the klog

I went to Reno this weekend, but my favorite photo that I took was this one of the Oakland Docks, with the Bay Bridge and San Francisco in the background. I had to warm up the white-balance because it looks better in orange than blue, but I really like how it turned out.

View on black or View it full-size

Here are the rest of my public Reno trip photos.

Btw, to see the power of post-processing, compare the processed version to the original. :P

Here's a photo I took of One Rincon Hill, the new residential tower in San Francisco. The color scheme was inspired by the Dark Knight. I thought I'd add some more thoughts here about the movie.

Mild spoiler warning! (I'm not going to give away real spoilers, per se, but I'm going to discuss the plot a bit more than I did in my initial review.)

* * *

First of all, I read in some review (forget which) that the Joker isn't just the Joker here. He's basically the Devil himself. The Prince of Lies. The smartest guy in the room (smarter than Batman), who's always a step ahead of you, who doesn't play by any rules, whose words you can never trust, and who does something totally unpredictable just when you think you've got him figured out. One thing that amazed me is that he's the most menacing villain I've seen since I can remember, and the movie is only rated PG-13, proving that unseen violence and a good script trump gorefests any day.

Ain't It Cool News has a great (though spoilerful) review by Alexandra DuPont. (I definitely recommend you put off reading it until after watching the movie.) I agree with many of her points. I like that this movie is mostly gadget-free, and I think the realism of it makes Batman Begins (which I never liked that much) look like Schumacher-era Batman. :P I liked the score. At times it felt blatantly manipulative, but I didn't mind. I was begging to be manipulated by this movie. :)

I agree with some of her criticisms, too. Harvey's actions as Two-Face felt rushed and not entirely convincing. Bale's Batman deep Batman voice got pretty irritating when he went off on long speeches with it. :P I didn't mind the editing and slight logical shortcuts too much, though. In fact, I liked that Batman's first fight scene felt confusing and messy. To me, it showed that Gotham is a confusing a messy place.

But DuPont's comment that I found most interesting was when she talked about how she loved the way the movie respected classic cop dramas, how the rank-and-file cops seemed to have depth and character. I noticed this, too. Chris Nolan was supposedly inspired by Michael Mann's Heat while making The Dark Knight. I think he must also have been influenced by classic Hong Kong cop dramas like Infernal Affairs or old John Woo/Chow Yung Fat movies (like A Better Tomorrow or Hard Boiled). I don't think it's a coincidence that the only major scene outside of Gotham was set in Hong Kong.

Maybe it's the police funeral procession, so popular in Hong Kong cop dramas? Maybe it's the fact that the cops seemed so earnest, whether they were doing good or bad? They seemed to come from another era, when cops were cops, and not wise-cracking jokers. They also reminded me a bit of cops in film noir, like L.A. Confidential. The Dark Knight definitely had a police procedural feel to it at times. Take out the costumes and the Batmobile, and you might as well be watching something like In the Line of Fire or Silence of the Lambs. The Joker is as menacing a serial killer as the silver screen has ever seen.

What it all boils down to is that The Dark Knight takes its cues from classic live action police movies instead of superhero movies. Note how none of the movies I compared it to is a comic book movie. (Okay, except for my comparison to Batman Begins, I guess, but that doesn't count. :P) The Dark Knight is grounded in a mean gray reality and then tacks on the superhero aspect only to exaggerate and emphasize its points. That's why, to steal some other review's comment, it's not only quite possibly the greatest superhero movie of all time, but a great movie, period.

P.S.: How did I manage to write two reviews without mentioning how perfectly Gary Oldman plays Gordon? He's kind of aloof, but you totally trust him to do the right thing. Oh man, there's some movie (again not a superhero movie) I've seen where there's like the rebel cop, but there's also the cop who's trying to keep everything together from the inside, and it's as hard a job if not harder... I can't remember what that movie was, but Gordon perfectly embodies that kind of role.

See also my initial review and my third review (spoiler warning).

I went to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight. I saw a few other people in various outfits, but this guy's home-made getup was the most impressive.

As for the movie, it was crazy intense. I was thinking of going to rewatch it in IMAX, but I might need a while to recover. :\

There were some parts where the Joker would, well, make a joke, and some of the audience would laugh, but I'd be cowering in my seat, thinking, "That's not funny! It's freaky!" :\ This is one freaky Joker.

Many of the reviews I've read said, "Aaron Eckhart's performance will be overshadowed by Heath Ledger's, but he was awesome, too!" And he was. I believed in Harvey Dent. He was so likable. But while many reviews downplayed Batman himself, saying he wasn't as interesting as the villains he faced, I don't think this movie shortchanged the title character at all. I loved the ending sequence, which wasn't about plot so much as it was about who Batman is, what he represents, and what he sacrifices. For all the high melodrama, all the ups and downs of the movie, it was that final sequence that got me a little misty-eyed.

It's a damn shame that Heath Ledger won't be able to reprise his irreproduceable turn as the Joker, but Chris Nolan is still around to write and direct more Batman movies. I look forward to future installments, because he really understands what's at the heart of the Batman myth.

