I'm pretty confident that no one has noticed that I've slowly but surely been putting all of the archives back onto this site. Ever since my host deleted everything prior to November of last year, I've been torn as to if I should put everything back up again, which would take a good chunk of time, or just let it all fade away, never to be read again. I decided against leaving it gone.
The first project I undertook was putting all of my photo albums up online again. Thankfully, after using a wonderful album creation utility, JAlbum, I managed to get all of my pictures back up as well as organizing them in a decent fashion. All of my albums are accessable through the link over on your right (or if you need even more guidance, through this link). Thinking that it was going to be a tremendous pain in the ass to sift through all of my photos on my PC and organize them, I dreaded the task. When I finally settled down into my extremely comfortable faux leather desk chair to get to work, I actually found that it wasn't so bad. Having the chance to look back through all of my photos was actually a ton of fun. There were so many things that I'd forgotten I had pictures of and a lot of things that I didn't remember I did. Seeing how I've changed over time was also quite a hoot, even though I now end up wishing I was still in as good of shape as I was during my sophomore and junior years of college.
Once I managed to get all of my photo albums uploaded, the next task was getting all of the blog archives back. This would be a little big of a chore, and will continue to be a chore until I have all of them finally integrated into the site. As it stands now, I only have the archives from the establishment of this site way back in 2002 up until the end of July in 2003 up, but I'm slowly working on putting them all in there when I get a free moment or two at work and when Blogger decides it actually wants to work, which hasn't been very often as of late.
Reading through my archives as I post them is also a blast. I usually have enough time to read one post while another is publishing thanks to Blogger's extremely slow posting speeds. Two things are very apparent as I go through everything I used to write--I was a terrible writer and I was a lot more opinionated than I am now. In comparison to my current writing style, which I know could still use some work, all of my older posts feel as if they penned by a 16 year old who thought he was the king of the world. Some of them are even a little embarassing to read, especially now that I notice how lame most of the stuff I talked about was. The tendency to to talk about "dorky" subjects abounds, which isn't a bad thing necessarily since I still talk about that same type of stuff, but I always would have to make a self-deprecating remark about it. Every time I see a sentence where I refer to my inherant nerdiness or geekiness, I want to pull my hair out in frustration.
The extreme opinionating tone that I take when talking about anything even remotely political or controversial is also quite maddening. I never used to take the time to examine the facts of a situation and would instead simply lash out or take a stance only on my gut feeling. There are actually a couple of posts that I ran across that I'm not reposting because I no longer feel the way I used to and the justifications I used for what I felt back then were paper thin... if that.
I hope that in going through my archives, I'm learning to recognize what it is that I hate in my writing so that I can avoid it in the future, as well as spice up my style a little in order to keep it from getting too stale, as I often see it doing throughout the archives. One other neat thing about having all of these posts back is that I've noticed I'm getting a ton more search engine hits for interesting and sometimes weird word combinations, and that's totally awesome in my book.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Concert Going Folk
Attending a concert of a well known metal band is always an interesting experience. The sheer amount of different types of people that come out to the show usually blows my mind and I'll sometimes find myself paying less attention to the music and more attention to the people around me. Where else can you find such an eclectic, yet similar, group of people?
After Jared and I had finished out interview with Mudvayne's drummer, Matt, last night headed over to the lines that were forming outside the doors to the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, the venue the concert would be taking place at. Immediately I was assaulted by so many comical characters that I had trouble controlling my laughter. How people can dress and act like they do at heavy metal concerts is beyond me. Not all of the people there are complete and utter laugh-out-loud tools, but the good majority are.
As I was sitting in line, a group of two guys and a girl walked by. One guy was of average build and the girl was a tad bit overweight, but the third really stood out--he was huge, not fat huge, but I could rip you in half with the power in my biceps huge. His hair hung in long locks down to his shoulders and he walked with a permanent grimace on his face. Usually a guy like this is someone who I'd avoid and be deathly afraid of if met in an alley during the late hours of the night, but instead of timidly averting my gaze from him, I chuckled to myself. He was wearing a blazing pink t-shirt that proclaimed "Tough Guys Wear Pink".
Once inside the venue Jared and I moved to the front of the crowd so that we were standing amongst the group of people right up against the front barrier by the stage. We ended up in the second row of people and in the hour's worth of time we waited for the concert to begin, we encountered a good share of interesting folks, including a group of four guys who looked to be in their early thirties and who were so drunk that you wondered how they managed to keep standing.
