rockstar rick

I’ve been watching NBC’s new show “Chuck,” and I’ll admit that my disbelief suspender™ was working overtime at first. Once you get past that, the show is just plain fun to watch.

And if you like pretty blondes, that can’t hurt either. And the good people at strahotski.com think so as well. First–the name of the web site? Brilliant. Come for the catchy name, stay for the high-res screen captures and intelligent commentary on the show’s story (with an obvious bias towards Yvonne Strahovski, naturally).

Too much fun.

Is anyone else completely addicted to Scrabulous? Very soon I will be using words like “ghat” in everyday conversation. That is until I stop having everyday conversations at all, and I’ll only be able to speak in square tiles.

Here’s a game I recently won:

And here’s one I recently lost:

So much for using my time wisely.

So I decided that my life does not currently have enough going on, and that I need to add some other commitment, like, I don’t know…recording an entire album in the month of November. I must’ve enjoyed it so much last year, that I decided to put myself through it again. I’m talking about National Solo Album Month (NaSoAlMo), and it was actually quite a fulfilling project. And some listenable music came out of it–at least for me. And just for the hell of it, I put it up on last.fm. Like anyone else will want to listen to it.

So I cleaned up the studio a little, and started messing around with some beats in Reason. The password is: Experimentation.

I took some pictures of the moon tonight–I think some of them will turn out. Just did it in my backyard. I was frustrated by how little light comes through my viewfinder on my 35mm camera. It will definitely require more experimentation to photograph other objects.

I took this shot using Fuji Velvia 100F. The colors in the slide look wonderful. I don’t know how I didn’t start shooting with slide film sooner. I scanned it in, and it needed only a little color adjustment. Here’s a link to it on deviantart.com, or enjoy the flickr link below.

I just got back from a trip to Brazil where I shot a whole lot of pictures. I think the grand tally came to 21+ rolls of film. In an effort to save money, I sent the bulk of the slide film to Fuji for development using prepaid mailers. It’s an exercise in patience for me, as it takes a few weeks time to get them back.

I also shot a couple rolls of Kodachrome (which I’ve never used before), and since there’s only one lab in the world that processes K-14 (the development process for Kodachrome), you have to use mailers. I look forward to seeing those slides too. I’ll post links here when I get them back and scanned.

Before the trip I also bought a used Minolta SRT-101, and I’ve been pretty happy with it. It’s more work to shoot with than my XG1, but it is fully mechanical (one of the last that Minolta made). That’s important because as manual as my XG1 is, it will not function without the battery. The SRT-101, however, only needs to battery for the internal light meter to function. This will come in handy for long exposures (such as is required for astrophotography), as I won’t have to worry about the battery running low and the shutter closing (the XG1 needs battery power to keep the shutter open).

Perhaps more useful for astrophotography is the mirror lock up feature. When doing astrophotography, vibration is a concern as it can make long exposure shots blurry. The mirror lockup allows the photographer to prepare the shot, lock up the mirror, wait for vibrations to settle, and then trip the shutter.

Though for me, all this is speculation because I haven’t yet done any astrophotography with my telescope–where vibration would be most noticeable. I still need a t-adapter for my Meade ETX-90.

So much to do.

I’ve always enjoyed photography. I remember doing one of those sale drives in elementary school to earn what looked like a nice 35mm camera. It turned out to be pretty cheap, but I used it anyway and got more mileage out of it than most kids would have.

When I was 21, I bought a Minolta XG-1 from a pawn shop so I could have a camera with me when I went to Jerusalem to study abroad. It’s a nice camera that took great pictures, and it still does. My last month in Jerusalem I took a roll of slide film and photographed the BYU Jerusalem Center. I got them developed and put them away except to look at on a couple occasions.

Just recently, I started using our scanner’s transparent media adapter to scan negatives, and I wondered what those slides would look like. It’s true what Philip Greenspun says at photo.net: “Color slides make you feel like a hero.” Seeing my slides inspired me to shoot slide film during my up and coming trip to Brazil.

I went and bought some Fuji Velvia 100F. My dad suggested I do some tests, by bracketing varying exposures. I took those to the lab today and I’m excited to get them back. I’ll post them here if they’re worth looking at.

I have been trying to put together a workout plan that works for me. Because I’ve never been very serious about my fitness, I haven’t really ever had a good system. Now that I’m looking, I am astonished at how much useless junk is out there. If you google words like ‘fitness’, ‘weight lifting’, etc., a lot of what comes back seems to be pretty useless. At least to me. I have found a couple good resources, though. One is http://www.mayoclinic.com/, and I’ll admit that they win a lot of points with me for being a not-for-profit organization. That, and it’s the Mayo Clinic, and if you can’t trust them, who can you trust?

I think I was drawn to them because I tend to like to have the scientific explanation for things, and any site whose motivations I question can’t be scientific in the truest sense. I mean, some companies have “scientists,” whose purpose really is to create reports that can be used to lobby Congress for favorable legislation. If I had more time, I’d drum up a good example. Maybe later.

I’ve finally managed to get serious about getting in shape. I’ve been feeling better, and more energetic. At first it was pretty difficult to stop whatever I was doing (at work) and go down to the gym to work out, but I’ve started to see it less as a chore and something I look forward to.

I especially enjoy the elliptical trainer; it’s easier on my knees. And I like to watch the computer monitor my heart rate, and calculate the number of calories I’ve burned. I guess I should take advantage of my obsession, and use it for my benefit.

The primary goal is to get my blood pressure down, and the best way to do that is to lose another 20 pounds or so. I’ve lost just under 10 pounds since the beginning of the year, and I finally feel some momentum.

I think what I need most right this minute is sleep. So I will do just that.

We finally settled on a new band name. It’s been a recurring theme in our practices, due to Greg’s retro toaster that looks kind of like a radio. The new band name is: Toaster Radio

myspace.com/toasterradiomusic

I like it.