Culture

Movies — 1 Comment
2
Jun 09

SIFF schedule for 6/2-6/5, come join me!

Here’s my tentative SIFF schedule for this week.  All movies are subject to last minute changes due to mood, word-of-mouth reviews, and traffic!

Tuesday, 6/2

Most likely I’ll be seeing the Shortsfest, but Dead People is a possible alternative.

Wednesday, 6/3

Thursday, 6/4

It’s a toss-up between Zombies and The Clone, not sure yet where I’ll be.

Friday, 6/5

Another toss-up, either Dynamite or OSS 117, depends on when Humpday ends.

Photography — No Comments
28
Dec 08

Good HDR is Subtle

HDR is great, and can create stunning photographs, but many people overuse it. Good HDR should be subtle, enhancing the image rather than overwhelming it.

Here’s one of my first HDR shots on the left, extending the exposure to capture all the detail and soften the image – compared to the original on the right, a single-exposure shot:

  

The original is harsher and the light is overexposed in order to capture the detail in the shadows. The HDR version is much improved, but without being told it’s hard to tell that it was post-processed. That’s what I think HDR should be.

Movies / News — No Comments
28
Dec 08

Christmas Gifts 2008

Time for bragging – I received two awesome Christmas gifts this year!

SIFF 2009 Pass: Last year I caught the last week of SIFF, watching 22 movies. Now I have a full pass to the whole festival this year – 25 days of FREE movies and the special pass-holders line. I can’t wait…I’ve already scheduled 3 weeks of 1/2 days at the office!

Style Consultation & Personal Shopping: This is very cool! I recently lost a bunch of weight so I need to shop for new clothes, but I’m not very style aware. My closet is half Hawaiian shirts and half threadless t-shirts, mixed with too-big pants. I’ve been waiting for someone to submit a video of me to What Not To Wear but no luck yet, this is the next best thing :p

Movies — 1 Comment
17
Jul 08

Dr. Horrible == awesome

Movies — 1 Comment
5
Jul 08

SIFF Movie List

22 movies in 1 week – what did I see?

Apollo 54
Bookie
Chrysalis
Empties
Encounters at the End of the World
The End
Fugitive Pieces
The Girl by the Lake
The Island of Lost Souls
La France
Lady Jane
Lakshmi and Me
Letting Go of God
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane that Crashed on the Mountains
Sukiyaki Western Django
Summer Heat
The Tailor
Timecrimes
Triangle
Visioneers
The Wackness
The Young Master

Movies — No Comments
16
Jun 08

SIFF: Finished!

SIFF is over. I missed the first two weeks, but made a valiant effort to catch up in the last week, averaging 3 movies a night! It was awesome, others thought I would be burned out after watching so many movies but I never felt a twinge of excess. The only negative was trying to remember the schedule of what you were seeing next, or when you watched something already (it all blurs together – was Apollo 54 yesterday, or was that Girl by the Lake?).

Yes, I’ll definitely do it again next year, and I’ll have a full pass next time :)

Movies — No Comments
8
Jun 08

SIFF

So many movies, so little time. The Seattle Intl Film Festival is wrapping up its last week now, and I have missed most of it (again!). Every year I plan to buy a full-access pass & take half-days from work so I can watch all the movies that interest me, and every year SIFF sneaks up on me and catches me unprepared.

Now I’m making the best of the remaining week – I’ve friends lined up to be dragged to various shows (you need to have multiple friends b/c not everyone wants to see everything!).

Next year I will write an optimizing tool where ppl can input their movie list and rank them, then an optimized schedule will be presented for use – trying to do this on paper is an exercise in patience :)

(yes, I like movies – I have seen/rated >2000 movies in Netflix!)

Music — 1 Comment
22
Oct 06

Pink Martini

No, it’s not a drink :) Pink Martini is an awesome music troupe from Portland, OR, and they were playing in town last Friday night at Benaroya Hall. Lots of fun in person, we heard a preview of songs from their upcoming album as well as some of their classics. They performed in conjunction with the Seattle Symphony – talk about having a good backup band!

Their music would be best described as latin jazz, but they are much more varied than that. You can sample some tracks from their albums on Amazon.com.

Drawing — No Comments
12
Oct 06

Why take art classes?

I’ve been asked this a lot recently, I’m going to get all serious and philosophical to explain it :)

The short version – I have found that as you develop new skills and knowledge, your perception of the world around you changes and improves. And that’s what I’m striving for – an increased perception of the world around me – I want to see more and better, I don’t want to be blind.

The long version…

As a software engineer, when I use an application I can infer how it was built and how it works, what limits the designers and engineers had to work around, and the influence from other applications. I can appreciate the work that went into good applications, or the lack of work that went into bad. If I didn’t know how applications were created then I wouldn’t have such insight – I’d just know whether I liked it or not. But it’s not limited to just appreciation, but also the skill to be able to do it yourself…to know how you would start, how you would finish, and how to get from the start to the finish.

This same increased perception applies to everything – sports, dance, music, art, literature, engineering, etc. For me, I’ve always been interested in technical subjects, and I’ve tried my hand at many sports. I’ve read many books (but I’ve yet to write one), and I’ve tried playing an instrument. But my last attempts at art were a very long time ago, and I wanted to have that experience again as an adult. Figure drawing is just the start…other classes offered include portrait drawing, still life, and abstract drawing (capturing the essence of the subject).

That’s why I’m taking art classes – I want to learn to see how an artist sees. To be able to look at something and know how to capture the tones and shapes and life of the subject on paper, as well as understand the works of others.

This also means eventually I’ll have to tackle my lack of musical and dance abilities…but that’s for another time!

Sculpture — No Comments
10
Oct 06

Industrial hot-glue guns

In addition to the drawing class, I’m also taking a welding class. It’s a lot of fun – we’re learning both oxy-acetylene torch welding and MIG welding. Using the torch is just like soldering…but much hotter :) The MIG welder is an arc welder with a shielding gas blowing around the weld point, and it has an auto-feeding rod…it uses a pistol grip, and operates just like a hot-glue gun.

This class is focused mostly on technique and metal-working skills – cutting, bending, grinding, and welding. There is time to work on individual projects at various points in the class – the first project was to make a box with a lid, so there was lots of latitude to make what you wanted. I don’t know what the next project is, but I already have ideas for what I want to make when the class is over.

The class is held at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in the central district in Seattle. You can also rent studio access at an hourly or monthly rate, so once you know what you are doing you can keep doing it without needing to invest in all your own equipment. This saves you about $20K in toys that you don’t have to buy to setup your own metal shop ;)

I’ve some photos of us welding with torches, I’ll post them soon.

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