by Matt | Jan 31, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, I got my first haircut in 8+ months today. I was a little frightened having had a horrible experience the last time I tried to get my haircut in Savannah but thankfully everything turned out ok this time. Actually, it’s probably one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had. I chopped off a good five inches and it’s a lot less “girl-ish” finally. It’s still a longer length than your typical haircut but it’s reverse layered and shaped correctly. It’s good. I also only paid $30 for it too. Usually they charge $50+ at the type of places I like to have my hair cut. I was very happy.
I also got my Clie case/wallet today. So, not only like my head stylish but so is my pocket. I got a nice black leather flip case and a screen protector from eXpansis. It took them far too long to ship it to me but the quality of the case is nice so I won’t complain.
Last night I also managed to shoot 3 rolls of film and get a 4th almost finished. I still need to shoot more this weekend, probably 10 rolls total, but this is a good start. I’ll shoot more tonight with the help of Lauren and her friends and then possibly some tomorrow with Nagle. We talked about bowling but I’ve still got to call him and ask.
That’s about it. Lauren and her friends are off looking at dresses for a wedding and I’m about to play some SimCity 4.
That is all.
by Matt | Jan 29, 2003 | Imported Entry
Wow, that title is a mouthful. Anyway, I was bored and decided to find out what my graphics card could handle. First off I needed to find out exactly what it was running at in terms of clock speed and memory speed. To do this I installed Gainward’s eXperTool, a utility that came with my card but that I had neglected until now. After updating it to the most current version and updating the bios of the board I checked the clock speed. My card was set at the factory default 300 Mhz core and 650 Mhz memory. From here I decided I needed to benchmark the card before attempting to overclock it. I ran 3DMark by MadOnion and got a respectable score of 8933. It should be mentioned at this point that I’m using Nvidia’s Detonator 41.09 drivers for this. I know that the 42.xx drivers are out there somewhere but I didn’t want to try this on beta driver for fear of something going wrong. So, after the first round of testing I decided to crank the card up to “Enhanced Mode” which is an actual setting in eXperTools especially designed for overclocking. This bumped the clock speed to 310 Mhz and the Memory to 680 Mhz. A successful completion of 3DMark again and I received quite a serious bump in results. The card tested at 9648 (up from 8933). I was quite pleases with this since I had significantly improved my cards proformance while not seriously overclocking it. I decided to chance it and go for the glory. I pushed the card past the recommended “enhanced mode” limits and jumped the clock speed up to 320 Mhz and the memory to 700 Mhz. To my amazement the card remained stable through another round of testing. It produced a score of 9982 from 3DMark. Quite pleased with myself at this point I returned the card settings to “enhanced mode” and that’s where I’ve decided it shall stay. There’s no reason to push it any further when I don’t have to. Anyway, to wrap up my hap-hazard results, here’s a little list:
Safe Mode (300Mhz clock speed) – 3DMark Score: 8933
Enhanced Mode (310Mhz clock speed) – 3DMark Score: 9648
Overclocked (320Mhz clock speed) – 3DMark Score: 9982
Now, I need to point out that this is without anti-aliasing turned on. This is purely hardware here. I’m planning on running seperate 2xAA and 4xAA benchmarks tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jan 29, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, I suppose the cat is out of the bag. Or, more accurately, the cat never really got in the bag in the first place. I’ve probably talked to each of the people who would normally read this page already but for those of you who are viewing my life from afar, I called to ask Lauren’s father’s permission to marry her. I guess traditionally I’m not supposed to say anything and that the entire ramp-up to actually proposing is supposed to be kept a secret. Well, that just wasn’t feasible in this case so it was let slip that I made the phone call. I haven’t proposed yet, although I plan to do that soon, but I’ve made the first step by asking her father for his blessing. And when I say “soon” its a relative term since I first have to save for a ring. I guess I did things a bit backwards and asked permission before I actually had the ring in my hand but I just wanted everyone on the same page, myself included. I’m usually pretty clueless when it comes to formal things if you couldn’t tell already. So, there you have it, I’m almost engaged. I suppose you can take that as a pre-announcement if you wish, or you can just hang out and wait a little while for the real one.
So, that’s whats been on my mind (and my stress level) for the past few days now. Besides that I have to shoot at least 4 different and interesting photo shoots this weekend. One of myself (aka: a self portrait). Then print all of them. Wheee! I need to have the self portrait and a work-in-progress shoot for Portrait class a week from today, next wednesday, and 2 more work-in-progress shoots for personal vision by next thursday. This weekend is going to be busy.
Besides all the business there’s not much going on. I’m starting to look forward to spring break. Chip might come down and hang out and traditionally Nagle comes over and hangs out for most of the week. It should be fun.
I should also be thinking about my job search. I’ve already started looking at places to send my resume and portfolio and if these next few shoots turn out well, I’ll have all I need to complete my portfolio and start sending it off. It’s an exciting time. A very stressful time as well.
I’m also mid-redesign of this half of the site so that it can be more appealing to prospective job opportunities. People who aren’t going to look at the Photo side of the site but instead are interesting in an interesting design. I’m also thinking about taking a shot at some charity work and helping one of Jason’s friends with their site. Maybe I’d just pass an empty page template on to them. We’ll see. I’m also thinking about putting up flyers around campus and offering Photoshop and web design services. I’d be interested to see how receptive the other students would be to something like that.
That is all. Matt out.
by Matt | Jan 26, 2003 | Imported Entry
You know what I tried to do this morning? Find pictures of all you silly peoples. You know what I found? Nothing. I have a picture of Lauren, a picture of Nagle and that’s it. Well, I did find one of Chris and one of Chip but I doubt they’d be flatering to use. So, here’s the deal. Look through your computers, look through your desks, photo-albums, whatever, and find me a nice picture of yourself. The alternative is to have me take news ones the next time I see each of you, and we all know how much you all love sitting in front of the camera. Ok? Is it a deal?
by Matt | Jan 25, 2003 | Imported Entry
UPS was nice enough to drop off my memory stick yesterday but I wasn’t able to get it because they left it in the apartment complex rental office. I got it this morning and you would have thought I got a NEW Clie. I’ve been playing MP3s and copying pictures and adding pictures to my address book, it’s fun. I like memory sticks. Especially the 128M variety.
As for the rest of the day, it’s going to be pretty borring, unless I go out shooting, which won’t happen I can already tell. My basic plan is to sit myself down, as far from a video game as possible, and plan (actually decide on things) my next photo shoot. I need to decide where, when and what. Three questions I have no clue how to answer.
And speaking of photo shoots, I thought you guys might like to see a few of the pictures I shot the other day. Now, these aren’t the “good” ones, these are just my digital “test shots” before I actually shot the film. I’ll scan the film later and put those up on the other photo half of LI.net in my portfolio section, but for now you can take a look at these. Remember, these are only previews. Feedback is most welcome and appreciated.
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