Update: Added more thoughts about the movie in a follow-up post.

See also my second review and my third review (spoiler warning).

A week ago, I went to see my friends' friends' band Thrillionaires. Here's a shot of the band that played before them, The Playground Kings:

Amazingly, all four members of The Thrillionaires just got their PhDs. The stormed onto the stage in their graduation gowns! I wasn't ready for it, so I only got a shot of one of them:

I am only just beginning to learn the art of off-camera flash, but in the meantime, I'll settle for the poor man's off-camera flash, accidentally catching another photographer's flash:

All the colors of the rainbow:

(That was more or less how it came out of the camera; I just pumped up the saturation a bit.)

And finally, my favorite shot of the evening:

There are a few more shots in the full set.

Last Sunday night, I went to Bimbo's for the first time. It's quite a classy venue. All the bands were from Sweden. I was wondering what the deal was with this Swedish invasion of the last few years until Dan X pointed me to an New York Times article about how Scandinavian governments are subsidizing their popular music with funding for recording and tours. Wacky. (I'm not saying these particular bands were, btw.)

Anyway, the first act was Anna Ternheim [MySpace], a singer-songwriter type. She was quite good! Here she is:

Presumably she didn't have enough money to bring a whole band with her, and, well, you know how some bands use a drum machine or a synthesizer with recordings? Her backup band was her iPod. :)

I took that last shot with my trusty Fujifilm F30 compact camera. A security guy tapped me on my shoulder, and I was ready to put my camera away, but instead he said, "We're fine with you taking pictures, but no flash, okay?" I was like, "Sure!" I had noticed someone else using flash, so I guess they were bugging everyone with a camera. But see, then I thought, sweet! They're officially letting people take pictures! I had just just bought a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens, and I wasn't sure when I'd get a good chance to try it out. I immediately ran out to my car to get my DSLR. :) These next few pictures are all from my shiny new lens.

Next up was Lykke Li [MySpace], and she was an awesome indie pop singer. Easily my favorite of the evening:

She went from sorta slower songs to danceable songs, always just a little odd but less weird than, say, Björk (whose personality she reminded me of a little), and with sort of a mysterious sexiness through aloofness appeal. :P I like her guitarist's pose in the background of the above shot. Here's a her guitarist in focus:

The quality difference between these and the F30 shot isn't as obvious at this size (a testament to the low light ability of the F30), but click on the guitarist to zoom in, and see the detail on the hair, then zoom in on the first shot to compare. (The one of Lykke Li has a bit of motion blur.)

The headliner was El Perro del Mar, another indie pop band, though more mellow than Lykke Li. Here's the lead singer:

I like how the backlight on her hair makes it glow. They had an incense stick on stage that acted as sort of a poor man's smoke effects. It worked pretty well in the lighting:

I only thought that shot was okay at first, but my friends all seem to like that one the most. It oddly reminds me of a radio telescope and moon shot I took a while back.

There are a few shots I didn't post here; see the full set here, or watch the full-screen slide show.

I love the new lens. It's so perfect for concerts, at least! I'm totally gonna want to find more concerts that allow photography now. :) And I look forward to trying it out at my friends' weddings this summer.

Actually, this was shot through a reflection in a window. The band is The Mary Onettes, from Sweden, playing at Pop Scene. They were so-so. Kinda new wavy, with a dash of Bloc Party's more poppy stuff.

I went to see Lyrics Born [MySpace] at The Independent in San Francisco Friday night. (He's a half-Japanese, half-Italian rapper who lives in Berkeley.) I like that they actually officially let us take photos, which they rarely do in SF, even at some smaller venues. The show was really fun. I like that he had a full band and backup singer with him:

It was a great contrast from the opening act, who only had a DJ for music. It was also an interesting contrast from a typical rock show because the music never stopped! Every time he finished a song, the band would immediate segue into the next, just jamming along even when he's talking to the audience. It gave the show a non-stop party feel.

The hipster crowd wasn't quite as loud as it could've been, but it was still a lot more into it than the crowd at a typical nod-your-head indie rock concert. All-in-all, I'd say the music was actually even better live than on the album. I think that Galactic [MySpace] album I've been listening to, From the Corner to the Block [Amazon] has really gotten me to like this whole funk music backing hip-hop thing.

Lyrics Born live:

Lyrics Born / Later That Day... (2003):

It has two awesome tracks, "Callin' Out" and "Do That There", but the production is a bit spare, and I wasn't that into the album as a whole when I got it.

Lyrics Born / Same !@#$ Different Day (2005):

Half the tracks on this album are remixes of his first album, but in most cases I actually like the remixes together (with the exception of the two songs on the original I really liked already). The interesting thing is that most of them are more than "remixes" in that they have whole new verses or even new guest rappers with new lyrics, so they're more like alternative versions than mere remixes. The production on this album is much fuller and more exciting. I particularly like "Shake It Off (Bad Dreams Part II)" and "The Last Trumpet (Halou Remix)".

