Lost The Plot! – WTF!

I wonder who else began watching Lost all those years ago, and at first thought ‘Wow, this is ace!’, then later it started to get weirder, and weirder and even weirder. I watched Season One, then later Season Two, hoping to find answers to all those questions raised in the first season – but instead found ourselves being bombarded with even more questions, and as the season dragged on, found myself starting to get very bored.

By the time season Three came about I started to think the writers had completely Lost the Plot over Lost. I bet I wasn’t alone there. I mean, if anyone found Battlestar Galactica a bit weird from time to time, this was a complete mind f*** compared to that! If Battlestar’s weirdness was 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, then Lost smashed that scale and set it to 100. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’m losing the plot writing this post.. No, No, Let’s get back on track…

Today I watched an ABC Special, Called Lost – The story so far.. It was 5 seasons of Lost condensed into 45 minutes. Which is totally cool with me, that way I can find out what happened without watching hundreds of hours of mind numbing, totally freaky television.  So, what did I learn watching 5 seasons of Lost in 45 minutes.. Well, to summarize, at the end of the show.. I said one word (or three – depending on how you look at it).. I said.. “WTF!!!!!”

OK, Here goes.. Time Travel, 2007, 1977, the 1950′s.. Island Teleporting itself through time and space (The whole Island is like a massive Hiro Nakamura), with a turn of wheel. Nuclear bombs going off, People coming and going from the Island, Dead people coming back alive, and then finding out they aren’t who they are appear to be. Half a plane crashing in 2007 and the other half in 1977.. Do I need to go on.. I reckon I’ve not covered 5% of all the cr*p that went on! OMG… Anyway.. I am interested in ‘what happens next’, but I can easily wait for Season 6, it’s final season, to finish and then read about it on Wikipedia.

All in all, if at one point you were ‘into’ Lost, but like me lost intrest, then I would recommend watching this ‘condensed’ version, if nothing else but to see how totally lost the plot really did get. And then if you decide to watch season 6, well, then you’re probably going to be in for another 18 episodes of questions – with maybe half an hour of answers at the end hehe.

Photography – Black & White Candids

Today I wanted to take some Black and White pictures, having seem some brilliant shots in B&W recently. I wanted to capture facial expressions, as the details contained in each face can be very powerful and moving. I headed over the KLCC and it was a beautifully sunny day (usually not great for photography – but in B&W it can be ideal), I sat myself down under a tree to keep in the shade and started shooting. I do get nervous taking candid photo’s – many people don’t wish for their photo to be taken.However if the photo is taken of somebody without permission in a public place and not used for profit or commercial purposes, then it’s not against the law (unless you start following them around – then it becomes harassment).

So anyway, I kept snapping away, and must have got around 80 different shots. I was using my Canon 450D with EF-S 55-250 F4-5.6 IS lens, not a bad little lens for the price. However, shooting at distance, I did find that it was hard to get the sharpness, this was using AV mode. When I switched to manual to increase the shutter speed to 1/800 +, (I was using the widest aperture anyway) then I found many of the shots underexposed (even in the harsh bright sun). I Switched back to AV mode, but of the 80 odd shots I took, only a handful were sharp and detailed enough (after some major cropping), to be of any use.  I decided to publish my best 3, and here they are.. Hope you like!

Yawning Man

Focused

Cheerful

Finally – I win a game online!!!!

I’ve been playing Fifa10 on and off since it’s release back in October. However I rarely play online, you know why? Cause I always get trashed – each and every time!! I can play reasonably well Offline.. Playing mostly at Pro level (I started off playing semi-pro) and I can win more than my fair share of games. When it comes to online gaming, I don’t know why, maybe part nerves, maybe part lag, but mostly cause those online are usually pretty good, I end up losing. I’ve not had many games online – maybe 15 or 20.. But when you get past 10, 11 or 12 games without even a single draw you start to fear it, or become very demotivated.. Tonight I delved once more into the online realm of Fifa 10 gaming.. I played twice.. the first game I lost 4-3, but you know what.. I felt I played quite ok.. In fact if I were to replay this chap I feel I may stand a chance. When it got to the end of the game, it gives an option to reply that opponent, I answered Yes, and I was much surprised to see the other guy answer yes too..

The next game was a classic.. It was the stuff you dream of seeing when you tune in to watch Super Sunday or something.. Manchester United versus Arsenal.

I very quickly took the lead, and held onto it until after half time, when I managed to double my tally and scored a wonderful goal from Valencia (I love playing him in Fifa10). So I’m two nil up and getting plenty of chances, the other guy is getting chances too, but my defence is performing admirably. Half way through the 2nd half I get brought down in the area – Penalty! Michael Carrick steps up but then it’s saved.. Damn!! Then things went bad.. Right from the save, the ball was worked up field and Arsenal pulled a goal back.  OK, only 1 up now, I think it was about the 78th minute or something – just have to hold on for 12+ minutes.. I almost managed it. In the 92nd minute Walcott put a cross in to find the head of Van Persie who equalised.. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!

