DemiCon 19 is over and done. A good time was had by all. I got to Fanboy at Steven Barnes, who is an author I've liked, though I haven't really kept up with him lately. Steven is an intense kinda dude, and he spent a fair amount of time talking to people in the con suite all weekend. I like that in a ProGoH.
The photography I did will show up at my DemiCon Gallery on Smugmug.
My photography habit was hindered by my shoulder problem. (Rotator cuff strain or something.) I did no event photography, just the costume shoots and TICC performances. My friend Robert was cool enough to do the camera work for the hall costume shoot, which is the longer session.
The TICC shows are challenging, due to the nature of theater. The lights are gelled, generally blue-ish on one side of the stage, and pink-ish on the other side. This gives depth to the stage by simulating the reddish sun on one side of the sky, and the blue sky on the other side. This can make it tricky to determine the white balance to use. I don't own a color temp meter, but thru the various shortcuts I've used, I've come up with a white balance of 2800K and -22 tint correction in Lightroom/Photoshop ACR. This seems to give me the best skin-tone and overall color balance.
This year I shot the dress rehearsal sessions of TICC with my 50mm f1.4 prime lens. I have always used a mid-range zoom for this, with my current Canon kit, I would shoot with the 24-70mm f2.8 L lens. But that lens is way heavy, and I wanted to see how things would go with a prime. It also would (I hoped) save my shoulder for the real stuff I wanted to do the rest of the weekend.
The short answer is I like most of the photos I shot with the 50mm, better than similar photos I got during the peformance with the zoom. It is sharper, has better contrast, is brighter, and the perspective on the 50mm is essentially that of the human eye. Some of the picture quality is that the 50mm is a faster lens, but I really like the "human eye" perspective of it as well.
I decided last year that I really don't like the current lights I have that I've been using for DemiCon the last few year. They are the Adorama house brand of lights, the exact brand name I forget. They don't completely suck, let me just say that to be fair. But I am unsure of their exact white balance even after setting it to what the manual says, and they seem to have a subtle variation of power on each shot, which is annoying. What pushed it over the edge was a modelling light burned out, and I had to track down a replacement at a specialty electric supply company, who had just one to sell me.
I'm leaving the lights here in Des Moines now. If I can get them replaced before next year's DemiCon, I'll figure out what to do with them then. Otherwise, they'll be here for DemiCon 20 next year.
Sometime in the next few days, once UPS gets it delivered to NYC, my entertainment system will join the modern age. It will be very "this century". In short, I'm upgrading nearly all of it now. Gone will be the Sony DVD player that has also been my CD player. Gone will be the Marantz AV-500 AV preamp, Dolby Pro-Logic I will not miss you. The jury is still out on the Marantz MA-700 monoblock amps I'm currently using to drive the Dunlavy SC-IVa speakers. (The Dunlavy speakers are staying, more on that in the extended entry.)
I stopped into my stereo store, also now my video store, Audio-Video Logic (AVL from here on out). I bought an AV receiver and blu-ray player from Denon, and suround speakers from Era. Cables from AudioQuest. (No, I didn't spend more on cables than on the gear itself.) I don't know that I have enough room in my apartment for all this, but that has never stopped me before.
I still need a different stand for the TV. AVL had one I liked, but I wasn't convinced it was sturdy enough for what I want to put on it. Oh well, the search continues.
When I told the dude at AVL about my Dunlavy's, he told me if I ever wanted to get rid of them they were "highly sought-after". I have been tortured by the fact that I love my SC-IVas more than life itself, but don't feel they are a good fit for my lifestyle right now. Now, oddly enough, I'm no longer tortured: I'll be keeping them.
My current plan is to use my current Marantz amps on the front chanels, via the pre-amp output on the receiver. But, somewhere in my current stereo setup, I have a ground loop problem. If it turns out to be in one of the amps, I'll just have to run front power thru the Denon. It doesn't have as much power as the Marantz amps, but it does have some kind of "assignable channels for bi-amping" which might have an interesting implication if I want to just go with 5.1 due to having only 5 channels of space in my place.