Lyrics Born / Everywhere At Once (2008):

Galactic / From the Corner to the Block (2007):

I might as well review this while I'm at it. It's the best album I've heard in a while. Galactic is this New Orleans funk band who joined up with a different rapper for each track on their new album, and it's awesome. (Lyrics Born is on the first track, but it's not really one of the best tracks on the album.) My favorite is track 2: "...And I'm Out", featuring Mr. Lif. Click that link to listen to it. Pure awesome.

* * *

And now for something completely different, from Maker Faire on Saturday:

[flickr video link]

This is an anti-smoking ad in a magazine. On the left you see a warning flyer posted on an elevator, and on the right is a closeup of the flyer, which is mostly in Chinese. The small print at the bottom is in English, and it says, "In some developing countries, one tobacco company voluntarily placed warning labels on cigarette packs in English."

So it was showing you how useless a warning label in another language is. The cool thing, though, is that the Chinese isn't gibberish, but it isn't just a normal warning label, either. It roughly translates to:

ELEVATOR WARNING IF YOU CAN READ this message, that means you understand Chinese. Congratulations! The reason we're doing this is because we want you to know how people in Third World countries feel when they read warnings on cigarette packages that they can't even understand. But we think the fact that you understand Chinese is really great.

ACTUALLY, WE'RE EVEN A LITTLE ENVIOUS. Elevator warning if you can read this message, that means you understand Chinese. Congratulations! The reason we're doing this is because we want you to know how people in Third World countries feel when they read warnings on cigarette packages that they can't even understand.

[Yes, it repeats.]

Lucy on the Grass:

I played softball with some friends this afternoon while their dog chilled out on the grass.

I loved how this Cars playset contained a video game controller and big screen TV for Lightning McQueen to play with in his downtime:

And finally, "Ming and Ping":

I saw this bizarre electronic music act last week. They had a bunch of people dancing around in Peking Opera outfits, but this was the lead singer.

I wasn't so much into the music, but I liked how "Ming" claimed that the guy on the video screen behind him was his identical twin brother "Ping", when it was clearly a pre-recorded video of himself. They would sometimes sing together, and other times they would banter with each other.

I spotted this base off the side of CA State Route 237. I think we're being invaded.

A couple of pictures from the summer of 2006. An accordion festival!

And I like this scene from shortly after the accordion festival:

From our trip to the National Science Bowl in 1996.

A shot I took in Boston back in 2002 from a cab on the way back from the airport. It was the last time I headed back to school from Logan. I think it looks kinda futuristic (so I tried to enhance that with the blue-ish tone).

P.S.: For the curious, the double-white line means you're not supposed to change lanes. (I just looked that up. :P)

I started posting some of my best pre-project 365 photoblog pictures to flickr. This one I left out of my original Panama photoblog post, but I quite like it.

This is a pencil sharpener I got from a coworker who visited New Zealand.

I just got my Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens today (not to be confused with the kit lens with the same numbers but no IS). I knew that, compared to the kit lens, it has image stabilization and an additional aspherical lens element that creates better images (less distortion and fringing). But what I only found out upon getting it is that while the kit lens is made in Taiwan, this lens is made in Japan.

I'll still love my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for indoor people shots, because the image-stabilization only helps steady your hand; only a bigger aperture can help when the people are moving. But one advantage (other than the zoom) this new lens has is that it can focus as close as 0.25m just like the kit lens, whereas my Sigma can only focus at 0.4m. Couple that with the 55mm end, and you can take some decent macro shots with it.

I thought these guys looked pretty ridiculous in their suits. :)

A "Virgin Fogcutter" at a friend's birthday party last weekend.

My first post-Project 365 but Project 365-ish photo.

(Project 365 Day 365 (actually 366))

[Because I accidentally labeled two days Day 86, I was actually done with Project 365 yesterday, though I thought it would be today. Look at yesterday's entry for more details. I decided to write my end-of-project notes there, since this entry's comment is going to be long enough as it is...]

A couple more shots:

You can't really see it well in this picture, but she's playing what I thought of as a "key-flute". It's apparently actually a melodica. (And I think the little bit of shoulder you see on the right is the leader of the band. :P)

Today was an eventful day. First of all, I've been having kind of a bad week. So I was looking forward to tonight's The Go! Team concert. (They're this awesome band that's a mixture of 60s/70s pop, 80s action movie theme music, hip-hop, and cheerleader cheers!) I had bought two tickets, hoping to find someone to go with me, but I couldn't find anyone! I eventually I asked around at work, but all I found was someone else who also got two tickets but couldn't find a buddy. :P We decided to meet up at the show. The tickets were only $15, so eating the cost of the spare ticket wasn't a big deal.

Meanwhile, another friend mentioned that he's going to a screening Justin Lin's new movie. (Justin Lin directed the "milestone in Asian-America cinema" Better Luck Tomorrow. (Personally, I found Harold and Kumar to be a bigger breakthrough for Asian-American cinema.) Lin then "went Hollywood" and made Annapolis and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Now he's returned to his indie roots and made a mockumentary set in the 70s about trying to cast a double for Bruce Lee after his death in order to finish off Game of Death.) The director was going to be there, too, so I was curious.

