RIP Steve Jobs

I will miss Steve, you will miss Steve, all of us, will miss him. His sense of humor, his sense of design, his ideas for the future, and his qualities as a business man, have taught all of us what it means to be an entrepreneur. I used to dream of the day when I would work at his company. While Apple will live on, without our Captain, its just not going to be the same ship. All of us here at DurbrowVideoServices.com are in tears tonight. Forgive me for not having the words to express the honest and true sorrow in our hearts.

Elizaveta - new to me

Today's free iTune of the week is called 'Dreamer' by a young lady named Elizaveta. I really enjoy her voice, she has a mixture of operatic quality power and a singer songwriter's sensibility. She is very clever and I do like her arrangements/production quality. I am often grateful for the free iTunes songs because I often would not have found these artists on my own. I wish they had a new category on iTunes just called "Cleverness." I would check that out every day.

Person of Interest

POI is a new show helmed by Jim Caviezal. I really enjoyed the cleverness of the script, the acting was believable, not an easy thing to do considering the story has a certain level of unbelievability to it, a requirement for anything truly interesting, not just passable. If you liked "My Own Worst Enemy" with Christian Slater, definitely give POI a try. I especially liked that the pilot episode did not go exactly the way I expected it to. I hope that POI has a chance of surviving an entire season without being given the ax, unlike MOWE.

Fun With Numbers

I came across this fun little youtube video. It is a little game you can play with numbers. I think its fun and good for a 5 minute diversion from work.

Sarah Ferguson: a critique

This afternoon I watched an episode of "Finding Sarah:From Royalty to the Real World." The title of the episode is "Braving the big city." I want to preface my critique with the fact that I don't see anything wrong with her attempting to continue writing her books or even getting them animated. However, I do believe that she is going about it the wrong way. In the beginning of this episode, Sarah pitches her story "Little Red" to a roomful of older, caucasian, men who work for Nickelodeon. These men were not impressed.

Sarah's stories may have merit but the way she presented them was not effective. Sarah seemed to think that the problem had to do with her recent scandal when in reality, the problem was her pitching style. She went in telling them about the theme and using diplomatic language that would be appropriate at a diplomatic function where she had to give a speech about how children should be raised in this global village.

Fergie seems to have missed the point of animated movies, and that is to entertain. She didn't (at least not in the TV show.) tell them about why Little Red is so exciting and about the tremendous adventures Little Red will have. Fergie talked about teaching humanity when what she needed was a pre-fab roller coaster ride, book deal, pre-cast animated project that the whole family will love and will sell DVDs, tee shirts, and a special edition of Monopoly.

Fergie thought her brand was relevant, but the truth is that in the world of animation a divorced former princess is not a selling point. If she wanted to sell the stories she should hire someone else to pitch it, someone who does not carry baggage into the room. The point is to make the sale. Then, once the product is successful, reveal who the author was and thus repair Fergie's name and brand.

I don't suppose Fergie will ever come across my blog, but I really hope that someone clues her into how this is done. It would be too bad if perfectly good stories got lost because the author doesn't know what to present when.

fan ho

Once again, Dudecraft has brought an amazing artist to my attention. Fan Ho's photography is to art what love is to true love. Just one word can do it justice: wow.

Jackie Evancho

I really like Jackie Evancho's new album. It is available on iTunes, of course. Her voice is lovely and quite mature for her age. The arrangements are stellar and the recording engineers did an excellent job. I really appreciate all of the production choices that were made. I highly recommend that if you enjoy classical style vocals that you go and check her out.

FreddeGredde

Hey, everybody! I just got a glimpse of this: a fun cover of Killer Queen by FreddeGredde. I first saw a post over on DudeCraft. Its fun a day early. Its only Thursday, so here is a bit of giggle before the weekend even gets here.

UpScale McDonald's?

