Learning to See Creatively has started at BetterPhoto.com.  It’s my summer photography class and I’m really looking forward to expanding my creative photography aspects.  I read the book while taking Bryan’s Understanding Exposure course back in April.  Having his critiques and the assignments that force you to get out and shoot are amazingly valuable to moving your skills forward.  I highly recommend taking one of these courses if you’re interested in expanding your photography skills.

9 years ago I was introduced to Fry’s Electronics.  Fry’s is techno-geeks Disneyland … the happiest place on earth.  The Chicagoland Fry’s is now open.  Inspired by this hilarious blog entry about a Fry’s encounter, I’m going there in a few hours to do some “shopping.”

For my birthday, I purchased a Creative Wireless Music device, allowing me to play my entire digital media collection on my home stereo.  The net effect of this purchase has re-energized my interest in digital music and I’m now actively encoding the majority of my CD collection to WMA9 variable bit rate at about 198kbps.

Through this, Tom pointed me to PhatNoise who makes an OEM replacement for some major auto manufacture’s CD changers and Hans actually has one.  The key difference is that PhatNoise uses a hard drive and plays digital media while integrating with the car’s already existing in-dash controls.  For example, in the BMW 3 series (didn’t mention that I bought one of those, did I?) “disc 1” selects play by track, “disc 2” selects play by playlist, “disc 3” selects play by album, etc.  It also does text-to-speech, so the device will read the genre, artist, album, etc., to you to enable easier navigation.  All in all a very cool device.  The one down side: support for Windows Media 9 is currently in development and I’m encoding everything with Windows Media 9.

Hans also pointed out that the PhatNoise plays Audible content as well.  A little research yielded that Audible can deliver content in Windows Media and MP3 format, so it’s no surprise that the PhatNoise can play it.  Last night I browsed through Audible’s collection and they’ve come a long way.  I think it’s time I revisit this and get some “reading” done (I’ve had “read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People on my goal list for the past 6 years!)

So, back to the Creative Wireless Music Device.  It’s a small box about the size of my Microsoft MN-500 wireless gateway.  It has an optical output, as well as left and right RCA stereo jacks.  It comes with an RF remote control with a large LCD display to make scrolling through your music collection by album, artist, playlist, etc., pretty easy.  And, being RF, it’ll work from anywhere in the house … except my stereo is only in one room of the house.  Unfortuantely, Creative feels its necessary for me to use their music software to organize my library that is already organized in Windows Media Player.  So now I find myself having to encode my music in Windows Media Player, then fire up Creative’s organizier to import the tracks and make them available to the wireless device.  If you’re reading between the lines, you’ll realize this also means I have to run a piece of server software on a machine at home to make the music available to the wireless device.  If the server software isn’t running, the device doesn’t get music.

To Creative and all others who would seek to make the consumer’s digital music experience better, including all manufactures of “MP3 players:” integrate with what I already have!  I have a music organizer … Windows Media Player.  Windows Media Player tracks my favorites, creates automatic playlists for me, etc.  I already have a file server … Windows, and I know how to share a folder to the network.  In hind sight, I think I should have bought the Turtle Beach device.

Not sure why, but my rental car smells like a petting zoo.  Combine that with me having some digestive issues last night, and it makes for a very unpleasant environment. 

I bought Shadow Ops: Red Mercury today (when am I going to learn to rent first at Blockbuster?) and we gave it a quick go on XBOX Live! tonight.  After playing it for about an hour, here’s what I’ve found:

The pros:

·         Pretty fast action

·         You can speak to your opponents all the time, making smaller games more fun than in Rainbow Six 3

·         Fantastic sound – this one is THX certified; if nothing else, just throw the game in and listen to the THX logo sound

·         You can pick up health and ammo, allowing you to play “longer”

·         You can jump

·         You can melee attack

·         There are a number of different controller options to choose from

·         Maps are pretty big, and with the ability to jump, you can find some interesting places to ambush your opponents

The cons:

·         Arcade-style action – you can pick up health and ammo, body actions are a tad weak, etc.

·         Extremely long load times - no wonder the default is 20 minute games!

·         It doesn’t remember controller configuration between maps

·         Inability to simply “replay” the current map

·         Typically poor XBOX Live! lobby UI

·         Weapon selection is generally poor

·         Way too hard to kill someone with headshots

·         Shotgun is way over-powered at close range

·         Sniper rifle is way-over powered at long range

·         All the other guns seem relatively under powered

·         No small maps for 4 or less players – expect to run around (a lot)

·         It’s $49

Summary?  Rainbow Six 3 still rules for a first-person tactical shooter in my book.  The Clancy games continue the trend for realism.  Shadow Ops is nice for a change of pace, but I still wonder what the folks are doing who play test these games?

http://www.craigslist.org.  All about restoring a human voice to the Internet and building a community of people.  There’s *lots* of stuff you can find on this site.  Now, with that said, you have to read best of craigslist – but be prepared to laugh out loud, for some foul language and many references to sex.  There are many items in the “best of” that had me in tears from laughing so hard.  Some of my favorites:

·         I am the phantom sh*tter

·         Rant-o-rama: singing and farting

·         F’ing cicadas

·         And many, many more

Turns out there’s a very specific image URL that you must use when linking to your pictures on pbase.com.  If you don’t use it, you run the risk of their backend changing and your link becoming broken … which is what was happening the Photography in the rain post.  It’s now fixed. 

I finally got a picture tonight of the critter that’s been hiding in my tank.  The local fish store immediately identified it as a bristleworm.  Ugly little critter.  I’ll try to get the pictures posted for your “viewing pleasure.”