I was running a little late. I had to go home after work to grab some stuff, including the concert tickets, and I couldn't find them! I eventually did, but that wasted some precious time. Then it started raining, and traffic slowed to a crawl on the highway. I noticed I was going to be at least 45 minutes late to the movie, so even though I already bought the ticket online, I decided to skip it. Oh well. More ticket money wasted.

I grabbed some dinner at a Korean place instead. (I love how at this place, when I ordered the rice bowl, they first gave me some Korean pancakes before the standard Korean appetizers, and then they gave me huge bowl of tofu stew on the side as well. One time when I was there they actually gave me free fish.)

Okay, so then I get to the venue, and I mention to the doorman that I have an extra ticket I'd like to get rid of. He tells me to go over to the line of people waiting to get tickets and just sell it to them. I go over there, and this big bouncer tells me I have to go around to the back of the line to sell my ticket. I'm a bit confused. Meanwhile, one of the guys in line who was about to go to the window says, "I'll buy it right now." The bouncer goes, "No no no. This is exactly what you can't do!" He directs me around the line to the back and tells me to do my business there. (I'm sure they had policies and all, but I didn't appreciate his attitude.) The guy who said he'd buy my ticket just gets his ticket from the window. I ask the guys in the back of the line, and they say they all have will-call already. So I think, screw this, decide not to bother trying to sell it, and just head on in.

As I walk in through the front door, my pager goes off! I'm on duty this week at work, which means that I need to go diagnose problems... Thing is, my normal phone broke last week, and I'm using an old phone with older phone numbers. I wrote down some of my friends' numbers on a sheet of paper, but I forgot to write down my coworkers' numbers. I want to ignore the page. I really don't want to have to go home at this point. But I don't have any of my coworkers' phone numbers to hand it off to someone else! I'm really stressing out at this point. All this crazy stuff happening, and now this!

Luckily, I eventually figure out how to use my pager to send text messages to my coworkers, and another on duty coworker tells me he'll take care of the problem. *Whew!* I breathe a huge sigh of relief at this point. I wasn't going to be able to enjoy the concert with this hanging over my head!

The concert, luckily, was awesome. The Go! Team is kinda weird in that it actually started out as an album recorded in some dude's parents' kitchen, and not as live gigs. There are lots of sampled cheerleading chants and such that are replaced by different singers in the live version. And a lot of what I thought was horns on the album was a harmonica live. I guess they don't have the money to bring a whole horn section with them. So musically, it didn't quite work as well, in that I think the album tracks sound better, but the ENERGY was definitely there! And they did have two complete drum sets. :) The whole crowd was totally into the music and jumping up and down and sideways throughout the show. It was great! That was exactly what I needed at the end of a rough week!

(I didn't actually manage to get a good shot of the actual band leader. After my encounter with that draconian bouncer, and because it was a relatively small venue, I decided to play it safe and only whipped out my camera toward the end of the show, when I wouldn't have much to lose on the off-chance they kicked me out. (...which of course I've never actually seen any venue do. That's another pet peeve of mine: unenforced (or worse: selectively enforced) rules that basically reward people who break the rules.))

Back when the show started, it had occurred to me that I had parked my car on Howard Street, where I once got a street cleaning ticket. (Street cleaning starts at 12:01am on that street. What the hell? People are still out! Literally like 20 cars in a row each had a ticket the time I got mine. So they clearly have no intention of cleaning the streets and actually enacted those times just as a source of income. :P) But anyway, I was like, no way I'm going to bother moving it now. This show is going to be worth it even if I get a ticket! :) And yeah, the concert was good enough for that. :)

This story has a bizarre coda:

After the concert, my newfound friend from work (the guy who also got two tickets and wasted one) had to retrieve his jacket from coat check. I told him I'd wait outside. But I was still kinda worried about getting a ticket, so I went back inside to tell him I was going to head out.

On my way back out, two tall guys in the coat check line intentionally blocked my path and loudly proclaim, "WAIT IN LINE LIKE THE REST OF US!" I think he was drunk. So I reply, "I'm exiting!" Then he's like, "Oh... He's EXITING..." His friends laugh. I find him so obnoxious at this point that I flip him off a couple of inches from his face. His friends are like, "Ooooo...." but they don't do anything as I leave. You have to realize that I can't even remember the last time I flipped someone off. It's just not something I do. Especially to 6-foot tall drunk guys. :P

Immediately afterward I felt kinda bad about it. I felt like I should've taken the high road. Maybe I could've said something like, "We're all having a good time. Why do you have to go and bring us down?" I don't know. :P Maybe flipping him off was the right thing to do. Who knows. So that felt like kind of a bummer end to the evening.

But then I got to my car... and no ticket! No street cleaning tonight. :) Yay! Happy ending to my day after all.

Plus today marks the end of my Project 365. Very eventful day.

I guess I was so pumped that I came home and typed like the longest Project 365/blog entry every. :)

(Project 365 Day 358)

Last weekend, I watched the documentary Helvetica. Yes, the font. It's only had special screenings, not wide release, but it'll be out on DVD next month. The film mostly consists of interviews with typographers, and it's pretty crazy how excited some people get about Helvetica! It would've probably been better at 60 minutes instead of 80, but I still really enjoyed it.

