Windows 7

Just snagged a legit copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, installed yesterday and it’s running like a dream. Granted, 7 is still in the beta stage and won’t be publicly available till 2011 or so, this version is still fully functional and has improved on almost everything that bugged me about Vista. There are some minor visual improvements, enhanced security features, it’s (apparently) much more stable than Vista (only been a day, so I can’t report any stability issues so far), and just an overall cleaner computing experience. The file structure has been reorganized along with the search feature and Start menu, and the user libraries are easier to navigate than before. Once I get a chance to test it some more I’ll report back, but as of now – Windows 7 is simply the shit.

The 2008 Wrap Up & the 2009 Update

And yet again, I’ve let weeks go by without updating my blog. But now it’s a new year and I have lots of news to spill.

Let’s start with my super secret project from back in October that I never finished posting about. I was building a new computer, and I finally got the time to put it together the last week of October. Here’s the specs for any nerds out there who care to know:

PROCESSOR:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (Overclocked to 3.2GHz)

MOTHERBOARD:
ASUS P5Q Pro Intel P45

MEMORY:
8GB (4×2GB) OCZ Reaper DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

HARD DRIVE:
Western Digital Caviar 640GB 7200rpm

VIDEO CARD:
ASUS EAH4850 Radeon HD4850 (Overclocked to 680MHz core clock)

CASE:
Antec 900 Gaming Case

MONITOR:
Acer 24″ P243w Flat Panel

SOUND CARD:
SoundBlaster Audigy 2

POWER SUPPLY:
PC Power & Cooling 600 Watt Silencer

OPERATING SYSTEM:
Microsoft Windows Vista x64

EXTRAS:
DVD Burner
Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000
Wireless Keyboard
Logitech MX Revolution Mouse
Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet
Tuniq Tower 120mm CPU Fan

And here are some pictures of this beautiful beast.

My desk.

Front 120mm fans.

The guts.

The glory.

This computer simply destroys any program/render/game you can throw at it (except for maybe Crysis, for those of you who know about it). It has cut render times for my animations and Premiere projects to a fraction of what it used to take. Programs that used to take several minutes to open now open within a matter of seconds. A majority of the programs on my computer open instantaneously when they are clicked. It runs Vista flawlessly, plays BluRay movies without a hitch, and with a quad core processor, absolutely shreds any multi-processor supported program (Premiere, Maya – I’m looking at you).

Anyhoo, enough about my computer. What else is new?

Went back to New York City for another day trip a few weeks ago in the middle of December. Jose came again, but this time Rolando and Jeovanny tagged along for the 4am ride to the city. We arrived in Times Square around 8am just like the last time, and spent the day in Manhattan. We tried to stay inside most of the time, as it was about 34 degrees, windy, and rainy all day. We went to the Met for a few hours – such an amazing museum. It’s so huge it’s almost overwhelming. We spent 3 hours there and probably got to see about 1/4 of the exhibits, and didn’t even get to spend much time in each one.

12,000 of them.

Times Square in the rain.

Breakfast of Champions.

Rockefeller Center.

Sunset at Battery Park.

Grand Central.

Fifth Avenue.

Blazing lights in the Square.

And then came Christmas. It was good being home for the holidays this year. Last year it was pretty hectic flying back from San Diego for a week and trying to cram in all sorts of reunions and family time here and there. This year was much more relaxed, got to spend good time with my family and friends as usual. We bought a huge tree for our place here on Linwood and decided that it was such an amazing tree that it deserved to have a party thrown for it. So we did.

Our massive 11 foot tall Christmas tree.

Cheesy family portrait with the roomies.

Our Chrismahanukwanzakah costume party was a raging success. I made a batch of spiked egg nog that was a huge hit, and we partied until the sun rose.

Oh yeah – Christmas presents! I got a bunch of accessories for my camera that I’ve been wanting for a while now. I got a UV filter and a polarizing filter, an external flash (Nikon Speedlight SB600 – AMAZING), several flash diffusers, a wireless remote control (to take pictures without having to press the shutter button), and a few other minor essentials. The diffuser I got for the flash is hands down the best flash diffuser you can get – it completely removes all hard shadows (you know, that flash-y look that just looks bad), bounces light all around the room and on the subject, and lights up the background too so the subject isn’t so isolated. It’s kind of hard to explain, so I’ll post a few examples.