Extra Time!

In the first period of extra time, I managed to play really good, and get a third goal.. Luckily extra time comes and goes pretty fast, so I didn’t have to hold onto the lead too long. But somehow, by grace of god or something, I kept my nerve, and kept the lead.. Final Whistle !! YEAH!!!! I jumped for joy, and punched the air.. My First EVER online Win in Fifa10!! Finally!!!!

Here’s the match report (these are automatically sent to my gmail account after each game).

A sample of what HDR and a good filter in LR2 can do…

Here’s an example of what applying HDR to an Image can do alongside a good filter in Lightroom 2.

The image on the left is the original photo taken with Canon 450D in Raw. Then in Lightroom I made 2 clones and changed the exposures in both clones (one lower and one higher), then Imported the image into Photomatix and accepted the default tone mapped image. Back into Lightroom I experimented with different developer filters until I found the one that looked most suitable.. The final image on the right is the end result, and I have to say, this is my favourite image that I took in 2009.

Photography – January Mosaic..

Following on from a previous post where I talked about possible photography projects, here’s the results of January word project..

Edit: Image changed as I didn’t like the previous version (see flickr for details)

These letters were all found on items around the home. It got me thinking about theme’ing these Monthly words.. For instance, one month I could get friends to make letters with their hands, another month I could make the letters from torch movements in the dark, and another month I could use Road Signs, and yet another month I could use Game titles on the Playstation, etc etc etc..

In other news, I’ve also posted on Flickr my top 10 photo’s that I’ve taken from 2008 and 2009 (going through my back catalogue in Lightroom). I hope you take the time to visit and enjoy them.

Portable PSN ID

I’ve seen these about all over the place, but never really bothered with it, nor did I know where to actually find my ‘personal’ version..

During a brief bored spell this afternoon, I was browsing the Playstation network on the computer, and stumbled across it.. Anyway, here’s my ‘Portable PSN ID’..

Expanding the boundaries of my Photography

I’ve had an idea or two about starting a few projects for my photography. One of them revolves locking myself in a room and taking 100 shots within 30 minutes, and then picking out the top 3.. It will force my creativity to flourish and look beyond the obvious. Another project is to capture letters of the current month from various places and then put them in a mosaic to make up the full word of the month, then do this each month to build an album of 12 photo’s over the year. Yet another idea is to get a bit of sticky tape and fix one of my zoom lens on a certain focal length and only take photo’s at that length, forcing my feet to do the zooming, and hopefully pushing the boundaries of my creativity.

In the meantime, just to get back into the swing of photography, I popped out earlier and captured a few shots nearby, and after installing HDR software on my Mac, to process them as HDR and publish on Flickr. Here’s what I came back with…

Symmetry in HDR

Symmetry in HDR

Downpour in the developing tropics

Wood Beam covered Walkway (HDR)

Thunderstorms are coming!

Movies to watch in 2010

Today I saw an article on the BBC News website about some of the movies upcoming this year. I saw it mention a couple of movies I was definitely interested in. I decided to do some further research, and using Wikipedia, discovered all the upcoming movies for 2010 and went through them, picking out my TOP 10 for 2010. This list could (and probably would) change over the coming months as I see other movies that could also perk my interest.

So my Top 10 for 2010 (in release date order) are:

Release dates are subject to change of course. A couple of movies that didn’t make the top 10 but are notable releases are Shrek 4 and The Expendables.

Dropping Facebook and Restarting Flickr

Recently I’ve become a bit disillusioned with Facebook. The changes to their privacy settings has had much publicity – stating that it’s now even easier for Facebook to broadcast or advertise your existence on the web. If I remember correctly, the changes – which are officially publicised to protect you better – does in fact generate more hits on web searches and therefore generates more advertising revenue for the Facebook organisation. Coupled with the fact that for the last couple of years I’ve not been that active on Facebook and updating it seems slightly pointless most of the time. I don’t want or need 500+ friends, besides which those that claim to have 500+ friends, I would question if they are actually friends at all.. Would you go out for a drink with all these people, would you honestly call them your ‘friend’? Added to this the pathetically inadequate photo system. Yes, granted it’s good if you want to post a pic of you and your ‘friend’ having a drink together or wanting to post pictures of your kids opening their christmas prezzies so that grandma can see. But if you try to take photography seriously, then the photo’s you publish on their are horribly degraded from their original quality. All in all I’ve decided that I no longer value Facebook in my busy schedule and have now deleted my account.

