D has a moment of clarity

So, not too long ago, I got my Canon 500D (or Rebel t1i) and even less long ago, I got a 50mm prime f/1.8 lens for it (mmmm!)
I haven’t done much in the way of showing it off but one of the most exciting features is the ability to record great looking HD footage. Keeping in mind that the video is shot through the same lens that takes such amazing photos!

So, here’s a quick clip showcasing a short night shot with the f/1.8 50mm attached to it. In this video, D explains one of the many ways for society to cater to his many needs. We wanted Fuddrucker’s but Fuddrucker’s was closing soon and we didn’t want to be jerks… what’s that all about?

http://blog.omgchris.com/flash/d-rant.flv

This video is 720p, even though I’m only displaying it on my blog at half resolution. So be patient for loading and fullscreen if you want :p






Alan Wake

Previously, on Alan Wake…

I was able to finally play this game over the weekend, despite having since it came out in May.   I have been looking forward to this game ever since I first heard about it way back during E3 of 2005.  Back then, the game was slightly different and it was also supposed to be a PC game as well (which was later canned for reasons I totally don’t agree with).  Eventually, it was restricted solely to the Xbox 360 and took quite a long time to complete.

The game is developed by Remedy Entertainment who is mostly (a.k.a. “only”) popular for the Max Payne series.  They also developed a Carmageddon style game before Max Payne but not too many people have actually heard of it.  If you ask me, if my company was only know for one game series, I’d be glad to know that the series was as solid as Max Payne.

Part of what made those games so amazing was the contribution of Sam Lake, a Swedish writer and employee at Remedy who lent his writing talent to both games.  Coincidentally, most of what makes Alan Wake such an incredible experience is that it was also written by Lake.  The game is split up into 6 chapters that play very much like either chapters in a novel or episodes in a Twilight Zone styled TV series (with a little less cheese).

From the very beginning, The story pulls you in and keeps you there with an intense sequence that instantly lets you know how the game will be played and how the element of light will be used throughout the game.

I can’t really say much about particular events that happen without spoiling anything.  I’m also not claiming to be any kind of game reviewer– But I can say that this game will keep you guessing and guessing until the very end.  It’s filled with awesome plot-twists, moments of extreme suspense, and just an overall engaging story.  You won’t want to put it down until you’ve finished it.

That brings me to my next point regarding the length of the game.  I just have to get this out there.  A lot of game sites and publications have noted that this game is pretty short… but the spin they put on it was that it was a bad thing.  First of all, let me say that the game is exactly as long as it needs to be, it never felt like it was dragging on in any way or cut short in any way.  Secondly, this game is not short.  My definition of a short game would be something like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where you can blast through the campaign in about 4 hours or any other game in similar length where it wouldn’t be at all far-fetched for even a more casual gamer to beat it in one (or one and a half) sittings.  Alan Wake probably took me about 10-12 hours to beat.  I’m not exactly sure because there is no gameplay counter or anything.  But each of the 6 chapters can easily take 2 hours each, or more to beat.  Some are shorter than others, but even the short ones are quite lengthy.

I enjoyed Alan Wake 100% through and I’m very excited to play both of the planned DLC episodes (The Signal is already out and The Writer is planned for release).  This game is easily on my “play multiple times” list.

If you have a 360 and are any kind of fan of thrillers, action games, or just a fantastic story, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.>






New York City

I know it’s been a while since Tiffany and I came back from New York City but I wanted to make a post on my blog about it.  I’ve been a little bit busy lately so that’s what’s caused the delay in sharing our trip with everyone.

Here’s some pictures of the trip.  I only included like 60 or so but keep in mind that we took over 1,200! (a couple hundred at the Bronx Zoo alone.  That will get it’s own blog update).

We did so many things while we were there it’s hard to even remember everything exactly.  As soon as we got there, we hopped a bus down to a subway station in an attempt to get to grand central so we could walk to our hotel and dump our luggage.  Unfortunately, we took an express train in the wrong direction and it took us a while to figure out how to get back.  (fear not, by the 3rd day, we were subway pros!).

When we got to the hotel, we were shown up to our room by, quite possibly, the coolest old man on the planet.  I wish so badly that I would have asked him if I could take his picture but I didn’t.  After that we headed straight to Central Park to spend the day there.  We planned to get all of the outdoor stuff done in the first few days because it was supposed to rain a lot while we were there (it didn’t).  So we then spent hours walking all over Central park trying to navigate it from this poorly xeroxed map that we donated $1 to a homeless man to obtain.  Once we finally found the Grand Lawn, we plopped down and I fell asleep while Tiffany read her newest book.

