Gotta love that I can still get some old HD-DVDs for dirt cheap.
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One week after wrapping up the 13-episode first season of Chuck, I just muscled my way through the second 22-episode season. Now I’m catching up on Season 3 via iTunes and Hulu, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch up to the current season soon. But since I’m taking my GMATs (again) in exactly one week, who knows how quickly I’ll be able to do it. I have been a fan of Bioware RPGs since…well forever. It started when I was in college and I picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the XBox. My then-roommate/now-dragonboat captin Geoff played the hell out of that one, each going for the light side/dark side/in-between endings. Rinse and repeat when Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 came out. Jade Empire, a martial arts-inspired RPG followed, and even though we weren’t as rabid about that one, we still beat it multiple times. Flash forward to the current generation of the XBox 360 and a new generation of Bioware games came out, but this time I’d be playing sans Geoff. Mass Effect came out two years ago to critical acclaim, and even though I was a little hesitant to try it because it wasn’t set in the Star Wars universe. Well after beating it twice (c’mon I HAVE to see both endings), yeah, the Mass Effect universe may be better than the Star Wars universe. Two years later, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 both came out within months of each other. I got Mass Effect 2 first, played the HELL out of it and LOVED it. Luckily for me, the advent of YouTube means I don’t have to play twice to see both endings…BUT…I’m playing through again for the hell of it. So that means Dragon Age: Origins will just have to wait it’s turn before I give it a playthrough. All of that background leads me to my main point of this whole blog post. After doing a little Wikipedia-ing on Mass Effect 2, I found out that a couple of the characters (one major and one minor) in Mass Effect 2 were voiced by actors from the TV series Chuck. Armed with that and the glowing recommendations of friends to give the show a try, I headed down to my local Blockbuster (yes, I know, it’s archaic…but instant gratification, you know?) and checked out the first disc. And then the second. And then the next thing I know, I’ve powered through all 13-episodes of the first season and I’m foaming at the mouth for Season 2 to become available on my Blockbuster Online queue (see, I’m not that old fashioned!) Self-restraint caved in to the need to know what happens in Season 2 and the next thing I know, I’m downloading some episodes off of iTunes to watch IMMEDIATELY. I’m not much of a TV watching guy outside of some of Travel Channel’s offerings (Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, Man vs. Food, Bizarre Food), the Food Network, MLB, MLS, Man vs. Wild, 24, 30 Rock—-okay, let me rephrase that. I’m not much of a REGULAR TV watching guy, since besides 24 and 30 Rock, I don’t regularly watch any of those shows. Well congratulations NBC, you’ve got me hooked on some of your prime programming: 30 Rock, Chuck and formerly, the Late Show with Conan O’Brien (you guys really screwed the pooch with that one, FYI.) Feel free to send Bioware a thank you card for getting me hooked on Chuck. (This happened about a couple months ago, but I’m just now getting around to blogging it.) A recent WordPress update stopped supporting mySQL 4.0, which I was using for this blog. Unbeknownst to me, if you replaced the files on your server with the new version of WordPress, you would be unable to update your WordPress database and therefore, unable to access your admin Dashboard. No access to your dashboard needs you’re unable to write new blog posts, approve comments, etc. Some panicked Google-ing*** led me to instructions on downgrading Wordpress versions and I was able to restore the old version of my blog with no damage done. After putting out that fire, I was able to think a little more clearly, so I did some non-panicked Google-ing on the issue***, I found people in the same exact predicament as me who had solutions. SOLUTIONS, YES! My first/main/only problem was migrating my current mySQL 4.0-based database into a mySQL 5.0 database. Despite the instructions and advice I researched, exporting the mySQL 4.0 database from PHPmyadmin was quite difficult. It took a couple hours of trial and error to get the right settings to get the correct database backup. However, importing it into a new mySQL 5.0 database proved to be a major roadblock. The size of my database far exceeded the maximum file size allowed for database imports, so I had to turn to 1and1 customer support to see if there was any way they could help me. Their initial response was curt, telling me to SSH into the server and manually import it that way. Well my hosting package does not include SSH access, so that was a dead end. Next, 1and1 customer support told me to upgrade my hosting package so I could have access to SSH, but my current package is MORE than enough for my hosting needs. It would have been pointless for me to to upgrade and spend more for my hosting