One of the more talkative guys in the group came up and started talking to Jared and myself. I tried as hard as I could to keep myself competely turned away from him since I had no desire to talk to some old-ass dude who was intent on sharing his knowledge of the "hardcore" music scene by telling me about how one time he got spat on by Rob Zombie's guitarist and that Metallica are the most "hardcore" band he's ever seen. In fact, he proceeded to name a slew of utterly crappy nu-metal and 80's metal bands that he'd seen all the while calling them "hardcore" and claiming that he was a verteran of the music genre. When asked what he thought of Bloodsimple and American Head Charge, two of the opening bands that evening he professed that he'd never heard of them. He was just there to take in the "hardcore" scene. He was later seen being overtaken with his fascination of a balloon he found.
Another of the guys in this group ended up being a real pain in the ass almost the entire show. He was so drunk that he could not stand up on his own and once the crowd started moving forward, he just leaned right up agains Jared and myself. Not wanting to be complete assholes, we kindly asked him to try and stand. I don't think he understood us. Later during the show, we tried to throw him off of us, but the combination of there not really being any room to move up in the front of the crowd and his being built like a linebacker made it next to impossible to really get him far enough from us. Since he was drunk, annoying the hell out of us, and just being a pain to everyone around, another kid along with myself took it upon ourselves to make him understand how much of a jerk he was being. We accomplished this through a series of sucker punches, a few elbows to the face and back, and a good clap on the ears followed by vigorous head shaking to get his attention. Later I also helped to guide a crowd surfer's kicks into the side of his head. I'm not sure if it got through to him or not that we didn't like him, but if it didn't, it wasn't from lack of trying.
Not everyone that I dealt with yesterday was laughable or a waste of perfectly breathable air. I actually met a couple, Zach and Nina, in the throng of people that accumulated at the front of the crowd. They were both quite friendly and thankfully not drunk. I actually ended up talking with both of them quite a bit throughout the show, which I usually don't do. It wasn't always about music either. One of the more interesting topics that I ended up talking about Nina with was what exactly was attractive in a man. According to her guys that are chiseled in muscle just aren't attractive. They can't be fat either, but somewhat thick is nice. Hairy men are bad, especially if they have a slab of carpet found on their chest. Personality and shared interests are a must.
It seems like the more girls I talk to, the more I find out that they actually don't like muscular men. I'm still unconvinced, though, since girls are always found to be drooling over the hot, cut, and well built men that they see. I'm wondering if it's one of those things similar to when guys tell girls that they don't actually like seeing girls make out with each other when deep down, they really do. Girls might actually dig the hunky guys but don't want to offend their boyfriends (or any potential boyfriends) by saying they prefer muscles to the somewhat flabby exterior of who they're currently dating.
While on the topic of girls, there were a couple of girls at the show who thought it was their God-given mission to show their boobs to the bands, and in doing so the entire crowd. Usually I wouldn't complain about girls up on guys shoulders taking their shirts off, but last night the girls who did were, how can I put this somewhat nicely... not thin? Husky? Lacking in the skinny department? Possessing bigger fat pouches on their sides then on their chests? I guess there really isn't a nice way to put it after all. Just so everyone knows, it's not attractive or sexy for fat girls to show off their wholly unimpressive breasts to a rock concert crowd.
I'm not even going to make note of all the annoying little kids that were there because that's become a staple of any show I go to these days. They infest concerts like cockroaches infest a 90 year old wood house in the deep south. They do provide nice targets in the mosh pits, though...
You know, if you've never been to a rock or metal concert, you owe it to yourself to go just to see the myriad of weird and sometimes interesting people that frequent them. I know I'm routinely fascinated.
After Jared and I had finished out interview with Mudvayne's drummer, Matt, last night headed over to the lines that were forming outside the doors to the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, the venue the concert would be taking place at. Immediately I was assaulted by so many comical characters that I had trouble controlling my laughter. How people can dress and act like they do at heavy metal concerts is beyond me. Not all of the people there are complete and utter laugh-out-loud tools, but the good majority are.