I just watched a short video on yahoo about the new proposal/plan of McDonald's to upscale their restaurants. Apparently, they will be adding flatscreen tvs and changing the paint to a more muted palate. I don't know that I personally would care one way or another. The decor was not the driving factor for me to ever stop at a McDonald's. The times I have stopped, were always out of necessity. They went to a lot of trouble to enhance their menus some time ago, by adding really excellent salads with Newman's Own Salad dressings. Those are great. They taste good and are good for you. I know that I can go almost anywhere in the US and get something that is healthy and predictable for a low price. I find McDonald's to be very pleasant. It would be ok with me if they added those big screen TVs, but really, I don't go there to watch TV. I have a TV at home (or in my hotel room, if I am on the road.) I can get my meal to go. I'm not sure that what they are trying to do is really more than the routine face lift that all businesses go through to keep themselves looking trim and nice. You don't want your restaurant to look shabby and these days, a flat screen tv just isn't that expensive, especially if you are buying them in McDonald's bulk size purchases. Its ok for McDonald's to be aimed at the child's market. Thats fine. I think part of the appeal of Starbucks, is that there are very few children. Sometimes, you just don't want to deal with youngsters and I hope that McDonald's understands that their market is inherently different than Starbucks.

Chaos, the TV show

Sadly, it would appear that Chaos has been pulled from the air. Why??? Because the ratings weren't there? Its awfully soon to be judging a TV show for ratings when its only had a couple of episodes. It takes time to build a loyal viewership, guys! I loved that show, why you gotta be like this? Just run the episodes that have already been made, ok? I would love to see the rest of the show. The actors have done their jobs, the production value is there, the comedic writing is plentiful. Don't you guys get it, people really do like scripted shows! Its zany, cute, and a hoot to watch.

If they don't come back on CBS I really hope that someone like SYFY picks it up.

Orchid Fest Sacramento 2011

I went to the Orchid Festival at The Scottish Rite Center in Sacramento over the past weekend. Its a wonderful show with many photographic opportunities. Parking was free. Here is just a taste of what I was able to capture with my Canon 20D.

ABCs of Me

I saw this over at gingerbreadcake and I thought I would give it a go.

A. Age: too old for you to be asking.

B. Bed Size: Twin

C. Chore you hate: scrubbing toilets that really need it.

D. Dogs: I love dogs! If I lived alone, I would have one, but my folks are allergic.

E. Essential start to your day: Cardio, shower, and carbs, in that order.

F. Favorite Color: Bright yellow.

G. Gold or silver: Gold. (see above answer.)

H. Height: Not much, 5'2" I won't wear heels, thats not good for your posture!

I. Instruments you play: violin, piano. I studied classical music for 10 years, jazz and celtic folk music.

J. Job Title: Camera Operator, Owner.

K. Kids: Nope, don't have any. As Gingerbreadcake said, I would need a man first. Honestly, I don't see that happening any time soon.

L. Live: East of Folsom, rattlesnake country, rolling hills, ok, ferociously hard to run hills.

M. Mom's Name: Lola.

N. Nicknames: Sunshine. Mostly people just use my name.

O. Overnight hospital stays: None that I recall.

P. Pet peeve: people who leave the bathroom fan on all night, its a terrible noise.

Q. Quote from a movie: "That all depends upon your point of view." Obi Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker in the forest during his training, trying to explain that Darth Vader is indeed Luke's father, even though Obi Wan had said that Aniken had been killed.

R. right or left: right.

S. Siblings: 5, want one? I will be giving them away in front of the grocery store in a brown cardboard box, the label will say Free to a good home.

T. time you wake up: when the sun is up.

U. Underwear: Of course, otherwise that would be gross. ewww.

V. Vegetables you disklike: licorice

W. What makes you run late: I don't. I'm early.

X. X-rays you've had: mostly feet due to breakage.

Y. Yummy food you make: bread pudding, gingersnaps, mac and cheese.

Z. Zoo favorite animal: I live in a zoo, I'm tired of the animals! Birds. I like birds outside, without the zoo.

Only one place

could produce such a hateful criminal, and I believe their king is Satan. This crime should not be on the bottom of the page. This deserves to be re-posted. If you believe in any kind of justice in the world, then pray for it. This 14 year old monster should never be allowed out. He should be tried as an adult and the sentence should be death. There are no two ways about it. That poor little girl did not deserve this. I don't know if he actually did it, but being found there is very damning evidence. DNA is likely to solve the case.