I bought an AV receiver rather than just an AV pre-amp, even though I'd rather have had a pre-amp with separate amplifiers. And they make them too. But when you get above the level of consumer-grade gear (read: crap) AV pre-amps go for upwards of $5000. I've been looking for them, and not found any that I would want to use myself. The problem is in the number of separates you'd need. An AV pre-amp and the separate amplifiers ends up being 8 or 9 separate components: 1 pre-amp, and 7 or 8 or 9 amplifiers. Even if the amps are cheap, in the $500 range, you are not going to get away cheap by having to buy 7 of them. Thus, receivers are basically the option for home entertainment systems, unless you are far richer than I am.
I bought Denon because of two handicaps, and three facts. The handicaps: 1). I wastn't leaving AVL without SOMETHING. I want this all done with, so I don't have to worry about it for another 10 years. So the choice was either Pioneer ES gear, or Denon. 2). I didn't have time to listen or compare any of this stuff, so I'm buying only on past experience. The facts in Denon's favor: 1). I've heard Denon systems and have always been impressed by them 2). The Denon I got has more HDMI inputs that the same-priced Pioneer. 3). I have not heard Pioneer systems on anything.
So, I went Denon.
It would seem that my bellybutton is to far away from my spine. But I knew this already. It's why I joined the damn gym in the first place.
I found this out at a gym across the street that my friend Nat goes to. One of the conditions of my moving to Brooklyn was I go to this gym. Since I finally have a handle on all the broken and otherwise non-functional parts of me medically, I had a personal session with a trainer. Her name was Megan, and she was nice in a professionally distant way one would expect in an overly personal situation like fitness training.
Megan decided that ultimately what I need for what I want to accomplish is a whole bunch of stuff from a whole bunch of different disciplines, but to start off with I need basic pilates just to get to the point where I can do any of the other stuff without killing myself.
For those that don't understand the joke in the first sentence because you've never experienced pilates: You do almost everything with your abs sucked in. Or tightened. Or something. The trainer puts her fingers in a point with her thumb and pushes down on your bellybutton while telling you to "wrap your abs". I spent an hour doing this, and I still have no idea how it's done.
She also kept telling me "close your ribcage". And "neutral back". But you are supposed to do all of that at once. My strategy was to take a deep breath, suck in my gut, stick out my dick, and then not breath while doing the set of whatever it was I was supposed to do 5 or 8 or 10 of. I was blue in the face thru the whole hour. Megan never said a word or asked me about it, so I'm guessing that's normal.
I'm guessing that what I did for that hour was about what I needed. At the end of the hour, I was surprised it had gone already. I didn't feel like my ass had been kicked. I did feel like I'd been active, and active for a while, but as I write this I'm not sore or anything. I didn't puke. I'm wasn't lightheaded from endorphins coursing thru my system.
So now I've worked out, so I'm all fit and a hunka-hunka-burning-love. Ladies, beware!
For the last 4 and a half years or so, I've been playing the online games EverQuest for Mac, and World of Warcraft. I've spent a lot of hours and days over that time in these games. I've made friends in these games, some of which I've hung out with in real life. My travels around the country for work has made it possible for me to meet a lot of them, which has been really fun.
Recently, I've been playing less and less. Where once these games were a superior alternative to just mindlessly watching TV, I find that they are not holding my attention much any more. I started playing EQMac way back in 2003 as a way of keeping myself occupied in hotel rooms across the country, and found a good social group in these games too. Add in the elements of problem-solving, social interaction, and the feeling of accomplishment from improving my game situation, and it was a powerful draw. When WoW came out, I gave it a shot, but have never been able to stay interested in it, it has some very serious limitations for serious gamers.
So life moves on. There are other things I want to do and see out here in what gamers call "RL", for Real Life. I might go back to playing again, specially if I start traveling constantly again. But for now, I'm pulling way back on both games.
A few or you know that I am going to India, as in the country of India, for work. Well, I've arrived.
Everything went off without a hitch. The flights were long, but weren't bad. Being in international business class was good. The airline food didn't suck. Frankfurt airport does suck. The Bangalore airport is new, and has been open for exactly a week now, and is very nice-looking. Not sure if it's a good airport or not though. I'm in the hotel, which is also nice-looking. The internet access is free.
More later, since I just spent about 26 hours getting here with basically no sleep on the planes, and it is now 3AM here. Sleeping now.