Sunday

by | May 4, 2003 | Imported Entry

Well, it’s Sunday and yet another weekend has flown by. Yesterday I took care of a little bit of shopping (groceries, photo supplies) so today I can hopefully get a little bit of shooting done. Nothing much, just some portraits here in the house. I think I’m going to bring out the ring flash and take some stuff that way. I didn’t get a chance to arrange anything with models or help so there wasn’t any shooting for personal vision this weekend. These would be for Fashion as a way of getting ahead a little so that I don’t have to do as much next weekend.

I’ve also been trying to come up with a new design for this page. I’ve gotten pretty tired of the gray and orange. Unfortunatly, everything I come up with isn’t making me 100% happy and I’m not going to waste my time putting up something I’ll only want to take back down in a month. I can’t even decide whether I want it vertically oriented or horizontal in “box” form. It’s rather frustrating.

That’s really about it. Lauren is down at the labs and I’m here. I’m waiting on Brittney so I can get the digital camera from downstairs. It’s Jason’s camera but he let Lauren borrow it for her lingerie shower. She won’t be home until 5pm so I’m killing time by playing a little Raven Shield and working on the afore-mentioned webpage.

Matt out.

Not much going on

by | May 2, 2003 | Imported Entry

Just some random odds and ends.

Today I paid my credit card bill as well as the cable bill. I also convinced the cable company to give me digital cable for $29.99 a month. I wasn’t supposed to get the “monthly special” that they’re running but I was able to convince the rep that I was talking to that I was interested in it but not willing to pay “all that money for it.” Little to they know that I’ll be moving out in a month.

Tonight is Lauren’s shower, so she’ll be at that. Afterwards we, as a larger group, have plans to see X-Men 2 at midnight. Hopefully it’ll be good. Probably about as thin as paper but I’m going simply for the action. As much as I like “artsy” movies, I need some explosions every once in a while.

Other than that, not much is going on. Critique went well yesterday and my fashion class liked my work. I’ve got to figure out what to shoot this weekend and call people to see if they’re available.

I’ll let you know how X-men is tomorrow. Later.

Snippets

by | Apr 30, 2003 | Imported Entry

Is that even a real word? I’m assuming so since I knew how to spell it. Then again, I know how to spell recockulous and I know that isn’t a real word. So be it.

My critique on Monday went well. They liked the photos and thought my idea was sound. I thought it was a bit surprising since that class as a whole usually doesn’t like anything. All the better. They actually responded most actively to the humor. I guess when you change things on a drive-through menu to read things like “conspiracy burger with cold war tater-tots” it can only be taken in a humorous light. That, by the way, was in reference to Coke’s involvement with the CIA during the height of the cold war… not that the cold war itself was a conspiracy. Just to clarify.

I have another critique tomorrow in fashion. It should go well. I’m showing more of the mobster/fashion photos. They usually get a kick out of those.

Also, my check from SCAD finally worked itself out. I actually refrained from mentioning anything about this until now but for the past month I’ve been broke. Really broke. So broke I couldn’t pay the cable bill or my credit card. The reason was that SCAD didn’t deposit my money from the beginning of the semester. Then, instead of fixing the problem, they cut me a paper check… then promptly lost it. This time, check #3, actually made it into my hands. It was promptly deposited yesterday and should clear by tonight or tomorrow. So, Friday I can pay some bills. Thankfully my “student” credit card is lenient and my cable company is clueless so I should be fine. I also need to pay my roommate back for 2 month rent. He’s been very supportive, so I thank him for that.

Elsewhere, Lauren and I are making plans for the days following graduation. The tentative plan is for my family to bring my stuff home, for me to drive to TX with Lauren and then for the two of us to fly to NH for a little get-together/engagement party/grad celebration. Of course those in the area are invited.

I also fixed QuickTime last night. I have no idea what the problem was but every time I tried to watch the new Matrix trailer (or anything for that matter) it would lock up the system solid. I uninstalled, reinstalled and changed some options and it seems to be working now.

I’ve also been trying for the past week to get Brittney’s computer up and running. She purchased a new mobo, an Athlon xp-2700 and some memory and the motherboard refused to cooperate. It was the Asua A7N8X deluxe and at first it simply refused to recognize the processor and gave POST errors to the tune of “wrong/different processor installed”. Then it refused to boot all together. It was rather annoying. After searching online it became apparent that TONS of people were having this problem. Only a handful fixed it and those that did didn’t know what they did, it just magically started working. We sent the board back. There’s a Gigabyte one on the way as a replacement.

Lets see, what else? Oh, X-Men opens on Friday. I’m probably going to go see that since Friday is Lauren’s bridal lingerie shower and the groom isn’t invited. Then the Matrix opens on the 15th, looking forward to that.