As I was sitting in line, a group of two guys and a girl walked by. One guy was of average build and the girl was a tad bit overweight, but the third really stood out--he was huge, not fat huge, but I could rip you in half with the power in my biceps huge. His hair hung in long locks down to his shoulders and he walked with a permanent grimace on his face. Usually a guy like this is someone who I'd avoid and be deathly afraid of if met in an alley during the late hours of the night, but instead of timidly averting my gaze from him, I chuckled to myself. He was wearing a blazing pink t-shirt that proclaimed "Tough Guys Wear Pink".
Once inside the venue Jared and I moved to the front of the crowd so that we were standing amongst the group of people right up against the front barrier by the stage. We ended up in the second row of people and in the hour's worth of time we waited for the concert to begin, we encountered a good share of interesting folks, including a group of four guys who looked to be in their early thirties and who were so drunk that you wondered how they managed to keep standing.
One of the more talkative guys in the group came up and started talking to Jared and myself. I tried as hard as I could to keep myself competely turned away from him since I had no desire to talk to some old-ass dude who was intent on sharing his knowledge of the "hardcore" music scene by telling me about how one time he got spat on by Rob Zombie's guitarist and that Metallica are the most "hardcore" band he's ever seen. In fact, he proceeded to name a slew of utterly crappy nu-metal and 80's metal bands that he'd seen all the while calling them "hardcore" and claiming that he was a verteran of the music genre. When asked what he thought of Bloodsimple and American Head Charge, two of the opening bands that evening he professed that he'd never heard of them. He was just there to take in the "hardcore" scene. He was later seen being overtaken with his fascination of a balloon he found.
Another of the guys in this group ended up being a real pain in the ass almost the entire show. He was so drunk that he could not stand up on his own and once the crowd started moving forward, he just leaned right up agains Jared and myself. Not wanting to be complete assholes, we kindly asked him to try and stand. I don't think he understood us. Later during the show, we tried to throw him off of us, but the combination of there not really being any room to move up in the front of the crowd and his being built like a linebacker made it next to impossible to really get him far enough from us. Since he was drunk, annoying the hell out of us, and just being a pain to everyone around, another kid along with myself took it upon ourselves to make him understand how much of a jerk he was being. We accomplished this through a series of sucker punches, a few elbows to the face and back, and a good clap on the ears followed by vigorous head shaking to get his attention. Later I also helped to guide a crowd surfer's kicks into the side of his head. I'm not sure if it got through to him or not that we didn't like him, but if it didn't, it wasn't from lack of trying.
Not everyone that I dealt with yesterday was laughable or a waste of perfectly breathable air. I actually met a couple, Zach and Nina, in the throng of people that accumulated at the front of the crowd. They were both quite friendly and thankfully not drunk. I actually ended up talking with both of them quite a bit throughout the show, which I usually don't do. It wasn't always about music either. One of the more interesting topics that I ended up talking about Nina with was what exactly was attractive in a man. According to her guys that are chiseled in muscle just aren't attractive. They can't be fat either, but somewhat thick is nice. Hairy men are bad, especially if they have a slab of carpet found on their chest. Personality and shared interests are a must.
It seems like the more girls I talk to, the more I find out that they actually don't like muscular men. I'm still unconvinced, though, since girls are always found to be drooling over the hot, cut, and well built men that they see. I'm wondering if it's one of those things similar to when guys tell girls that they don't actually like seeing girls make out with each other when deep down, they really do. Girls might actually dig the hunky guys but don't want to offend their boyfriends (or any potential boyfriends) by saying they prefer muscles to the somewhat flabby exterior of who they're currently dating.
While on the topic of girls, there were a couple of girls at the show who thought it was their God-given mission to show their boobs to the bands, and in doing so the entire crowd. Usually I wouldn't complain about girls up on guys shoulders taking their shirts off, but last night the girls who did were, how can I put this somewhat nicely... not thin? Husky? Lacking in the skinny department? Possessing bigger fat pouches on their sides then on their chests? I guess there really isn't a nice way to put it after all. Just so everyone knows, it's not attractive or sexy for fat girls to show off their wholly unimpressive breasts to a rock concert crowd.
I'm not even going to make note of all the annoying little kids that were there because that's become a staple of any show I go to these days. They infest concerts like cockroaches infest a 90 year old wood house in the deep south. They do provide nice targets in the mosh pits, though...