Speaking of photo’s. I’ve posted before how due to BT Internet’s lack of flexibility caused me to lose my previous Flickr account. Now please don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Flickr, and found it very easy to use and a very good platform to display your work. For a time I was trying different methods of displaying my photo’s through a different medium, such as here on this very blog. For a time it worked, but when I have lots of ‘incoming’ photos, it does start to takes it’s toll. I couldn’t escape the fact that Flickr provided everything I needed. Therefore after Christmas, I decided that enough was enough and signed up for a NEW Flickr account. And truth be told, it’s wonderful to be back. Oh how I missed you dear Flickr.
I’ve put a link to my flickr photo’s on the Photo’s page of this blog (see the top of the page) for now. Unless I can find a reliable (and working) WordPress Flickr integration plugin.  The url for anyone interested is http://www.flickr.com/cliffgettings

Edit: Now found a Flickr / WordPress plugin that I can actually get working, thanks to the Flickr Photo Album for WordPress

Happy New Year – and welcome to a new Decade!

The last 10 years have seen many great things.. Look at the web for instance.. Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter, I bet at least half the world has now heard of these, 10 years ago, if you said Facebook, Wikipedia or Twitter, someone would think you’re talking an alien language. What else has the last decade given us.. Well, Digital Photography has really come mainstream, High Definition too. Also gone are the days of 56k internet lines – some parts of the UK now enjoy 50Mbs lines while in Japan they can enjoy 1Gbs internet in some areas.
Channel 5′s the gadget show recently announced the Gadget of the decade was (unsurprisingly) the iPhone – I wouldn’t know, I’ve not got one. They are ridiculously expensive and because I don’t know what Country I’ll be in between now and next year, I wouldn’t want to be tied down to any contracts.
What else has happened.. Movie wise, we’ve seen the completion of the prequels for Star Wars. They held so much promise but failed to deliver to such a demanding audience. The main reason for that failure is 3 words.. Jar Jar Binks!! Need I say more!.
One item that stood out in the last decade was perhaps the most infamous. I think everyone knows where they were when they heard about the attacks of 9/11. If someone comes up to you and says where were you on such and such a date, most of us wouldn’t have a clue, but 11th Sep 2001 is defo one date I would know where I was.. Maybe the one other date I would instantly know where I was was my wedding date. In the last decade I got married, had holidays outside of Europe for the first time (the US and Japan), and eventually ended up moving out of England completely and now living in the heat (I hate the cold) of Malaysia.

So what do we have to look forward to for the next Decade?
Ok, I got a list.. not a long one, but still.. These are what I want to see…
1. End of Spam – Come on ISP’s, Governments, stop those spammers from flooding out mailboxes. I’m talking about the one’s that offer you a ton of money that someone has allegedly left in trust to you, or You’ve won the lottery, or do you need Viagra! Come on, end this already!
2. Hoverboards – In back to the future 2, we had them by 2015.. So I’ll give someone an extra 5 years.. By 2020 we want them, ok?!
3. Cure for Cancer and AIDS.. If man could put someone on the moon in 1969.. Well, Come on medical science..
4. Reboot the Superman movie franchise – In fact I read they may be doing just that, even disregarding the recent ‘superman returns’ so-called-movie.
5. Electric Cars – These exist already, but I fear that to mass produce them would leave OPEC short of cash, and they control the oil.. If people stop buying petrol, the price of oil skyrockets and everything from your oil lamp to your plastic chair shoots up in price.
6. England to win the World Cup – I have never watched a world cup final. I don’t remember much of the 1986 Mexico World cup except that hand of god incident. So my first real world cup was Italia’90 and it was fantastic. England were great – I’ve seen that Semi final several times – oh how unlucky we were, but after we lost that penalty shoot out, I vowed not to watch the final, and since then have never watched a final until England play in one. I was born in the 1970′s and so have never seen England win that trophy. I hope to see it at least once in my lifetime. As for the world cup this year – I certainly wouldn’t put money on england winning, let alone reaching the final.
7. My Dream Game – Not really a game per say, but more of a simulation. Imagine a game where you control a avatar that could walk, run, drive (image GTA4), and even fly (Imagine Flight Simulator), but over the entire planet earth. Imagine GTA4 which is based in Liberty City, but it’s not just a city, but the entire planet – including all cities (real ones, and their suburbs), and you can jump in a plane and even fly there, with photorealist graphics. Google Earth has much of the world mapped and with streetview it’s now photorealist at a street level. I think you would need more than 1 blu ray disk (next gen discs?) to hold the storage – which off course would be updated weekly/monthly with new maps for certain areas.. Oh well, I can dream!
8. Supersonic (at least) Air travel – Losing Concorde was a big leap backwards in my opinion. Little has changed in the flight time between 1970 and 2010 (the lifespan of the 747 so far) if you wanted to fly from London to Sydney. I want to see RELIABLE, SAFE and AFFORDABLE air travel between London and Sydney that takes less than 2 hours. I used London and Sydney as an example.

Ok, that’s my lot.. I’ll be lucky if half of them come true, although I doubt even 2 would.