View from my balcony

You may have noticed my awesome new blog header. I thought the side bar was getting too cluttered so I moved my awesome self portrait to the header instead. I know, I'm so humble, aren't I?

And speaking of humble, here's an awesome HDR I did of the Salford Quays from my balcony.



I know, I'm awesome.

The Lost Symbol (belated)

Finished reading this about a month ago but only got around to sharing my thoughts about it now! Slight spoiler warning.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was a bit disappointed to see The Lost Symbol follows Dan Brown's formulistic plotline of "academic expert teams up with attractive single woman whose "father figure" is somehow involved (usually injured or killed and often a leader of a "secret society") to unravel an earth shattering secret while on the run for their lives. But that is my only complaint.

Though not always 100% factual, the general concepts that Brown presents in his books always introduce me to new ideas and information I had never come across before and The Lost Symbol is no exception. Criticize his writing skills all you want, the theories that some of his novels are based on inspire probably millions of people to get on the internet and research it themselves. How many books have accomplished that? There is obviously something worthy about his material.

The theory of Intention in particular struck a cord with me. In a way, the concepts are familiar ones: prayer, positive thinking, even a bit of Karma. But to learn there are scientific studies going on as we speak which could potentially prove the benefits of such acts? Have I been living in a cave or is this really as groundbreaking as it sounds?

Though I can't credit Dan Brown with the idea or studies of Intention, I can thank him for bringing it to my attention in a fun, entertaining, action-packed story.

View all my reviews >>

Spooks!

My new favorite TV show is actually British! I haven't taken much to British TV so this is a first. It's a show about MI5 agents (spies) and it's aired on BBC (another first, I don't normally watch anything on BBC except the occassional documentary). So I was hoping it'd be on BBC America so I could recommend you all start watching it immediately. But it's not.

Spooks

Keep a look out for it in case BBC America ever pick it up because it's really, really good.

On another note, I was unable to upload the videos from Jamaica since some of them were too long (not blaming James, I prefer them to short clips). So I'm just going to burn them to DVDs for anyone who wants them.

JAMAICA!

So for anyone reading thing who was not in Jamaica, here is a TON of photos:

Robin's Jamaica Photos
Ange's Jamaica Photos
Mom's Jamaica Photos
Robin's Jamaica Wedding Photos

I'm working on the videos now!

Switching galleries AGAIN

So with Picasa, the display quality was poor. With Flickr, they limited free accounts to 200 images! I'm willing to pay Flickr for my pro images but for personal/family images, I wanted something free with no restrictions (or reasonable restrictions). I MAY have finally found this with photoshop.com! Check it out here.

New HD Mini Camcorder

Finally, I've got up the test video I did at Edinburgh Castle with our new HD camcorder:

Playing with HDR

I've always been against very surreal looking HDRs (High Dynamic Range) because I think they're just eye candy and people drawn in by the surrealness, it doesn't necessarily make it a good photograph.

But some HDR's are still fairly natural looking. So I decided to have a play around with them myself. I think the one from Edinburgh (first one) is more realistic but it's actually harder to get a realistic looking HDR than it is a surreal one - at least with this software it is. I can see how easy it is to go a bit crazy with them like some people do.





Steve suggested I get one of them printed on canvas. I don't know what sparked that idea but I'm considering it.