Cosumnes River Preserve

I went to the Cosumnes River Preserve today with my photography meetup. We enjoyed a foggy morning that soon became sunny with several different species of birds. Our hike was aptly lead by Jim Dunn.

"The Green Hornet"

It was a hoot! I really enjoyed the action scenes, they were very inventive. Kato is funny, clever and stole the show. I highly recommend that if you like comic book movies this is a complete roller coaster. The script is clever. I enjoyed the classy comedic performance by Cameron Diaz.

The only thing is the actor playing the hornet really reminds me of "The Ninja" on the podcast Talk to a ninja. Its the way he makes hand gestures. Is it the same guy? Anybody?

"MegaMind"

On Friday I went to see Megamind with my Mom at a second run theater in Citrus Heights, CA. It was a fabulous movie. The story was good and the asides were pithy and grown up. It was perfectly suitable for youngsters, the jokes weren't inappropriate for children. I loved the graphics. It is most definitely a post-Toy-story animated feature. It feels like an actor's script rather than an animator's script which of course makes perfect sense once you realize who wrote and starred in the production. The score, by Hans Zimmer, was reminiscent of mid 1900's film scores starring Audrey Hepburn and huge sun glasses.

I give it 4/5 paws. 1 being bleh and 5 being awesome!

Re-assess

Sometimes a journey includes lots of twists, turns, round back on itself, 'gee that wasn't such a good idea' tangents. Its quite rare to have a straight path from over weight to that final destination, weight maintenance. Its like Sandra Ahten says in her Reasonable Diet podcast, "Thats ok." Its ok that its not linear or that you don't lose weight at a steady 1-2 pounds per week. Yeah. Thats ok. But you know what isn't ok? Expecting your body to be thinner when you aren't even trying. If you are doing everything right, then you need to switch it up, I know thats a broken record. Everybody says it. For me that meant taking a break. For 6 months or so I ate at my bmr. I weighed/measured. I only ate 400 calorie meals. I did my exercise. I did not lose a single pound. I just reset my body. I stopped the low calorie diet days. I ate mostly clean food. Then, come this month I went back to my calorie cycles. I am setting my intent to charge downwards toward my maintenance weight.

The last year was not a failure. It was a vista off the highway. I took a rest. Now, I'm ready to be back in it. Last year I weighed in just once a month. This year, as soon as my tummy settles down, I plan to go back to weighing in 3x a week. In the beginning of the month I had some See's candy from my stocking, I had some organic dark chocolate ice cream and some corn chips (natural, no weird flavoring.) But as of today, I'm setting the treats aside for a more reasonable diet. I may have a commercial meal out due to professional requirements or I might just carry a little cooler with lots of cut up veggies, fruits and home made dressing with those little ice packs that kids have.

The concept of a reasonable diet is basically setting aside all or nothing thinking. You set up a plan for yourself with several back up options that accommodate the possibility of real life getting in the way. Doing the very best that you can is a lot more effective than only doing something if it will be perfect. Some is much better than none. Pointing in the right direction is better than pointing in the wrong direction. Try asking yourself before you eat something or before you plan your day, what would the most reasonable and best choices that I could make just for today be? Not the perfect ones. Not the 'I will never have a chip again or I will never have chocolate again.'

My reasonable plan for today included acknowledging my soreness, so I'm walking not running. I had oatmeal for breakfast (GF, steel cut.) I had an apple with two pieces of home made chicken. That was easy for me, the chicken was already cooked. Try looking for the easy. Often it just pops right up.

What excites you?

Its a new year, its time to plan for your coming calendar year, to consider what kind of photographer or artist you want to be? What events do you want to catch? What do you want to be certain you got in? What just absolutely turns you on visually? Auditorially? In anyway? Don't be afraid to start thinking ahead, its not a bad thing to keep an eye on your end of year calendar of shots now while you have the chance to think about it. What do you want to shoot in the next weeks of this winter? What about spring? Summer? Fall? Was there something you missed that you have been kicking yourself over?