Tomorrow is Christmas eve! It just doesn’t seem like it’s that time of year. I’ve talked to quite a few people that feel the same way. What’s the deal? Is it the weather? The economy? Beats me. But all I know is I have 4 days off to visit with family and friends. 4 days of good food and great company. And yes Seth, we will definitely get some gaming time in.
Avatars
Emily and I went to see Avatar this morning (the 8:30am showing) at our local iMax theater. This was my first time seeing an iMax feature or a true 3D movie and it was everything my wife had been telling me it would be. The 3D was not overwhelming but added an element to the movie that I found my self relying on as the story progressed. Usually when watching a movie, I focus just at the center of the screen picking up the surrounding events with my peripheral vision, as I’m sure most people do. But if you add two or three more layers to ‘keep and eye on’, it becomes more of a challenge to keep the characters in your sites while focusing on the other events happening on screen. It was a very cool experience. So, now that the 3D impressions are out of the way, on to my thoughts of the movie itself. The best single word for the movie is INCREDIBLE. Avatar is a great movie even without the 3D feature. It’s well developed characters make you bond with them and do a great job of pulling you into their world. My wife and I are kind of nature nuts so there were points throughout the movie that made us quite emotional. We will most likely see it again before it’s gone from the theaters.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Eat a lot of food and relax but remember to take a few moments to think about all you have to be thankful for. I wish anyone who reads this a happy thanksgiving!!
BOO!
Emily and I were invited to a Halloween Zombie party tonight. I wanted to make sure I took pictures of our costumes. I liked this picture with it’s weird flash and ghostly view of Emily in the background. We had fun. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
New look
I thought it was time for a refresh on my layout. So far I like the new look even though it IS a little graphics heavy. Also noteworthy is the addition of a photos section. Right now it is pulling in all of my Flickr images but eventually (and hopefully soon) it will be full of all my photos.
Silence…
I seem to have fallen back into the “no posting” trend. I will try and make an effort to post more but there really has not been that much to post about. Good stuff that is. There is always stressful, depressing stuff to post about but what’s the point in that?? :] On and extreme up note, IT’S OCTOBER!!! I absolutely love October with all of it’s cooler weather and HALLOWEEN! Bring on the scary movies.
Wii Sports Resort
Picked up the new Wii Sports Resort game yesterday with the Motion Plus addon. So far the game is just as much if not more fun then Wii Sports is. The added accuracy of the Motion Plus is noticeable and makes it feel like you have better control of what your Mii is doing in each activity. Archery has proven to be our favorite ‘sport’ in the game but the sword fighting is a close second for me. The sword actually responds and behaves just like you want it to and playing against the swarms of computer combatants isn’t just as easy as swinging the Wiimote around. You have to block effectively or you’ll be quickly dispatched by the more advanced NPC’s that are mixed into the crowd. Bowling feels good with the more precise control and no longer seems to be as easy as finding the right spot on the lane and throwing it as hard as possible every turn. Emily is playing the rowing game right now and it actually looks fun. At $50, the price seems a little steep but it does come with the Motion Plus addon. Additional Motion Plus’ cost $20. Definatly worth it if you were a fan of the first Wii Sports.
Favorite Quotes…
I’ve been having certain quotes pop into my head recently so I thought maybe I should blog them. I love these quotes and while they are mostly dark (taken from horror movies, books and poems) I think they have a deeper meaning then just witty lines from monsters. So here they are in no certain order. Please comment and share your own favorites.
“I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
- Edgar Allan Poe: Memoirs
“We are all books of blood, when we are opened, we are red.”
- Clive Barker: Books of Blood 1-3
“The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis.
A man grows what he can, and then he tends it.
Because what you buy is what you own,
and what you own…… always comes home to you.”
- Stephen King: Pet Cemetary
Photo sorting
I like taking pictures with my digital camera. Problem is, I never sort them into any usable kind of archive. Now, I have hundreds of images that I would like to organize into albums but they are named with the lousy time/date serial style naming convention that most digital cameras use. Having seen what the new iPhoto software can do on the Mac, I’ve started looking around the internet for something even close to that functionality on the PC. So far it looks like I’m out of luck. I’ve since started the tedious task of sorting my photos ‘by hand’. By that I mean moving them into groups of folders and then those folders into more accurate folders and so on. The end result should be a nice clean layout of image folders such as a Family folder that would then have subfolders for me and my wife. It will take me awhile but the goal is to get them sorted well enough that I can then use some cataloging software to automate tagging and naming the images from here on out. Anyone have any suggestions for GOOD image management software for the PC?