You know, if you've never been to a rock or metal concert, you owe it to yourself to go just to see the myriad of weird and sometimes interesting people that frequent them. I know I'm routinely fascinated.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The Cardinal Effect - Red Light Carousel CD Review
The Cardinal Effect’s Red Light Carousel will illicit many of the same quirky emotional combinations of a relationship throughout its 10 track run. In deciding what it feels like to listen to Red Light Carousel, the best comparison that comes to mind is feeling like you’ve been punched in the face by your girlfriend right before she eases the pain she caused, leading you to be angry all the while loving her for being so damn caring.
The first couple of songs start the disc off with a thundering bang. “The Afterparty” and “Fistula” are two crunchy, scream laden, metal tracks that will bludgeon you with the force of a brick thrown at your head… but a brick with a few melodic layers of padding around it to cut down on the damage. After being hit so hard, timidity will slowly overcome you in expectation of an even more thorough beating, which is definitely coming, but won’t happen right away. “Cottonstar” starts off even more intense than the previous tracks, but it slowly morphs into an emotionally charged, melodic metal affair. Confused, you prepare for the next track, expecting the brief respite to be over and the pummeling to continue. Oddly enough, the next two tracks take on a decidedly emocore feel that was hinted at in “Cottonstar”, showcasing the tender, yet aggressive side of the band.
“Press Your Eyes” starts off the second half of the disc with a passionate, melodic embrace—the equivalent of a kiss form your lover that says “I’m sorry for ever hurting you.” After having been both hurt and consoled, your relationship takes on a more mature attitude, much like the three songs leading up to the final track. They are all melodic metal masterpieces punctuated by a periodic scream to show that despite the smooth sailing, everything can’t always go smoothly. On the final track, “Prevention,” the disc reaches its climax with an unleashing of a torrent of pent up rage that has been left to build throughout the last half of the release.
Upon completion of the disc, much like the end of a relationship, you’ll appreciate what has gone before you knowing that all of it might not have been great, but for the most part you know it was a wonderful experience. You also realize that you’d go through it all again and, in fact, you know you want to go through it again because, despite the conflicting and often confusing emotions, the experience was a beautiful thing.
Monday, March 28, 2005
A Quick Smattering of Info
Over on the Photos page, I posted a new gallery. These photos are from a visit to my aunt & uncle's place a couple of weeks back. We went to the science museum and spent the afternoon at their place. It was a nice day to relax and see them since we don't have many opportunities to.
Tomorrow I'm headed to the cities to see Mudvayne, Life of Agony, Bloodsimple, and American Head Charge. I also get to interview Matt of Mudvayne with Jared before the show, so that should be fun.
I spent over four hours at church yesterday for Easter services. It was a good chunk of time, but it didn't seem overly long.
Watching the trailers for Sin City and reading the glowing reviews is making me salivate. I cannot wait to see it this weekend.
It's really nice out today, probably like 60 degrees, so I'm having a hard time concentrating on work.
AudioScrobbler continues to be a fascination of mine lately as I'm obsessed with what everyone is listening to. Sign up and add me (rmgebhardt) as a friend.
I'm over halfway through reading Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic and it's easily as good as any of his Hitchhiker novels.
Apparently some people on the Decoy boards think I might be cute, which always helps the self esteem out a little.
I ate too much candy.
Tomorrow I'm headed to the cities to see Mudvayne, Life of Agony, Bloodsimple, and American Head Charge. I also get to interview Matt of Mudvayne with Jared before the show, so that should be fun.
I spent over four hours at church yesterday for Easter services. It was a good chunk of time, but it didn't seem overly long.
Watching the trailers for Sin City and reading the glowing reviews is making me salivate. I cannot wait to see it this weekend.
It's really nice out today, probably like 60 degrees, so I'm having a hard time concentrating on work.
AudioScrobbler continues to be a fascination of mine lately as I'm obsessed with what everyone is listening to. Sign up and add me (rmgebhardt) as a friend.
I'm over halfway through reading Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic and it's easily as good as any of his Hitchhiker novels.
Apparently some people on the Decoy boards think I might be cute, which always helps the self esteem out a little.
I ate too much candy.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Easter Egg Hunt
About five or so years ago my family went down to Chicago to visit some family friends for Easter. The mother and father of the family we went to visit were friends of my parents and we would get together with them at least once or twice a year. As of about 2 or so years ago we stopped, however, because they split up, the dad married someone half his age, the divorce got really sloppy, one of the kids moved out on his own, and it was just a sticky situation all around. That doesn't really have anything to do with my story, but I always think about it when I think about them. Seeing a family fall apart is one of the more tragic incidents to witness.
As we were down visiting our family friends, it was agreed that we'd do an Easter egg hunt. The Easter eggs would be hard boiled eggs that we would decorate the night before Easter. The mothers got to work boiling two dozen eggs while the dads talked about dad things and the kids sat around watching tv as kids like to do.
Once the eggs were done boiling, everyone was given a couple to paint in whatever manner desired. I can't recall exactly what I drew on mine, but I'm pretty sure it was just some random color combinations because I can't draw for crap. Honestly, my coloring job looked worse than that of my little brother and the youngest kid of the family we were staying with, but I'm not that bitter about my lack of artistic abilities... really, I'm not... stupid hands...
In the morning before all of us kids got up, the parents hid the eggs for us to find. Dads, acting like dads decided to hide the eggs in crazy hard places so that we had to scour the premises for hours to find all of the eggs. Even after the many hours of searching, we only managed to find 23 eggs. Since we'd all tired of looking for eggs and wanted to eat lunch, we appealed to the dads to go find where it was they had hid this egg that not any of us could find. Turns out that they hid it so good they couldn't even find it again.
We all gave up on that last egg and figured it would show up eventually. We ate lunch, enjoyed each other's company, and when it came time my family drove back to Minnesota. Life got back to normal and the memory of the missing egg slipped away.
The next year we went back down to the same family's house to celebrate Easter once again. We colored another two dozen hard boiled eggs. The dads again hid them in the most devious places they could find. The kids searched for the hidden eggs for hours and before lunch the search was again called off. There was a difference this year, however. When we were counting how many eggs we'd found so that the dads would know how many they had yet to find, we tallied up 25 eggs...
As we were down visiting our family friends, it was agreed that we'd do an Easter egg hunt. The Easter eggs would be hard boiled eggs that we would decorate the night before Easter. The mothers got to work boiling two dozen eggs while the dads talked about dad things and the kids sat around watching tv as kids like to do.
Once the eggs were done boiling, everyone was given a couple to paint in whatever manner desired. I can't recall exactly what I drew on mine, but I'm pretty sure it was just some random color combinations because I can't draw for crap. Honestly, my coloring job looked worse than that of my little brother and the youngest kid of the family we were staying with, but I'm not that bitter about my lack of artistic abilities... really, I'm not... stupid hands...
In the morning before all of us kids got up, the parents hid the eggs for us to find. Dads, acting like dads decided to hide the eggs in crazy hard places so that we had to scour the premises for hours to find all of the eggs. Even after the many hours of searching, we only managed to find 23 eggs. Since we'd all tired of looking for eggs and wanted to eat lunch, we appealed to the dads to go find where it was they had hid this egg that not any of us could find. Turns out that they hid it so good they couldn't even find it again.
We all gave up on that last egg and figured it would show up eventually. We ate lunch, enjoyed each other's company, and when it came time my family drove back to Minnesota. Life got back to normal and the memory of the missing egg slipped away.
The next year we went back down to the same family's house to celebrate Easter once again. We colored another two dozen hard boiled eggs. The dads again hid them in the most devious places they could find. The kids searched for the hidden eggs for hours and before lunch the search was again called off. There was a difference this year, however. When we were counting how many eggs we'd found so that the dads would know how many they had yet to find, we tallied up 25 eggs...
Friday, March 25, 2005
AudioScrobbler
I've seen different plug-ins, websites, and services that attempt to track what someone listens to and then displays it on a website or in a signature on a message board or sends the statistics somewhere. I've tried out a couple over the years and none of them have been all that great. I know that everyone and their mother and their sixth cousin twice removed is jumping on the podcasting bandwagon, but I don't really care for iTunes, iPods, or anything iRelated so I tend to shy away from it. Jared pointed me to a very cool alternative, however. It is called AudioScrobbler and I think I have finally found the perfect music tracking interface that I've been looking for.
The AudioScrobbler website has you create an account that will track your listening habits. To have your habits input into their database you simply have to download a plug-in for just about any music playing program that exists, well not every program, but it covers every program you should be using. If you use MusicMatch or RealPlayer or iTunes or something equally as terrible, you're out of luck when it comes to AudioScrobbler. Come to think of it though, I'm glad people using those programs aren't a part of AS's database as I'm sure anyone lame enough to be using them probably also has a terrible taste in music.
Once you create a profile and AS has done a significant amount of tracking it will form your own personal internet radio channel that other people can tune into. I've found this feature to be really awesome when used in tandem with one of the other features of the site--finding other users with similar tastes. As AS analyzes your listening patterns, it will find other users with similar tastes and make them known to you. You can then check out that user's stats and listen to their personal internet radio station. Given enough time and tracking you could create quite the interconnected network of users with similar tastes.
I've only started using it today so I don't have my own personal radio channel formed yet (AS needs to track at least 300 song plays, but they don't have to be unique, there just needs to be 300 of them). I'm using the Winamp plug-in and you don't even know it's running. There is no change to the way that Winamp looks or works other than the initial dialogue box you use to input your username and password. If you would like, however, from the plug-ins menu, you can access the log file of the plug-in's actions. Since it is a relatively simple reporting interface plug-in, the resources it uses is almost nil and the amount of bandwidth it uses is also tiny.
I'm currently trying to figure out a way to use the RSS feed of your most recently played songs that AS generates and display it on this site. There's a ton of PHP scripts, but my host doesn't have the PHP extensions I need to use them so I'm looking at some of the ASP scripts. There's a whole ton of different scripts to be found on AS's wiki page that you can make use of.
If you're at all interested, my AudioScrobbler page can be found here and my recently played songs RSS feed is here. If you use AudioScrobbler at all or sign up for it, leave your username in the comments so I can add you into my group and see what you listen to.
[update: Apparently AudioScrobbler does work with iTunes]
The AudioScrobbler website has you create an account that will track your listening habits. To have your habits input into their database you simply have to download a plug-in for just about any music playing program that exists, well not every program, but it covers every program you should be using. If you use MusicMatch or RealPlayer or iTunes or something equally as terrible, you're out of luck when it comes to AudioScrobbler. Come to think of it though, I'm glad people using those programs aren't a part of AS's database as I'm sure anyone lame enough to be using them probably also has a terrible taste in music.
Once you create a profile and AS has done a significant amount of tracking it will form your own personal internet radio channel that other people can tune into. I've found this feature to be really awesome when used in tandem with one of the other features of the site--finding other users with similar tastes. As AS analyzes your listening patterns, it will find other users with similar tastes and make them known to you. You can then check out that user's stats and listen to their personal internet radio station. Given enough time and tracking you could create quite the interconnected network of users with similar tastes.
I've only started using it today so I don't have my own personal radio channel formed yet (AS needs to track at least 300 song plays, but they don't have to be unique, there just needs to be 300 of them). I'm using the Winamp plug-in and you don't even know it's running. There is no change to the way that Winamp looks or works other than the initial dialogue box you use to input your username and password. If you would like, however, from the plug-ins menu, you can access the log file of the plug-in's actions. Since it is a relatively simple reporting interface plug-in, the resources it uses is almost nil and the amount of bandwidth it uses is also tiny.
I'm currently trying to figure out a way to use the RSS feed of your most recently played songs that AS generates and display it on this site. There's a ton of PHP scripts, but my host doesn't have the PHP extensions I need to use them so I'm looking at some of the ASP scripts. There's a whole ton of different scripts to be found on AS's wiki page that you can make use of.
If you're at all interested, my AudioScrobbler page can be found here and my recently played songs RSS feed is here. If you use AudioScrobbler at all or sign up for it, leave your username in the comments so I can add you into my group and see what you listen to.
[update: Apparently AudioScrobbler does work with iTunes]
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Photoshop Conference
Yesterday I spent the entire day at a photoshop conference in Minneapolis. I almost didn't find the convention center it was at, though, thanks to Yahoo's wonderful driving directions. They need to do some updating because it gave me the wrong street name to turn onto so I had to drive around the sprawling lot of hotels and convention centers that are littered around the Mall of America until I finally found it.
Since I've never had any formal training on how to use photoshop, I figured it was time I actually went somewhere to have an actual teacher show me how to do stuff. I did end up learning a lot during the conference's 5 sessions, but how much of it I'll actually remember is yet to be found out. You could tell that this conference was mainly for people in the advertising and print business since a lot of the examples, especially the color correcting and color sampling ones, were geared towards becoming print standard compliant. That's all fine and good if you're in the print industry, but all of the photoshop work that I do is for web design, page mock-ups, and digital photography.
Not everything was geared towards the print industry, and even some of the examples that were I could see ways that they could be applied to the web world or to digital photography in general. What was most applicable for me were some of the examples on techniques for selection methods. The stupid magic wand tool in photoshop is a joke for cutting out images, but I've never known a better way to do it. I now know a much better way using color channels and thresholds to get a much more defined (and halo-less) cutout.
It's always great to see someone actually going through the steps to performing a certain action, especially with a program as complicated as photoshop, as opposed to reading the steps in a book or tutorial. Now remembering everything, especially some of the more complicated routines that we were taught, is a real pain. Thankfully, our instructor put all of his notes up on the web in PDF format so that we can revisit them down the road. In case you want to see some of the stuff we went over, you can visit our instructor's site here.
It's a lot different reading through a tutorial after you've seen someone doing it instead of just looking at a tutorial and trying to simulate it yourself. One thing I did notice about the examples that were used, and the examples that are ususally used in classes, is how obvious they are. For example, the example that was given for using the color thresholds to make a more precise cutout consisted of two yellow flowers againt blue sky. It would have been better if maybe the photo used wasn't so obvious. Use a picture of a kid taken against a bustling city environment or something. Most photos that I'm going to be working with won't be as perfect as a bright flower against a uniform background.
Anyways, I'm anxious to tool around with photoshop on some of my mom's professional digital pics at home and see what I can do. No doubt it'll be much, much harder than our instructor made everything out to be, but the only way I'm going to get a lot better is by practice, and I need a lot of practice as evidenced by the craptacular banner at the top of the page I put together before I went to the conference.
Since I've never had any formal training on how to use photoshop, I figured it was time I actually went somewhere to have an actual teacher show me how to do stuff. I did end up learning a lot during the conference's 5 sessions, but how much of it I'll actually remember is yet to be found out. You could tell that this conference was mainly for people in the advertising and print business since a lot of the examples, especially the color correcting and color sampling ones, were geared towards becoming print standard compliant. That's all fine and good if you're in the print industry, but all of the photoshop work that I do is for web design, page mock-ups, and digital photography.
Not everything was geared towards the print industry, and even some of the examples that were I could see ways that they could be applied to the web world or to digital photography in general. What was most applicable for me were some of the examples on techniques for selection methods. The stupid magic wand tool in photoshop is a joke for cutting out images, but I've never known a better way to do it. I now know a much better way using color channels and thresholds to get a much more defined (and halo-less) cutout.
It's always great to see someone actually going through the steps to performing a certain action, especially with a program as complicated as photoshop, as opposed to reading the steps in a book or tutorial. Now remembering everything, especially some of the more complicated routines that we were taught, is a real pain. Thankfully, our instructor put all of his notes up on the web in PDF format so that we can revisit them down the road. In case you want to see some of the stuff we went over, you can visit our instructor's site here.
It's a lot different reading through a tutorial after you've seen someone doing it instead of just looking at a tutorial and trying to simulate it yourself. One thing I did notice about the examples that were used, and the examples that are ususally used in classes, is how obvious they are. For example, the example that was given for using the color thresholds to make a more precise cutout consisted of two yellow flowers againt blue sky. It would have been better if maybe the photo used wasn't so obvious. Use a picture of a kid taken against a bustling city environment or something. Most photos that I'm going to be working with won't be as perfect as a bright flower against a uniform background.
Anyways, I'm anxious to tool around with photoshop on some of my mom's professional digital pics at home and see what I can do. No doubt it'll be much, much harder than our instructor made everything out to be, but the only way I'm going to get a lot better is by practice, and I need a lot of practice as evidenced by the craptacular banner at the top of the page I put together before I went to the conference.
The Crap I Instant Message
Johnny: You know what you should do? You should post the copeland review on Decoy.
Me: it isn't out until next week, tho....
Me: .....but if you want, sure
Johnny: its out this week
Johnny: march 22
Me: you sure? weird. on amazon it said the 29th, so that's when i earmarked it in my inbox. stupid amazon
Johnny: ya, its the 22
Me: but.... why would Amazon lie to me? doesn't she love me any more? Why, Amazon, WHY?
Johnny: kick her to the curb
Me: If only it were that easy. i still have credit to use in her....
Johnny: she's just playin ya man
Me: *sniff* you think so?
Johnny: i know so
Me: I really thought she might be the one, you know. With her constant discounts, tipjar feature, and stocking everything I could ever need.....