Helvetica was invented in 1957 in Switzerland. It was meant to be the ultimate Modernist typeface, neutral, utilitarian, communicating information without adding connotations of its own. It has since spread to be, well, everywhere. I'm pretty sure the air bag warning on my car's visor flap (pictured) is in Helvetica.

So some people see it as practically the culmination of Western society or something. :P Meanwhile, other people utterly despise Helvetica (and they think Microsoft's clone, Arial, is even worse), because it has seen such widespread use by corporations, and because people are lazy and tend to just use Helvetica by default.

I took this photo right after watching the new Ang Lee movie, Lust, Caution (which the "Warning" reminded me of). I really liked it. It has this epic yet personal feel of a classic film. Lee put so much loving detail into developing the environment of World War II era Shanghai and Hong Kong. The movie is really intense (my new favorite word), which is also its theme. The much ballyhooed sex scenes are definitely relevant to the plot; they were more unnerving than titillating, showing the contrast between these moments of freedom and the cautious, calculated world that the characters usually inhabit. (I really liked the opening scene of four women playing Mahjongg, making ostensible small talk where they tensely and carefully choose each word.)

Hm. Maybe that's the argument against Helvetica. It's cautious. It's restrained. It attempts to reveal as little emotion as possible while speaking a controlled, calculated message. Sometimes we need more lustful fonts.

And yet, giving in to our primal desires may lead to tragic consequences... like bad page layout.

Helvetica: Lust, Caution: [ Rating Key ]

(Project 365 Day 337)

Tonight I watched 3:10 to Yuma, and it was pretty good. Very well-cast and great music. The only thing that sucked was how this couple behind us kept giggling and making fun of the movie. They didn't tone down giggling until maybe halfway through the movie after I gave them several dirty looks. I think they must've been high. :\

(Project 365 Day 336)

This patio heater reminded me of the Icarus II spacecraft from Sunshine. The stem totally looks like some sort of truss, and the light part might be some sort of futuristic engine.

For comparison, here's a shot of the ship from the movie:

That's St. Pancras Station, as seen from the British Library.

Our plan was to see London a bit at the beginning of the trip and a bit at the end. We were pretty exhausted from the flight, though, so we just went to see Tower Bridge and took a bunch of touristy photos there. I liked this big red wall the British Library had, though.

We had some dinner at this Chinese place I used to go to all the time when I lived in London, but it was kinda bad. I think they must've changed owners some time in the last few years. :\

I was very excited to finally have some European Orange Fanta again. You see, Fanta in Europe has 10% juice! Fanta in the US has 0% juice. It tastes totally different.

Virgin Atlantic has a screen on every seatback, and you can watch the movies you want when you want to. It's pretty awesome, even if their safety video characters kinda freaked me out.

I watched Waitress, which was light but fun. My favorite character was this plucky, insecure, and utterly adorable supporting character called Dawn. Turns out she's played by the writer/director, Adrienne Shelley, who was unfortunately senselessly murdered while working on post-production for this movie! :( So sad! She was found hanging by a bedsheet in her bathroom, but it turned out she was actually strangled by a neighbor who get pissed off when she made a noise complaint. Wtf?! And so her promising career was cut short. :\

I also watched most of The Namesake, but with half an hour left, my movie was cut short because the plane landed half an hour early. D'oh! Once we got on the ground, the jetway broke down, so we ended up having to wait half an hour on the ground at Heathrow before they sent us some stairs. :P

What was even more amusing was that, once we got down the stairs, we got in a bus that drove all the way around the plane in a big circle to the left... only to drop us off at a door that was no more than 100 feet to the right of the plane. I guess they had to do that for safety reasons or something, but it was still kind of ridiculous. :)

But I get ahead of myself! Technically, all that happened on Day 2, not Day 1. I boarded the plane on Day 1, but arrived in London on Day 2. Oops.

(Project 365 Day 314)

Today I fell for a phishing scam. :( A friend of mine sends me a link via Yahoo IM asking me to check out some geocities link. I click on it, and I get a Yahoo 360 sign-in page. "Strange that you'd need to sign in to see a geocities page, but Yahoo does own geocities, and I haven't been there in a while," I think.

So I put in my username/password and just get a Yahoo 360 homepage. Weird. I IM my friend to ask what the deal is, but he doesn't reply. I'm in the middle of working, so I quickly get distracted by other duties and don't think about it much.

A while later, I get a reply from my friend, along the lines of, "Huh?" Turns out he never sent me the link! "Crap!" I think. "I'm a doofus! I just fell for a phishing scam!" My friend had gotten the same link from one of HIS friends, and so I bet the bad guys have a program that recorded his password when he typed it into that bogus page, then logged in to his Yahoo IM account and spammed it to everyone on his buddy list.

It's quite insidious, because you're tempted to trust links your friends send you, and because this doesn't require any spyware on your computer; it's all done over the web.

So again, people, don't be an idiot like me. Think twice before putting your password in a page that asks for it!

