in a pinch buster becomes my default photo subject. today he wasn’t all that into it as is evidenced by these…
oh and dude, have you ever listened to the version of “Thunder Road” from the 1975 London show? fuck, I’m not a crazy springsteen fan, but jesus, it’s good.
here’s the video for your face:
yeah, that’s enough.
one of the only reoccurring problems I have with Wordpress is with the Automatic Upgrade feature.
As the Wordpress team continues to push out point-releases that address security, stability, etc, having the automatic upgrade feature is a huge time saver. However, whenever I clicked on “Upgrade Automatically” I was being greeted with an error message like:
“Fatal Error: Allowed Memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted”
Frustrated, I typed the error message into “the google” and came across Chad Johnson’s excellent post addressing the cause of the problem. You should read the full write-up over here, but here’s the quick summary:
The error message is a result of WP using up it’s allocated memory. By changing the amount of memory set aside for WP, you alleviate the problem. Simple, eh? Here’s how you do it:
1. Open the file “wp-settings.php” found in your WP root directory
2. Find the line that says ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’
3. Change the 32M to 64M
4. Save, upload, and upgrade automatically with ease.
Thanks to Chad for the tip and for saving me just a little bit of my sanity.
so I spent some time last night figuring out how to export photos from Adobe Lightroom with a nice border and my nameplate. Using a plugin called LR2/Mogrify, I’m able to select a photo, invoke the export plugin which then adds 3 different borders of varying sizes and colors. Once the new image has been created, Photoshop automatically opens and I paste in my nameplate in the bottom right-hand corner.
Here’s an example using a photo I took at the Manzanar War Relocation Center:
I’m wondering if I can create some sort of Photoshop action that would take the exported photo and automatically add the name plate in the same spot? Photoshop gurus? If so, that would make the entire process 100% automated.
thanks to my lovely wife, I’m much more equipped for all sorts of snow-play this winter. last night, I opened up an awesome new snow jacket AND this pair of Sorel Caribou boots.
I tried them on and felt like a bad ass lumberjack. Until Mammoth gets snow, I’ll be wearing these in anticipation (they look sexy w/ board shorts).
so today’s my birthday and I’m spending it with the people I love, counting my blessings and feeling like the luckiest guy in the world.
to commemorate the day, I’m uploading the first of many wedding photos.
out of the hundreds of shots josh took, this is one of my personal favorites and today seems like the perfect time to share it with the world.
…and many more.
