Five Fingers!

todd showed me these. they look so rad. i may have to get a pair.





where did you find these?

please dudley don't hurt 'em

(can you lick the inside of YOUR nose?)

i got nothin' else to do

my gosh, i've never wanted to be in california more

Coachella Lineup


(i'm crossing my fingers, Bonnaroo!)

i cannot stress this enough

Pan's Labyrinth has NOTHING to do with the Labyrinth. (no Hoggle, no cool crystal ball thing that david bowie does, not even a cameo!) and it is most definitely NOT a kid's movie. this movie was... surprising, to say the least. i knew i wanted to see it because from the one preview i saw months and months ago, it looked interesting. interesting like... fairy tale interesting. i was thinking something along th lines of MirrorMask maybe? i was incorrect. this was Saving Private Ryan meets... i dont know, some nightmare fairy tale. i think it was a really good movie, but i was just so caught off guard by the whole thing, i just, i guess i got in the way. i really did think it was a movie themed for older kids/young adults what have you. and i think that was a valid thought seeing as how it was portrayed as a "fairy tale." well, there was a fairly tale there, but there was also a lot of violence. GRAPHIC violence. now, maybe you're the kind of person that doesnt think seeing someone's face smashed in with the bottom of a wine bottle is graphic. well, kudos to you, you sick bastard. i am a watcher and lover of violence, but this? i was quite taken back by some of the goin's ons. QUITE.

in other news, i made a (HUGE) compromise and went and saw We Are Marshall with jess and my parents. it wasn't bad. in fact, i left feeling good, which is not something i experience often in the line of movies i watch. it's the kind of movie where you know what you're going to watch, but it was slightly better than that. they did a great job focusing on a specific period of time and a few characters and went from there. i recommend seeing it. not necessarily at the theater but sometime.

so what are the rest of you terds doing with YOUR time?

is it this?? cause if it's not, you're probably just throwing it away.



nice work, todd. you show real promise.

photoshop fun (because that's how i consistently and obsessively roll)

i learned a few things on photoshop this past week (if you dont have CS2, download it here using bittorrent. you wont regret it). this program never ceases to amaze me. i've been using it for years and years and i find something new all the time. the topics for today are: Neutralizing photos (white balance), Sharpening (unsharp mask), and Desaturating (black & white).

this first one is a combination of a couple of things. below is the original picture taken with my d70s (the most awesome camera in the world). this is Porgy. she is not dead.

(original photo)

From there, I go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. this turns the picture black and white. Immediately following that, I go to Edit > Fade Desaturate. (This "fade" command changes with whatever you do before it (auto levels, auto contrast, equalize, etc.). From here I can scroll through all the optional fades. I think I went with Overlay on this one (I think). Next, I go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. This is totally new to me (and it really improves the contrast). I think i have mine set at the following: Amount: 30%, Radius: 50 px, Threshold: 0. You can bump those up or down to increase/decrease effect (or just repeat the unsharp mask choice). anyway, here is the end result...


(digitally remastered porgy)

And of course there are a thousand variations on what you can do here. This is just one.

Next up, Neutralizing. This is so simple it's scary. First, the original photo...

(original photo of john karspeck and jess)

Ever take pictures at night and have them come out with an totally orange tint to them? Ever take pictures on a cloudy day and find that everything seems to have a blue tint? this is white balance and it can totally change a picture's look/realism. Using that photo above, I go to Image > Adjustments > Match Color. Then, I simply click on "Neutralize." Bam. From here you can fade that or increase color intensity or luminance. here's the end result...

(amazing. one button. ONE.)

And finally, Desaturating (taking a color photo to black & white). This was one I was unsure about because simply changing a photo to gray scale is hardly flattering for it. So this is one of several ways to do this. Take the original photo below (that's my baby cakes shopping for shoes :* )

(original photo)

First, I go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Next, I go to Image > Adjustments > Curves. You'll get a box that looks like this (only the diagonal line will be straight)...



As you can see, I've added 2 points to make it a curve. When you first try this, you'll probably just want to put a point in the middle (128, 128) and then one over to the right making it curve. By leaving the line crossing the exact middle, you leave the blacks and whites where they are. The sharper you make the curve, the higher the contrast will go (this is great for color photos or B&W). After adding an Unsharp Mask filter, I get...



What an amazing change. Like a totally different picture. Like I said, this is only one of several ways of doing this. Next time i'll show you how to add Red, Green, or Blue filters to change the contrast in B&W photos in a very different way. (i can't wait :) )


this is just a fun picture of jess's colorado (formally florida) family.




Clap Your Hands Say Yeah came out with their new album today (for download). check it out on their myspace page. i can't decide how i feel about it.

also, i restarted my Flickr page just putting up my favorites. i messed my zimbodeux screen name by canceling my previous account, so, yeah. i was upset about that.

also! DO go see Children of Men. it was fantastic!

the best $75 i ever spent. period.

this is (as far as i know) the top of the world (download the full version. blogger doesnt handle panoramics very well). this is a 360° shot from about 13,000ft. it was the highest point at the ski resort and it was scary as hell. it was freezing, the wind was blowing 50mph carrying snow with it (creating a sand blasting effect), the altitude made you dizzy and hard to catch your breathe, and to top it off, i had to snowboard off this s.o.b. needless to say, i was in over my head. the trail to the bottom was about 0.5mi long(?), but it took me about 30 min to get down. it was a steep and exhausting run and i made the mistake of waiting till the end of the day to tackle it.

look at the snow blowing like crazy.




(en route)

this was the most awesome snowboarding ever. the trails were hundreds of yards wide and literally miles long. this and the fact that you were in a valley between mountains just made for the most incredible time. i have never seen such raw beauty in my entire life.



the snow is so much softer and drier than in the east. there were parts where you'd sink down 2-3ft if you tried to walk on it. i just kept imagining the people that first made their way through these mountains. i can't even fathom it.

(full version)


(just to the right of those guys is the building in the panoramic above. i'm at the top of the mountain here.)

(earlier that morning)


on a completely unrelated note, this was the Golden B. it was a fun place that had a piano player and he played songs for everyone to sing along with. it was a lot of fun.