I’ve also got a huge list of things to do and not enough motivation (and/or time) to do them all. In no particular order:

-Find a job
-Pack things for home, sell and/or trash the rest
-Finalize portfolio
-Buy a portfolio book
-Redesign website
-Make website into an interactive CD to send along with portfolio
-Find a job
-Shoot 4 weeks worth of photos
-Finalize some wedding plans (invitations, photographer, etc)
-Graduate

I don’t know. It seems like so much. Some times I want to crawl into a little hole and not come out until my life is simpler. Sometimes I work well under pressure and things turn out really well. I’ve always been positive and I’ve always tried to “looking on the bright side of life”. Things usually turn out alright in the end. It’s just a bit scary at the moment.

Alright. Time for some food. Later.

Links

by | Apr 26, 2003 | Imported Entry

Thought it might be a good day for some random linkage.

First, for Chip, I came across a story on Neowin about a “CarPuter”, thought it might be worth a read.

From CNet, Judge rules file-swapping tools are legal. Wow. I seriously didn’t expect that one.

From the Reg, Apple and AMD working together. A snipit: So what can we read into this little interchange? Certainly there have been rumours aplenty in the past concerning Apple’s possible migration to the x86 world, and AMD’s x86-64 technology – now officially known as ‘AMD64’, by the way – in particular. We’ve always found such claims incredible, given the considerable difficulties of managing the migration users and software developers to a new platform. Yes, Apple is a past master at this, witness the 680×0 to PowerPC shift, but don’t underestimate the effort involved. It sure sounds nice. Hopefully something good might come of it.

Also at the Reg, Verizon loses RIAA piracy case. This does not bode well.

Full Throttle: Hell On Wheels Screens. Oooh. Nifty.

Y’z Dock 0.7.5 released. Memory problems are now fixed. Mostly.

That’s about it for today. I’ve got to go scan some negatives. Later.

Registry: Part 2

by | Apr 22, 2003 | Imported Entry

This morning Lauren and I registered at Dillard. I think I can say with some safety that it wasn’t as “fun” as Bed Bath & Beyond. Mainly because at Dillard’s you don’t get a cool scanner gun to point at things. You get a wedding consultant instead who’s job it is to walk around behind you and write down everything you like. Which, is fine by me, less work and all, but you can’t really discuss the finer points on china patterns in front of complete strangers. Picking out things like that is a personal decision between bride and groom and it’s always easier to have those “do we like this or not” discussions in private. Thats not to say that she was in our faces in anyway, quite the contrary, she was very nice. I just wanted a cool scanner to play with. 🙂

Thankfully we can make changes to this registry online as well. Heck, you can even shop for everything on the registry online too. That makes it two stores in a row. You guys aren’t going to have to leave your houses to buy anything! Cool huh? Next up is Target which I’m figuring we’ll get to next week some time. We still need to find sheets/linen/bedroom stuff that we like, a coffee pot, towels and a few other random things.

After registering Lauren took me out for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. The breakfasts are always tasty there. Now we’re back home and she’s working on homework downstairs and I’m looking up random things on installation art for a test this afternoon. I have a 3 page essay-style test this evening in my 6:00 history class. I hate that kind of thing. It means I have to spruce up on my BS skills instead of actually studying. Also, being 3 pages is a bit extreme for some of the questions she gave us. The one I’m going with is: “discuss the roll of immersion as it applies to installation art”. Meaning basically, how do you draw in the audience and suspend their disbelieve? It’s kind of an open ended question since the entire basis for installation art is about the “experience” rather than the art object itself and being immersed in an environment is 110% about the “experience.”

Lets see. Oh ya, saw this over at Evil Avatar:

“Valve Software sends along a short statement…
Half-Life 2 will be shown at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo.”

I think I’m gonna cry. ::sniffle::

That would be the sequel to one of the greatest (if not the best) game of all time. Sure, Doom broke new ground in the FPS category. Quake refined it into an art… but Half-Life made it famous. Half-Life raised the bar in terms of quality, game play, story, action, everything. Everyone expects Doom 3 to be the end-all of FPS games, the prefect game. I predict we’ll see 10 times the game-play out of HL2. Doom is nice and all, but id Software has never been more than “accepting” of the mod/fan community. They’re slow to release source code and more often than not those games have only a few playable (read: good) mods and community projects. Half-Life on the other hand, has single handedly reinvented the way that system works. We’d never have Counter-Strike, the largest multi-player game in existence, without HL. And thats something to be thankful for. I personally can’t wait for this one. It’s gonna be good.