package just for this one thing. Finally, after expressing my disgust at their “solution”, they relented and said they would upgrade the database for me as a one-time courtesy. This led to an additional exchange of back and forth emails, with 1and1 support asking for the database file/import destination over and over, even though I was painfully clear with my instructions each time. This is probably because each time I e-mailed them back, it was a different person replying. Finally, they were able to create a new mySQL 5.0 database and I was able to update to the latest version of WordPress. I give tech support a B for finally resolving the issue, although it took some jumping through hoops to get it done. The best part about being on a mySQL 5.0 database? Automatic WordPress updates finally work! No more downloading/extracting/FTP-ing/uploading/overwriting/prayingeverythinggoesokay! ***Resources used:
I’m looking forward to heading out to Arizona late next month for the Arizona Dragonboat Festival on March 27-28 and catching a game of Angels Spring Training on the 29th (you know…since I’ll be in the area anyways
Oh, yeah, I suppose I should add a fourth thing I’m looking forward to: Hanging out with good friends, like Arjun, Charles and Cheng. =P …a mix of old and new. In no particular order:
Aperture 3 came in the mail yesterday and I finally finished importing my pictures into it. And man oh man, Aperture 3 can really suck up your system resources when it’s importing/processing pictures. I think my CPU was cranking at 95% the entire time I was importing my pictures. I had to plug in the fan on my laptop stand to keep my MBP at a reasonable temperature. Aperture 3 is good though, it’s a ton faster than Aperture 2 was. The layout of it definitely reminds me a lot of iPhoto, especially now that they added facial recognition. I’m liking the preset adjustments, which is something I missed from Adobe Lightroom. I haven’t had too much time to play around with it, but so far so good. Putting thoughts into action: I’ve done a lot of reading and research into the whole strobist photography thing and I have slowwwwly accumulated the necessary tools required for a strobist setup. [One or more camera flashes (or a "strobe", hence "strobist"), wireless flash triggers, stands, umbrellas, soft boxes, etc., are needed just for a basic setup.] Thanks to my girlfriend, sister and brother-in-law, I was finally able to compile a pretty basic strobist setup. Shooting with flash is a whole new ballgame compared to natural light shooting, so I’ve invested countless hours soaking up information, tips and tricks from books, blogs, websites and forums. But all of that knowledge and know-how is useless without any hands-on experience, so I finally got around to my first strobist photo shoot. I washed and waxed my C32 today and was intended on taking it out towards the coast to shoot it against the sunset, but I realized that it was probably a better idea to get all my troubleshooting done at home. My personal favorite:
The setup:
Exif:
The YN-460s have a guide number of 33, so while they aren’t the strongest of flashes (much weaker compared to say, a Canon 580EX), they’re not too bad. I had both of them at full power and they did a serviceable job, but I could see where the limitations of the weaker flashes could pose a problem. My main problem I encountered though, was that the optical triggers on these guys lost a lot of sensitivity while outdoors and with an umbrella blocking the sensor. I had to position the flashes at angles where the optical triggers would definitely catch, which sometimes weren’t the optimal angle for lighting the car. A minor annoyance was the wind tipping over the flashes a couple of times…I need to put something heavy on the legs to weigh them down. Next time: I am definitely going to use a third flash (I was too lazy to use my third today for some reason) and am going to get some extra receivers so I won’t have to rely on the optical triggers anymore. A third flash would allow me to light the front fender of the car, which kind of disappears since I didn’t have enough lighting. Space was a little tight so I had to use a wide-angle lens, but next time I definitely want to use something longer to avoid the wide-angle distortion. Although I didn’t have the ideal lighting that I wanted or the most glamorous location (*cough* driveway) I think the pictures came out okay. The most important thing is I took away some practical experience from this. [Edit 2/10/10 11:07 PM]: I’ve been looking through some automotive photography threads over at POTN and it looks like most people are shooting with bare strobes. I may have to try again tomorrow with no umbrellas. Hmmm…. I just discovered that the Kindle has The Onion now! It is definitely my favorite (and I suppose only) satire-”newspaper.” All for a reasonable $2 a month, a small price to pay for guaranteed laughs pushed straight to your Kindle via WhisperSync.
Update your bookmarks people, PhilipWang.net and TehPhil.com are now one-in-the-same. Ughhhh now I need to remake my website/watermark logo… |
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). There are three things I’m looking forward to this trip:
