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I did it. I didn't use my computer for an entire day, on Shutdown Day 2K7.

I'm writing this post on March 17 at 6:03pm, but I'm going to date it 11:59:59pm on March 24, 2007.

If anyone wants to get me a birthday present… one of these would be nice. 🙂 Otherwise, I'll probably get one in two weeks when Dodd Camera in Cleveland gets them in.

I had intended to get a Sidney Crosby home jersey, but again, they were simply unavailable at the Penguins game. Then on Sunday, the right rear speaker in my living room surround sound system blew up, so I spent my birthday money getting a pair of cheapie Bose speakers.

LogoMaid - a design chop shop - has ripped off Dan Cederholm's SimpleBits logo, then gone so far as to threaten a lawsuit against Dan claiming he stole the logo.

Yeah, right.

John Gruber has more on this, and I'm posting merely to add my PageRank weight to the side that roots squarely against outfits like (and specifically) LogoMaid, the ripoff artists.

Sue, Dan. Sue.

After attending the Pens game last Friday, Carey and I went to visit my grandma in Bedford. The primary reason was so that I could take pictures of her for her 80th birthday. The family is throwing a little party in late April for the occasion.

I took several pictures, and had only two real shots in mind (two that are included here). The third shot with the large wooden spoon and fork just came about because they're two of the few remaining items from her old house. Since she'd lived in one place for as long as I've been alive until the past few years, that picture does a good job of capturing what I remember about my grandma ((It could have used a bit of a reflector, but I'd forgotten about my foam core boards until later.)). The three pictures (5x7 and 4x3) will fit inside an 11x14 frame, likely with a very light grey or white mat.

Beta testing for "Iris" is scheduled to begin just as the month of March ends. If you're interested in what is basically a drastically improved PulpFiction, leave a comment or otherwise get in touch with me (via email if you'd like).

The current schedule is as follows:
April 1 - Begin small beta test.
April 15 - Enlarge beta test.
May 1 - Release.

Subject to change, of course.

A favor: if you comment or email me, please provide a full first and last name.

Carey and I went to the Presque Isle Downs buffet last night. Despite having heard bad things about the food, Carey and I felt secure in our understanding of what "casino buffets" are supposed to do:

• Draw people to the casino. If a buffet is good, people will come to the buffet and "drop a few bucks" playing games afterwards.
• Keep people in the casino. If someone gets hungry around dinner time, you do not want "I guess I have to go home and eat" to be an excuse. Rather, you'd want people to say "they have such a good buffet here, I'll just stop in for a quick bite and come play some more."

In both cases, the buffet essentially acts as a way to promote gambling. Though not essentially a loss leader, it was our understanding that casino buffets didn't necessarily care to do more than break even.

Unfortunately, Carey and I were wrong, and the "Triple Crown Buffet" at Presque Isle Downs performs neither of its duties well. For nearly $27 (at lunch rates), Carey and I were shocked to find almost no variety of food contained in only 24 feet of buffet. What food was present was cold and/or stale - and I don't just mean one or two items, either. Everything was in bad shape. Carey and I are surprised we didn't get sick.

Golden Corral and Old Country Buffet look like feasts (and great bargains) compared to the low-quality, sparse pickings available at Presque Isle Downs.

A car powered by four ounces of water? Supposedly, this isn't a prank… and yet today is the first I've heard of it.

P.S. Hyrdogen burns (or explodes) quite easily. Remember the Hindenburg? Adding oxygen to the mix only helps, obviously, as combustion requires oxygen. Is that all that's going on here?

Simple question, simple answer:

I don't. I think it's pointless and silly. I think the name itself mocks those who "twitter" away precious time better spent getting work done, hanging out with family, or simply relaxing. But hey, I've almost never even used my IM status to convey a message other than the truth - "Went to run errands - back at 2" or "Pas ici." Occasionally I remember to set my available status in Adium to the "iTunes" status so people can see what I'm listening to at the moment.

But twitter? No thanks.

This is one of the better shots from the evening. Going back to a point-and-shoot after spending so much time with a 5D really sucks. I couldn't even keep the flash from turning on every time I turned the camera on and off, let alone control ISO and aperture. I had to take what it gave me. Two rows in front of us were a few gentlemen shooting with semi-pro gear who didn't appear to be members of the press. I'll have to inquire about the possibility of sitting there some day to take some pictures.

Of course, I was able to witness one of the greatest shots I've ever seen. The first goal of the game came off the stick of Sidney Crosby, who literally split four defenders and let loose a forehand wrister while still mostly airborne and falling down. The puck was probably going 75 MPH and caught the top far shelf cleanly. You can see video here or here. The perspective is virtually identical to the one Carey and I had in section 3W row S. Note for the future: row R is behind the little camera/handicapped pit.

