Archive for December, 2006
Next Entries »Gears of war, or why I’m not in the Army
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006God I suck at first person shooters. I couldn’t beat the first level of Halo 2, and now that Gears of War is out I’m not faring any better. A friend picked me up a copy at the Microsoft company store and I sat down to play it. An hour later I had died 40 times and still was not out of the tutorial.
I guess I just lack that part of the brain that can aim, walk, and shoot at the same time. When I try to aim from cover enemies shoot me. If I try to stay in cover I get shot anyway. Basically the game boiled down to me getting shot over, and over, and over again - all before I started the game proper anyway.
Picking flowers for alchemy in Oblivion is more my speed. If only Oblivion had not betrayed me I would be diving back in right now. I need to find a good RPG to settle into - perhaps digging back into Dragon Quest 8 again?
Windows to the world
Tuesday, December 5th, 2006
Another take on The Granada that I took the other day. I would have posted in on Sunday when it was my picture of the day, but somehow it slipped my mind.
“Windows to the world” by sparktography
Marbles is back!
Tuesday, December 5th, 2006
I am v. pleased to announce that Marbles is back in my clutches welcome embrace - and 3 days early to boot! The University Village Apple store called this evening to let me know that the new logic board came in today and they had completed repair. I’ve done my testing and the random shutdown under heavy processor usage is indeed fixed.
It’s a happy day in the Sparky household!
“Marbles is back!” by sparktography
Marbles and the new logic board
Sunday, December 3rd, 2006Sadly it seems that the Core 2 Duo Macbooks are just as vulnerable to the overheating problems/random rebooting as the prior ones were. My poor Marbles reboots whenever the processor gets hot - even just as hot as it gets pegging the processor for a few minutes.
The good news: it’s a free and easy repair - they just replace the processor and main logic board. The bad news: it will take 3-5 days for the parts to come in so they can repair my poor Marbles.
Oh well - at least I still have iChoad to keep me up to date on the tubes.
Logitech Harmony 720: the taming of Le Cinema Sparks
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006
Brien, Chris, and myself all went to Costco this afternoon. They had a great deal on the Logitech Harmony 720 - the ultimate (6 months ago) home theater remote. It has a color screen on it that enables really advanced features and highly customizable buttons.
Setting the remote up is simple - you hook it up to your computer via USB and tell the little wizard what equipment you have. You can then tweak any settings and set up macros to your hearts content from their interface, then move the settings over to the remote. Logitech has an online service that keeps the remote codes up to date, and has support for more than 17,000 devices.
The remote itself has rechargeable batteries and comes with a little cradle to charge it when you are not using it. The remote also features a tilt sensor so it lights up when you pick it up, and goes to sleep after you put it back down again.
I’m still getting the hang of it, but so far I’m pretty impressed. I’ve gone from needing 3 remotes to tame my home theater to a single easy to use remote. Now I just need to get IR-compatible light-switches for in the living room and I can even macro dimming the lights when I run my “DVD activities” script.
Done with you Oblivion
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006My sweet, sweet Oblivion has betrayed me! I have been getting back into it and was building up a MEGA-PC with which to rule all of Cyrodill. Sadly I just encountered a bug in the game where a certain Shum Go-Yarug died early in the game (he has a tendency to walk off bridges) and thus leave me unable to buy Rosethorn Manor, the coolest house in the game. Sadly because I’m playing on the Xbox 360 there is no fix for this bug short of abandoning 60 hours of gameplay and starting over. BOY AM I PISSED!
I think I’m done with Oblivion for a while - I need to get back to my Final Fantasy III game anyway.
Retrolectric
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006
It pays to look up once in a while! Another Lensbaby shot taken near my house in Seattle. The overcast weather today just begged to de-saturate this image to nearly black and white during my post-processing efforts. I’m not sure why I seem so fascinated with pictures of power-lines recently - perhaps its my ongoing obsession with technology?
“Retrolectric” by sparktography
Batgears (or: Future Mechanicals)
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006
Yesterday was the Seattle Motorcycle show - I went down with Brien and some friends of his and took photos. This shot makes me think of what the gearbox on the Batmobile must look like! Somehow it also brings to mind visions of the introduction to Bicentennial Man, a movie which has a special spot in my heart for being one of Isaac Asimov’s greatest stories, although rather mediocre in its adaptation to film.
I wonder what the machines of tomorrow will look like on the inside?
“Batgears” by sparktography
The Granda
Friday, December 1st, 2006
Went for a walk today with my 10D. For the first time in a month I took my 50 1.4 rather than my Lensbaby. I took this picture of a building very close to where I live where a friend of mine lives. Even without the Lensbaby I couldn’t help myself but to add just a touch of vignetting in post.
Overall I’m quite happy with my week. There were some stressful moments, but with things calming down with my project at work, and a few snow days I was actually able to shrug off most of my stress. I’m looking forward to a relatively chill weekend alone, playing some Oblivion, and shooting photos.
“The Granda” by sparktography
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