Me: I just don't know if I'll ever find anyone else that has all of those things.
Johnny: someday...when you least expect it
Me: Yeah, I suppose you're right. And besides, that Barnes & Noble website was looking kinda hot the last time I saw her
Johnny: and she's good in bed i hear
Me: well, as long as she hasn't gotten around too much
Johnny: well, i hear she's kinda dirty tho
Me: it isn't out until next week, tho....
Me: .....but if you want, sure
Johnny: its out this week
Johnny: march 22
Me: you sure? weird. on amazon it said the 29th, so that's when i earmarked it in my inbox. stupid amazon
Johnny: ya, its the 22
Me: but.... why would Amazon lie to me? doesn't she love me any more? Why, Amazon, WHY?
Johnny: kick her to the curb
Me: If only it were that easy. i still have credit to use in her....
Johnny: she's just playin ya man
Me: *sniff* you think so?
Johnny: i know so
Me: I really thought she might be the one, you know. With her constant discounts, tipjar feature, and stocking everything I could ever need.....
Me: I just don't know if I'll ever find anyone else that has all of those things.
Johnny: someday...when you least expect it
Me: Yeah, I suppose you're right. And besides, that Barnes & Noble website was looking kinda hot the last time I saw her
Johnny: and she's good in bed i hear
Me: well, as long as she hasn't gotten around too much
Johnny: well, i hear she's kinda dirty tho
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Daisy Kutter Contest Winner
Well this is the second time I've had to write this out because Blogger sucks more than an army of black holes all sucking in unison with as much sucking power as they can possibly use... on steroids... and with the help of a neighboring army of black holes sucking along with them... on even more steroids... and possessing special, magical super-suck powers. Yeah, Blogger sucks more than that.
Anyhow, the winner of the Daisy Kutter contest is Colleen MacIsaac. Congratulations!
In my last post I did a big analysis that was partially tongue-in-cheek and partially serious and I thought it was neat, but Blogger screwed me and I don't feel like writing it again, so here's a pie chart of how the votes broke down (click on the image for a larger version):
Anyhow, the winner of the Daisy Kutter contest is Colleen MacIsaac. Congratulations!
In my last post I did a big analysis that was partially tongue-in-cheek and partially serious and I thought it was neat, but Blogger screwed me and I don't feel like writing it again, so here's a pie chart of how the votes broke down (click on the image for a larger version):
Monday, March 21, 2005
Over It - Silverstrand CD Review
In comparison to the aforementioned bands, Over It are musical gods, but that’s not saying much, now is it? Instead of creating saccharine sweet, tooth decaying crap, Over It have actually managed to pull off a decently mature pop punk sound. It should be noted, though, that when I say mature, I’m only talking within the confines of the pop punk musical subdivision. If we were comparing Over It to some of the non-throwaway genres out there, they’d be taking a beating that not even the most masochistic among us would want to watch, so for their sake let’s only examine this cd in the isolation of the pop punk genre.
There are definitely a decent share of weak moments to be found on this release, a few examples being the hopelessly lame intro song, the unnecessary and stupid as all hell background keys on “Chef Yan,” and the sometimes cheesy lyrics (complete with “Oooohhhs” to fill some of the spaces in the songs). Yes, I do know that Over It’s lyrics are actually much more mature than what comes from the majority of their peers, but it’s still a little hard to take anything the band has to say too seriously. Beyond these weaknesses, however, you will find some gargantuan hooks that will reel you in with every listen and a good share of vocals so melodic and sing-a-long-ish that you’ll be humming right along in no time, if not outright singing along with them. The cynic in response might ask, “So what? Even the crappy pop punk bands have big hooks and melodic vocals.”
The difference, and this is the difference that keeps Over It out of the pop punk cesspool, so it’s important, is that the hooks and vocals on Silverstrand are not simply manufactured, slapped together junk—the content of this disc actually feels like it was put together by a band that knows how to write a song. It might not be noticeable upon first listen, but Over It can write catchy songs all on their own, unlike some other similar bands, and they can do it with minimal amounts of cliché usage. This is what separates them from the rest of the garbage being put out by their peers.
Silverstrand is not a perfect cd, though—not by a long shot. It’s also not a perfect pop punk cd, but right now it’s probably the best you’re going to find coming out of this genre. So if you crave something poppy, something punky, and not full of suck, then this release is definitely the way to go.
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