That night, we went to The Empire State Building to catch the view of the city at night and it was pretty incredible.  It’s hard to imagine that a building that tall is as old as it is.

The next day, we spent most of the day at The Bronx Zoo.  This is a crazy huge zoo.  I’ll talk more about that in another update.  For dinner that night, we went to an incredible Churrascaria and proceeded to stuff ourself with as much meat as we could (and couldn’t) possibly handle in one sitting.  Then we went to Times Square and just sat around and enjoyed the lights and bustle.

The next day, we caught the ferry over to Liberty and Ellis Island.  Tiffany and I were both surprised at how much time we ended up staying in the Ellis Island Museum.  We didn’t know much about the whole process of immigration back then but it was very interesting and informative.  That night, for dinner, we went down to the Bleecker street and ate at the coolest Italian restaurant, run by the two coolest Italians on the planet.  You can barely even call this place a restaurant, given that there are exactly 6 cramped seats in the whole storefront.  The guys were hilarious and talked to us a bunch while we waited for our food to get made.  They tod us that since all the chairs were taken up, we could eat on the steps of the church next door, which we did.  Before we left, one of the guys told us to wait cause he had to get us some “stuff” to drink  (He kind of looked around when he said that).  He ran behind the counter and handed us some plastic cups with a yellowish liquid that turned out to be champagne.  We were the wrong people to give it to because neither of us drank it but the gesture was awesome.

The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History and spent most of the day there — The majority of our time there was upstairs in the dinosaur/prehistoric exhibit and then all the way downstairs for the planetarium and space exhibit.  That is the coolest science museum ever.  That night, we did my favorite thing while we were there and got to see The Lion King on Broadway.  I could talk for hours about this play but I can also easily condense it down into one word: Mind-blowing.  It’s amazing how they were able to translate scenes from an animated movie to the stage so seamlessly.  Never have I seen so much creativity, passion, and production in one place.

The next day, we spent a good bit of time at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was pretty awesome to see some of the incredibly famous works of art that I spent so much time studying in college.  After that we headed down to Rockerfeller Plaza and just kind of took everything in before visiting Nintendo World!  That day was the only day it rained while we were there, despite the weather reports, and it lasted all but 30 mins tops.  That night, we ate a pretty cool Thai place and then jumped over to Times Square to catch a showing of Iron Man 2.  At the movie theater, I lost hope in humanity (again) because they had around 10 screens showing Sex and the City 2 and every single one of them was sold out.  I just don’t get it…

Our last day in The Big Apple was spent  in Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, and then all the way uptown for a lunch at Tom’s Diner.  For the awesome people out there, this is the diner who’s exterior was used as the favorite coffee shop, Monk’s, in the best show to ever be on TV, Seinfeld.

It was exhausting but way too much fun.  Definitely the best trip I’ve ever been on.  I can truly see Milton Glaser’s inspiration for his immensely famous logo “I Love NY”






New WordPress blog!

Though it may look the same, This blog is now running smoothly with wordpress under it’s hood.

Instead of trying to migrate my old textpattern blog over to wordpress and have to deal with all the formatting and other things that don’t work right, I’ve just decided to keep all that the same and drop it in an new directory called “archives”.  Soon (once I get it all cleaned up) all my old posts will be able to be viewed there.  Stay tuned.

Update:

I’ve decided to just import the old textpattern database into wordpress.  it actually worked quite well.  The only thing that missing are my tags (I’ll get to those) and any one of my old posts that I had images in.  I was using a textpattern gallery plugin so that won’t work here.  Still trying to figure out how to deal with that.






A Brief Convo with JP

Here’s a quick rundown of a chat Mr. Anderson-Coovert and I had last night:

JP: Steam says you’re playing Adobe After Effects
Me: That’s right!
JP: I don’t get it, how does it know?
Me: I figured I’d add it as a third-party “game” because I’m always “playing” it so much. And, of course, I’m winning.
JP: Haha! Badass, dude. This is why we’re friends!






Holy Crap!

Well, my birthday is officially over and I’ve got to say, it was full of twists and turns of surprises and well planned out gifts by Tiffany. Never has anyone gone to so much trouble for me and I still can’t believe that she went through it all. But she was bustling all day, just as much as (or even more than) I was!

I also can’t believe that it’s still not finished yet. there’s one more surprise for me today that involves some more people so I’m excited about that.

What I really can’t believe is what Tiffany gave me for my final present. I’m going to tell you but you’re never going to believe it…

we’re going to NEW YORK CITY!!