This is what direct flash looks like – sharp, hard shadows behind the plant.

Now here’s what happens when the diffuser is on and pointed at the ceiling. Much better, right?

Here’s what a direct flash looks like on me. Horrible, right? Cold, white light, direct on the subject, and a dark background with no detail.

Now here’s the result without the diffuser, but the direct flash bounced vertical off the ceiling. The background is lighter now and it’s a little better exposed, but since the light is bounced off the ceiling you lose the eyes in shadow.

Now here’s a shot with the diffuser attached and bounced off the ceiling. No hard light, no sharp shadows, no detail lost, no background lost in shadow, and a warm, softer light on the subject.

Direct flash.

And a ceiling bounce.

Okay, enough about flashes and diffusers. Are you bored yet? Good, cause there’s more. New Years Eve was fun, I had to work but came in early and was cut by 11pm, just in time to get home and ready and get to Fells Point by ten minutes to midnight to ring in the new year with good people. Speaking of work, I’ve been at Fogo De Chao for 6 months now. Amazing how half a year flies by, isn’t it?

So, 2009. It’s here. Brand new year. Here’s what I have to look forward to this year:

• I graduate from AnimationMentor in March.
• Vacation to Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula) in April.
• Move out of Baltimore in August (that’s the plan at least)
• I turn 24 in September.
• Going to try my best to take a 3 week vacation to Japan this fall.
• And last but certainly not least,
• MOVING BACK TO CALIFORNIA. (#1 priority right now)

So that’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.

Thanks for listening to me ramble.

Takin’ it to court

Back in October my car got towed in downtown Baltimore, and I had to pay $250 to get it out of the impound lot. I had the option to take the decision to court to get my money back, and requested a court date.

Some lanes downtown get opened up for large volumes of traffic from 7am-9am and 4pm-6pm, and are able to be parked in the rest of the day. Well I paid my parking meter but left my car there until 5pm, and when I came out to get it, it had been towed. Everyone said I wasn’t going to get my money back if I take it to court, because obviously I was in the wrong.

So today, I went to court. After a long night of poker playing, I sleepily made my way to the District Court in waaaay south Baltimore. An extra large coffee was enough to keep me half awake in the courtroom. The judge walked in, everyone rose and sat, and the first words of his mouth were something like this: “Since it’s a Monday and everyone in this room obviously took the day off work to be here, it shows you care enough to try to get your money back. Therefore everyone in this room today will receive a NOT GUILTY decision today. Just come up to the front when I call you and give me your excuse and you can go.” So one by one, people started coming up and giving the lamest excuses, “Uhh, I was running late to work”, “Umm, I like didn’t see the sign” and the judge kept saying “Not guilty. Five dollars. Goodbye.”

After about 10 minutes, the judge had called up about a quarter of the people in the room, and he said that was all he had and the officers all walked out of the courtroom. The rest of us (about 30-40 people) are sitting there wondering why we weren’t called, and then he broke it down like this. “Everyone who is still sitting in this room must not have requested that the officer be present at the trial. You can postpone your trial to a later date and have a better chance of getting it overturned, or you can stand trial today. It’s going to be VERY tough for me to give you a not guilty verdict without the officer here, since I’m going to have to take the officers word for the situation against yours. So, I’m giving you the choice.”

He started calling names again, and about half the people were smart enough to accept the postponement and stand trial at a later date. The other half of the people, not so smart. People came up and said they wanted to defend themselves and started giving lame excuses and in turn received guilty verdicts. Over and over people kept trying to defend themselves and kept getting their case written off as guilty. As soon as I was called, I asked for the postponement. Yeah, it was a waste of my time to go all the way down there at 7:30am but it wasn’t worth my weak excuse to potentially lose the possibility of getting my $250 back.

Well, it was worth a try. At least I know the probability of getting my money back is high now. Guess I’ll have to go back to court in a few weeks or months. The state can hold my money until then. But I’m gonna get it BACK!

Pick Up The Pieces

You can spend minutes, hours,
days, weeks or even months
over-analyzing a situation;
trying to put the pieces together,
justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened…
or you can just leave the pieces of the floor
and move the fuck on.

-Tupac Shakur

Phase III Delayed by Fire

4am: Let’s Go To New York City

Last Thursday night after work, I was sitting on my computer, doing absolutely nothing on Facebook. It was about 3:30am and I was just getting ready to go to sleep. My friend Jose got online and the conversation went a little something like this:

Jose: What are you doing?

Andre: Nothing, you?

Jose: Nothing. You wanna do something?

Andre: Sure. Want to go to New York?

Jose: Yeah, let’s go. See you in a few.

I grabbed some warm clothes and a wad of cash and we were out of the city by 4:15am. The sun started to rise as we were pulling into the city around 7am.

We parked at the lower end of Central Park at Columbus Circle and started to walk down Broadway towards Times Square.

The moon was just about to set over the skyscrapers.

We went to the Empire State Building.

We walked past the courthouse.

Then we decided to walk to Brooklyn.

And we hung out on the bridge for a while…

We went to Ground Zero where the construction has been started on the new Freedom Towers.

And were entertained by some doowop singers in the subway on the way back to Central Park.

And then at 2pm, we drove home.

Despite getting stuck in some nasty traffic, we still made it home in just enough time for me to make it to work at 6pm.

It was a spontaneous, fun, adventurous and sleepless trip to the city that never sleeps and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

You can find the full picture set on my Flickr page.

Obama

Last night when I was walking to my car after work, a car pulled up behind another at a stoplight. The car in front had an Obama bumper sticker on it. The girls in the car behind rolled down their windows and yelled “OBAMA!!!”.

It’s kind of heartwarming to know that this buzz is grabbing hold in all corners of our nation that this country needs to take a new direction and that the possibility is so close.

I usually don’t like to talk about politics because I get too heated up, but I just wanted to share that little story with you.

Phase I Complete, Phase II in Progress

I told you I was working on a secret project a while back.

Well, it’s still a secret. Only after Phase IV is complete will you know what the project really is. Only an elite few know about the current undertaking. Please don’t feel left out if you don’t know.

Phase I (Research & Development) took roughly 12 days.

Phase II (Transportation) is in progress and should be complete within 4-6 days.

Phase III (Assembly) should be finished within 24-48 hours after Phase II.

ETA for Phase IV (Completion) from today: 6-8 days.

I know you’re just dying to know.

Here’s a hint:

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it,
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick erase it,
Write it, get it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick rewrite it,
Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
Drag it, drop it, zip, unzip it,
Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
View it, code it, jam, unlock it,
Surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, switch, update it,
Name it, read it, tune it, print it,
Scan it, send it, fax, rename it,
Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
Turn it, leave it, start, format it.

Atmosphere

I saw Atmosphere tonight for the third time. By far my favorite group of all time, Atmosphere consists of Slug (vocals) and Ant (DJ, producer). They hail from Minnesota, and together create some of the greatest music that has ever been fabricated on this earth.

Their music moves me, and that is truly all that matters.

Pure Laziness

So it’s been almost a solid month since I’ve posted here. I know, I’m just getting lazy – it happens.

Work is still good, getting busier now that it’s getting a bit colder.

Fall is coming, you can feel it and smell it everywhere in this town.

My birthday was awesome – had about 20 friends show up to celebrate at one of my favorite places – Max’s Taphouse.

I’m 23 now.

My car got towed at 4:40pm today for parking in a spot (even though I paid the meter) that had no parking from 4-6pm. I went out to my car (or lack thereof) at 5:10pm. Cost me $243 to get it out of the impound lot. Apparently I’m bad at reading parking signs.

I’m working on a super secret new project that you won’t know about until it’s fully completed (oh there will be pictures).

That project has been slightly delayed by todays towing fiasco.

Lets talk soon.

Love,

Andre