Oh, and needless to say, I immediately reported the page to Yahoo (and it's been taken down now), changed my Yahoo password, and then changed the password in the various other places I use that same password, just in case. I also emailed everyone in my Yahoo IM buddy list to warn them, just in case my account sent them the bogus URL, too. Pain in the ass.

(Project 365 Day 313: "Snuffing out a flame")

I don't know why people feel the need to make up poorly-evidenced conspiracy theories when there are conspiracies right under our noses with plenty of evidence. According to this AP report, whistleblowers in Iraq get smacked down. When private firms are misusing gov't funds or selling weapons to insurgents, brave individuals occasionally report the abuse. When they do, they get their responsibilities stripped, detained for months by the military they think they're trying to help, and even tortured.

In every case, whistleblowers get their lives destroyed. In the only case where a whistleblower was actually won a case in court, it got overturned by a higher court on the basis that the Coalition Provisional Authority was not part of the US Government.

Silencing the "rats"... That's a classic Mafia tactic, isn't it? Why aren't people more outraged about our gov't doing this?

I read an article a few weeks ago about the power that factory owners now have in China. A New York Times reporter was detained by a factory for trying to report on them, and the cops and even local officials were powerless to intervene. "Man, things sure are messy in China," is what I thought. "I'm glad things aren't like that here." Well, I guess they aren't like that here because there are too many eyes watching. But plop these same Americans in Iraq, away from the prying eyes of journalists and the public, and human nature re-asserts itself.

So depressing. :(

I don't know why I feel so riled up about this, but I do. I mean, I normally feel kinda numb to war and civilian casualties and all that, but not with this. Maybe I've been watching too many action movies? The lone advocate, bucking the system to take on the bad guys! A candle against the darkness! And here he's getting snuffed out. Or maybe it's that I actually do have faith in the system. Our country should be better than this!

Maybe I feel that, for all its flaws, our gov't does have mechanisms to heal itself, to improve itself. And here, all those mechanisms have failed. It's scary to think of our gov't as so actively corrupt. I feel like I lost a little faith in our country today...

(Or maybe I just stayed up too late last night watching the lunar eclipse, and I need to go to bed. Good night.)

(Project 365 Day 312)

This is the first time I've ever watched a lunar eclipse! It's so neat how the moon turns red.

(Project 365 Day 311)

I just watched Stardust, and my reaction was, "Wow! They actually managed to make a movie based on a Neil Gaiman book that feels like a Neil Gaiman book!" The fairy-tale-for-adults feel of the book was definitely present, even though they lightened up the ending a bit (in more ways than one).

Anyway, for those who don't know anything about the book or the movie, the plot centers around a falling star. Thus today's photo. (It's just me flicking my flashlight with a one-second exposure. Then I cooled off the color temperature.)

(And yes, I realize that the framing is a bit off.. The main flash is a bit too close to the bottom edge. Oh well.)

Try it large and on black.

(Project 365 Day 308)

I saw this at a book store. It's Strunk and White's Elements of Style.... the illustrated version. WTF?! An illustrated grammar book?! Not only that, the drawings were all really surreal, too, having little to do with what they're supposedly illustrating. For instance, the dude with the cardboard box over his head is captioned, "Illusion. See allusion."

WTF?! Why would you choose to illustrate a pointer entry, of all things?! And what on Earth does putting a cardboard box over your head have anything to do with illusions or allusions?!

(You can also see a big version.)

Aha, I found the artist's page, with more sample illustrations. That dog is the illustration for, "Well, Susan, this is a fine mess you are in." So crazy!

(Project 365 Day 295)

So I was reading this WaPo article about "sworn virgins" in Albania, women who take an oath, dress and act like men, and thus gain the social status of men in otherwise traditional areas where women have few rights. Fascinating article, but that's not what this post is about. :)

There was a video link on the article, and I clicked it. I was presented with a 15-second "pre-roll" ad that I couldn't skip. Why are those so annoying? I hate them much more than banner ads or even interstitial ads. I hate more than TV commercials, too. I hate them so much that I'm liable to just close the window and forgo watching the video just so I don't have to watch the pre-roll ad. (And it's not just me.) It occurred to me that they remind me of button-based walk signals.

I grew up in San Francisco, where all the signals are on timers. When you arrive an an intersection, the signal sometimes says Don't Walk, but sometimes it already says Walk, or it's at least still flashing. Also, with few exceptions, the pedestrian signals are synchronized with the normal traffic signals.

I went to college in Boston, where most of the signals use those button-pushy things. Even when the light for cars is green, the walk signal is sometimes still red, because that allows cars to turn more smoothly. At many of these intersections, when foot traffic is light, the light is always red when you arrive. And I found this really annoying! Other people seemed to as well, because people seem to violate walk signals a lot more in Boston than they do in San Francisco. It seems only fair to have to wait some of the time when you get to an intersection, but it seems unfair to be forced to wait every time you get to an intersection.

I think my psychology is similar when it comes to pre-roll ads. With TV commercials, as I switch channels, I sometimes have to watch a commercial, but I usually don't. Most of the time, I get to see some content before I have to see a commercial. Imagine if, every time you switched the channel, you had to watch a commercial before you got to see any part of the program. Television would be a most frustrating experience then. But that's precisely the experience pre-roll-infested web videos present us with.

(Project 365 Day 281)

The Vallco mall in Cupertino has struggled a lot over the year. The latest attempt to bring it back to life has renamed it "Cupertino Square" and added a new AMC movie theater.

One striking thing about the building is how empty it still is. On the way to the theater, you can see lots of blank white walls free of posters and advertisements.

It's kinda eerie!

I feel so vulnerable without the warm embrace of omnipresent marketing messages!

(Project 365 Day 277)

(Project 365 Day 280)

These palm trees are just down the block from my apt. It just really amuses me to see all these palm trees in the middle of suburbia. :)

(30 second exposure taken at 2am that I brightened and saturated a bit more afterward. The sky is orange because it's overcast.)

(Project 365 Day 274)

A little painting-effect processing and a ton of cropping go a long way toward rescuing a drive-by snapshot into one of my favorite pictures. :) See the flickr page for more details, and be sure to view it large.

I took pictures at two Scarab shows this weekend. Here are a couple of my favorite shots. You can go to the flickr sets to see the rest of them.

Saturday night, they played at Brain Wash again. I like how the brown shirts made it easy to give this shot a quasi-sepia look:

Sunday night, they played at Ireland's 32. Here's my favorite shot of that evening:

(Project 365 Day 256)

This is my re-creation of the opening scene of Rejected, a short film by Don Hertzfeldt. I guarantee it's quite different from anything you've seen before. (Warning: Features graphic stick figure violence at times.)

You should also check out Billy's Balloon and L'Amour.

A friend of mine showed me these videos back in college. He found them on the Internet somewhere, in the days before YouTube. :) I just bought Don Hertzfeldt's DVD, though, to finally actually support the artist. :)

(Project 365 Day 251)

I went to watch Live Free or Die Hard tonight. The bad guys essentially hack the computer infrastructure of the north-eastern US. (I've heard someone call it "Die Hard... in a country!") I actually found it kinda freaky because, well, I bet the security of our critical services really is pretty crappy and hackable.

On the other hand, computer hacking just doesn't present the kind of visceral sense of danger that an action movie really needs. (And the movie does supply its villains with guns and kung fu, to supplement the hacking.)

So here I present to you my attempt to depict my computer networking infrastructure with a sense of menace. :P

(Btw I went into the movie with extremely low expectations due to reading a bunch of negative reviews, and I ended up enjoying the movie. I enjoyed it as a summer action flick, but it definitely felt kinda light, and it certainly didn't feel like anyone was dying particularly hard. I did like, though, how Bruce Willis played it with a sort of "not this again" feel. Some of the biggest laughs of the movie were his subtle, weary sighs. Oh, and Mac Guy wasn't as annoying as I expected him to be.)

(Project 365 Day 246)

I went to watch 1408 last night. It's about an evil hotel room with that number. It was pretty mediocre, with John Cusack being the saving grace. But it did inspire this picture of my neighbor's door. I hope my neighbor is able to emerge safely in the morning!

(Project 365 Day 237)

My car seemed very lonely when I went to get it.

(Project 365 Day 235)

Lord Vader waddles through the rain forest.

P.S.: The background is this plant.

I went to hang out with Jesse over at Fort Funston, where he was checking on his hang glider. He didn't actually fly, but I got some nice pictures of other people! :P Here's a glider at sunset:

(Project 365 Day 233)

Hang glider over the Pacific Ocean.

I like this one, too:

I was thinking, "Man, this totally looks like there's a thermonuclear explosion in the distance." And then I thought, "Oh wait, that's exactly what it really is! Lots and lots of thermonuclear explosions all the time, too, not just a single one!" :D

Here's the rest of the set.

(Project 365 Day 232)

Went over to my friends' house for a BBQ for no reason. Well, just because it's Friday, I guess. :) That's their really cute dog Lucy.

(Project 365 Day 228)

I was taking pictures of my friends playing Bocce Ball, and I thought it kinda looked like the Reservoir Dogs cover, so I made this silly thing. :P

At one point when they were walking across the grass, it kinda reminded me of the Abbey Road cover, but I didn't get a picture of that. Who knew Bocce Ball could reproduce so many famous photographs!

Here it is large and on black.

I used these splatter brushes for the blood.

(Project 365 Day 223)

I heard John Edwards speak today. I need to start by saying that I saw Hillary Clinton speak a few months ago, and the most exciting part was when she first walked in, not 20 feet away from me, and smilingly waved at us. I was all like, "Oo look! It's Hillary Clinton! She's right over there!" Once she started talking, it was boredom city. Everything she said sounded like it was precisely calculated to offend the minimum number of people. Her Q&A was entirely devoid of content.

Admittedly, I already had a somewhat negative impression of Sen. Clinton going in (because I felt that she'd been pandering to the center in the most cynical ways possible, through meaningless family values issues and such), but her talk cemented my impression and then some. I came out with a much worse impression of her than I had going in.

