I have been wanting to figure out how to work with video for a while now. I tried Windows Movie Maker which worked but was way too simplistic for my needs. So then I overcompensated and went too far to the other extreme and tried Adobe Premiere Pro. That product is amazing, but does much more than I need… plus it costs $800. After spending a couple quality days at work with the product I decieded my needs didn’t justify that kind of expense.

My BattleLore stop motion attempt. Edited in Windows Movie Maker. I obviously need to practice my video skills more.

This camera rocks.

Don’t take my word for it. Go with the review that convinced me to buy it in the first place. It’s not like I really know what I’m doing but I love the pictures I take with it. I realize of course that it has limitations. It is after all just a point and shoot and not an incredibly expensive DSLR. If you don’t know what you’re doing but want to take great pictures like me then buy a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5. No need for thousands of dollars worth of expensive pro or semi-pro photography equipment.

Update: Lame. Ok so the new features are going to be cool. The new price point for iPhones is cool. The new iPhone will be cool. Mobile Me looks decent (I hope it integrates with gmail). Yes yes yes. What sucks is… nothing is releasing until July. Ugh. I wanted to see iPhone 2.0 software today with the App Store going live today too. Now I have to wait another month? Damn you Apple! Damn you Steve Jobs!

It may just be iPhone 2.0 software. It may be the full 3G iPhone 2.0 hardware. We don’t really know yet, but with just 1.5 hours to go before the WWDC Keynote starts… oh the anticipation.

One of the features of my new job is the ability to use public transportation for my commute. I really want to take advantage of it, but in order to do so I want to reduce the number of bags I carry to just one instead of two or more.

The problem is… where do I find a Gym+Laptop bag all in one? I’ve found some that say they could be used as a laptop or as a gym bag, but not at the same time.

I really like timbuk2 craftsmanship, but none of theirs seem right:

A little while back the wife and I saw something really interesting… a perfect lego model of a house being built in our new neighborhood. We were at the developer’s office and all the other houses had carefully crafted wood and cardboard models of the homes which will be built.

Well apparently there’s a tool available from Lego where you can design anything using Lego bricks and then send it off to the magic Lego factory in the sky where they package up the exact pieces you need and you can then build it. I had forgotten about it until today when I finally went to find the tool.

I have come to realize that in 3 weeks we are going to have major problem.

I haven’t owned a camera in some 8 years or so now. The last camera I owned was a Canon 35mm film camera which was stolen while I was working at Sette e Mezzo, learning to cook from the great, and now unfortunately dead, Michel Depardon. Losing the camera was my own fault. I had taken it outside during the afternoon lull and was writing down descriptions of the dishes I had photographed that day. When I got up to go back inside I must have left it on the bench next to me. I realized my blunder just a few minutes later, but by the time I went back outside the bench was missing one camera full of delicious food pictures.

For those that don’t already know… the wife and I are building a new modern semi-eco friendly house. We’ve been at it for over two years now (mostly with an architect), but it’s finally starting to go up. Our builder just sent over a link to some new smoke alarms.

See, smoke alarms are one of those things that apparently piss off modernists. You have to have them, but nobody produces a reasonably priced modern looking smoke alarm. I guess it’s been a thorn in the modernist architect’s side for a long time now.

Well… Kidde finally came to the rescue:

I’m not sure why, but on Tuesday a couple things happened.

1. A database permissions table was corrupted and restored from backup.

2. Several files had their permissions reset.

I contacted hostrocket but only got an explanation on the first. There was no reason given for the second problem. The wife and I host 4 different websites with multiple subdomains off of the one account (one of the excellent features of hostrocket) but fortunately the only new site/database was this one. That means that the backup was only missing permissions for this blog. I was able to restore that quickly.

Wife linked me this. I really love popup books.

The wife linked me this a couple days ago. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. Apparently cat owners are attaching lightweight digital cameras to their pets and rigging them to take pictures automatically. The result is a kind of photo blog of life from the perspective of a cat.