Those videos were deleted but this one is up for now, and the goal we saw was #1 in the list of best NHL goals by Crosby.

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Here is my Aperture 2.0 wishlist. I've tried to limit this to features I think we could see.

• Improved performance. I still have to quit most of my apps (especially Safari) if I don't want minutes of stalling and disk-thrashing. And this is a Mac Pro with a Radeon x1900 with 5 GB RAM.
• A more widely exposed and improved API for plugins. The export capabilities have been well-used - now it's time to let Noise Ninja or other plugin makers plug in to the actual editing.
• Ability to export a raw image plus a sidecar image of some sort so that another Aperture user could see my image with the adjustments, further adjust it, etc. I've read good and bad things about DNG, so that may not be the solution.
• Better stack management. Searches and other things should more clearly have the ability to look inside stacks (or not, depending on the state of a checkbox). As such, stacks are a bit of a headache. Selecting a stack selects only the stack pick.
• A vastly improved spot/stamp/clone tool.
• Lightroom's "click/drag" adjustment capability for color saturation, hue, etc. I believe they call it the "targeted adjustment tool." Whatever it's called, steal it.
• Something like Lightroom's "sync" feature. The "lift and stamp" tool is fine and all, but sometimes I want to just apply a single change to the 10 or 20 images I've selected (this is an example of a time when selecting a stack sucks). For example, I want to adjust the sharpness of all images to 0.6. I should select them all, click an "apply to selected items" checkbox, and slide the sharpness to 0.6. Currently I have to apply the sharpness to one image, lift it, uncheck and delete several adjustments, then stamp on each image (or on a range of images).
• Multitasking, primarily in the form of background exports.
• I reserve the right to add to this list. 😀

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My own comments on Steve Jobs and education are currently under lock and key. I thought the issue of Steve's comments was a dead one, but the hits just keep on coming. The latest response (that I've bothered to read) comes from a gentleman named Dale Hill, a "34 year retired educator with a Masters Degree in Counseling." Has he been retired for 34 years? Is he 34 years old? Or is he just a 34-year veteran of education? We don't know because Dale comes off as an uneducated doof via wretched grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Normally, employing poor English in an attempt to sway someone's opinion is not an effective tactic. Doing so when talking about education just makes you look silly.

In an attempt to learn a little more about my camera the other day, I took some pictures of my yard. I didn't really have a goal in mind - just to try to take some interesting pictures in what was basically a very dead yard. It's not yet spring, of course. I constrained myself to close-up shots (with the 24-70 lens) or at least unusual angles. Most of the pictures were a little flat (it was mostly overcast), so I experimented with excessive contrast.

My favorite shot (despite the focus being a tad low on the house - ideally I wanted the hole to be on the focal plane at f/2.8) is this one, of a birdhouse we have in the back yard. The opening in the trees was nearly a perfect fit.

Others follow, with minimal commentary.

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Carey and I are attending a Penguins game tomorrow, and try as I might, I can't find the camera policy for Mellon Arena (for Penguins games) at pittsburghpenguins.com.

I called. Point and shoots are fine. No detachable lens cameras. Oh well. At least we have the point and shoot.

I eagerly awaited the arrival of Tiger Woods for the Wii. Today, using my mom's christmas present (a Gamestop gift card), I picked up my copy. Suffice to say I agree with IGN's 7.0 rating. They say:

The real question is whether or not the Wii remote perfectly simulates a golf club. The answer is no - there are still some issues, which we'll outline, but it works well enough most of the time for us to recommend Tiger Woods, especially for die-hard golf fans.

Die-hard golf fans will be among the first to appreciate a golf game, and yet, some of the pickiest, too. The thing just doesn't feel like a golf swing at all. Wii Sports, as the review says, at least offers 1:1 movement. TW does not.

Additionally, some things are just plain wrong. The manual says you can use the d-pad to adjust your putter distance, but I couldn't figure out how to adjust the distance. The tutorials didn't teach me how to spin the ball, and hooking and slicing don't seem to work as intended - I hook just about everything and can't even slice when I try. The graphics are "eh" and the game behaves like a quick port - selecting equipment (a new driver, clothing, etc.) with the Wii pointer is an exercise in frustration.

I will keep trying to play TW the way it should be played - with the Wii remote - but if all else fails, apparently you can hook up the nunchuck up and play the "traditional" way.

Carey and I are attending a Penguins game this Friday. I booked the tickets when the whole "Pens might be leaving Pittsburgh" talk started to get serious. However, I'm very happy to see that this probably won't happen: the Pens reached a 30-year agreement with state and local officials.

Fuck Ed Rendell, though. It's rare that I swear on this blog, let alone at someone, but I've done it, and he deserves it. Twice. Fuck Ed Rendell.

P.S. It takes almost three years to build an arena? Really?