(For comparison: A friend of mine who had the same experience with Clinton also saw John McCain. We also both had negative feelings about modern day McCain, feeling that he's towing the party line a lot more than he used to, but my friend said that he had a better impression of McCain after seeing him talk.)

Anyway, back to John Edwards. I honestly didn't know much about him going in, but I really like him now. He was amazingly open and honest. He actually, well, SAID stuff and made POINTS.

He said that he'd close down Guantanamo as his first act in office. He talked about regretting his support of the war in Iraq. When someone asked him about the mercenaries we use there, he said they should never have been there, and we should pull them out. He said he wants fully publicly-funded campaigns, adding that he knows he's raised millions himself in campaign funds but doesn't like the system.

He talked a lot about foreign aid, specifically focusing on primary school education and clean water in third world countries. He admitted that it may not be a popular topic with some people, who'd rather see us spend all our money at home. He said he wants to create a cabinet-level position to oversee humanitarian aid. I think he said that he wants to spend about $5 billion a year on it.

That led him to segue into mentioning farm subsidy reform, which was what I applauded the most. (Everyone talks about Big Tobacco and Big Oil, but it's time we got Big Corn on everyone's radar!) He wants to get rid of subsidies for million-dollar farms, but he does want to keep them for "family farms". He said the trick would be drawing the line, and he figures around $250,000 a year in income would be a reasonable one.

Edwards spent a lot of time talking about the work that the people of the country need to do. He said that nothing will happen if we just vote and elect someone. For instance, he said that fighting climate change would require a lot of sacrifices on our part, admitting that changes would require conservation and hikes in energy prices. I kinda really liked this part. In a way, it's sort of obvious, but it made me feel respected. A lot of politicians want to pretend that gov't can do everything for you. That's the easier route, no? All of Bush's talk about "maintaining the American way of life" comes to mind. Or maybe since people complain about Edwards being too young, he's just trying to channel some JFK associations. :P

On that note, he said that he doesn't believe in a President who wants to move cautiously and avoid offending people, and that there are candidates in both parties who are like that (which I think might be a thinly veiled attack on Sen. Clinton). He thinks we live in a time that requires a President who's willing to make bold moves even where it's not politically expedient.

I even liked how he was very open about dodging questions. One questioner first lightened mood by complimenting Edwards on his new haircut and then asked if the US should send military support if China invaded Taiwan. Edwards laughed, said, "Why don't you just get right to the question?" and then started, with a smile, "First of all, I'm not going to answer your question." He followed that with the expected fluffy non-answer, but I think a lot of candidates would ONLY give the fluffy non-answer.

Similarly, he was talking about how when he's President, he'd want to surround himself with smart people who didn't always agree with him. When asked if he wanted to name some such people he might choose, he gave a jokingly curt, "No." I'm impressed with the way he so directly handles questions he doesn't want to answer and sort of makes them into a joke. I guess it just gives me a sense of respect for the audience, as if he were saying, "I'm not trying to pull a fast one on you, but you know how politics works."

When the host said that they were running long, and they'd only take a couple more questions, Edwards insisted he'd stay as long as he needed to. He even answered a few more questions after the next prompting. Eventually, they just had to end it. I know this is part of the politics, and his insistence on staying is a pre-considered part of the act, but I still liked it. :P I don't mind calculated actions if they're sending the right message.

John Edwards is one smooth operator. He needs to just do more of these. I think the more people he speaks to in person, the more votes he'll get. I couldn't say the same for Hillary Clinton. :P

A couple pictures of him after the speech below:

He stuck around afterward to chat with fans and take a few pictures. Note that at the beginning of Sen. Clinton's talk, the host told us that she had asked us not to take any pictures.

I tried to get a picture with him too. At one point, his minders urged him to leave; he waved over at us and said, "But what about all THESE people?" Sadly, after he left after only a couple more photos, and I just barely missed the cut. :P Again, I know what he said was calculated and designed to sound charming, but it still worked. :)

Funny how I went in knowing nothing about him, and by the end I wanted to take a picture with him. With Sen. Clinton, I wanted to take a picture of her before she came in, but by the end of her talk I just wanted to leave. :P I wonder if I would've dug Edwards so much if I hadn't seen Clinton first? :)

I've been to Monterey several times, but somehow for one reason or another never actually went to the aquarium. I think it was hyped up a bit too much for me, so it wasn't AWESOME, but it was pretty cool. I particularly liked the jellyfish. So here's Project 365 Day 220.

Too bad the kelp in the background gives away the fact that this shark isn't that big. :p

The octopus was all squished up against the side of the display. That couldn't have been comfortable! Or maybe it was?

And I managed to get this shot without flash by setting my Fujifilm F30 to ISO 1600, though sadly many other people were using their flashes despite the sign. :(

These tiny jellyfish looked more like a slide under a microscope than something I could actually see!

Light on and light off shots of a type of jellyfish that is almost invisible in the open ocean. These jellyfish remind me of those transparent LCD clocks, you know the ones that have the numbers on transparent glass. It's like, where's the circuitry?! Here, it's like, where's the organs? :P