Friday fun redux

Watch in amazement as I finish the week on a positive note, laughing in the face of all those (people and things) that have pissed me off this week.

1. If you see 'owlet' and think it is some kind of exotic omelette, then shame on you! In reality it is a tiny owl. An owl so tiny that they don't even call it an owl. An owl so tiny, it has its own genus! (kings play chess on fat girls stomachs... a genus is one step up from a species). An article with words about owlets lives here. While an article with hot owl-on-hand action is here.
2. Owlets are cute, but they are no Red Panda. Red pandas are related to the big black and white pandas you normally think of, even though they look like little cat sized racoon-fox-bears. (Note: do not confuse a racoon-fox-bear with a manbearpig! One is extremely cute and cuddly, the other is Al Gore.)
3. What could possibly be cuter than a Red Panda and an Owlet? A mini red panda! Sorry for sending you to an msn video page, but it is all I have. It is worth it though. Note that these are very endangered animals, they have a death rate of nearly 90%. If you think zoos are bad and horrible and evil, well fuck you, I'd rather have some red pandas living in spaces smaller than their natural habitat, then to not have any red pandas in the world.

And for things not cute, but still fun nevertheless

1. Want to try out a Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 without spending $2500+? Well, check out LensRentals.com, where you could let that bad boy live with you for 2 weeks for the low price of $130. Other lens have different prices, like the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro that I want to try which would only put me out $50 for two weeks.
2. Kaleidescape won its fight with the DVD Copy Control Association. Kaleidescape makes a set of 'computers'/'consumer electronic devices' that let you rip your entire DVD library, and then access any DVD from your TV using a fancy menu system. In a nutshell the DVD CCA is a bunch of freaking lunatics (along with the RIAA, the MPAA, and the rest of the bunch) who think that now is a good time to try to overturn fair use / personal copy / VCR rulings that were made back in the 70s.
3. Kwik-E-Marts.

Adobe CS3 Lust

I'm lusting after Photoshop CS3 Extended. I have been using the PS CS3 (standard) beta for a long time and it is a great improvement over even the CS2 version.

PS CS3 Extended wasn't available for me to beta, but I have seen that it has rotoscoping capabilities - and if you don't know what that means, 'rotoscoping' roughly translates to 'awesomeness'.

Official pricing hasn't been up very long, I finally got around to checking it out today (I think it may only have been up this week) and decided I didn't like how I had to flip between pages on the Adobe site to see what all the bundles are, so I made my own. Maybe this is handy for someone else so I'll post it. Oh, and yea I'm pissed that Lightroom isn't part of a bundles - that removes one of the reasons I was going to go with it instead of Aperture. (really I don't care about you, but posting it here means I'll find it in a month when I want it again)

	Production Premium	Design Prem.	Design Std	Web Prem.	Web Std	Master
Photoshop	Y	Y	Std	Y		Y
Illustrator	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y
Flash	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y
InDesign		Y	Y			Y
Fireworks				Y	Y	Y
Dreamweaver		Y		Y	Y	Y
Acrobat		Y	Y	Y		Y
Contribute				Y	Y	Y
After Effects	Y					Y
Premiere	Y					Y
Soundbooth	Y					Y
Encore	Y					Y
Bridge	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Cue		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Device Central	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Stock Photos		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Connect	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
DynamicLink	Y					Y
OnLocation	Windows					Windows
Ultra	Windows					Windows

I really hope that when I bought CS2 I got a Suite, and not just Photoshop and Illustrator as individual pieces... I know I have an older (pre-cs2) Suite but it doesn't give as good of an upgrade pricing.

New toy...

Quick post. I do have things to bitch about, but I hurt my hand and it is hard to type today.


I am now the proud owner of excessive toolage. A DeWalt D55168 15-gallon 200 PSI electric air compressor lives in my garage. Putting out 5.4 SCFM ('standard' cubic feet per minute, which apparently is different than just a 'non-standard' CFM) at 100 PSI it is twice as powerful as some of the other compressors in this physical size range (<4ft tall, and <2ft wide)

The 78 dB rating puts it in the OSHA 'full day' safety category (well it puts it outside of what OSHA restricts technically), about twice as loud as normal conversation but not as loud as a telephone ringer. Those 78dB also makes it almost half as quiet as the other units that were available. (most of which were at 85dB, and a 10dB change is a perceptual doubling)

The downside is that it was more expensive than the other options. The other options also came with hoses, and in some cases tools. But, it a generator can come with a hose and a set of 6 tools for less than the price of this generator (and not much more than a seperately purchased nail gun) it is probably junk that is just going to break down that I don't want to be involved with.

(oh, and yea I know the gamercard display is currently 'broken'. Xbox Live service is down for maintenance 3/27/07 per Major Nelson)

What looks like a salad, but is not?

Question: What looks like a salad, costs the same price as a salad, is in the salad section, but is not a salad?
Answer: Whatever the hell this is that I bought for lunch.

Through the package you couldn't tell that this wasn't really a salad. The plastic lids on the pre-made salads available in our cafeteria are often fogged from condensation/etc. It was placed with all the rest of the salads, it was in the same container as a salad, and it cost $5.99 like the other salads. Looks decent enough from afar. Didn't seem like a risk.

So, I bought what I thought was a salad that had tomato cubes, shreded cheese, crumbled bacon, crumbled egg, cubes of turkey, and chunks of blue cheese (which I was planning on pushing off, I only really like blue cheese dressing with spicy stuff, not a fan of it 'raw').

The pictures below show the truth. They are taken with my camera phone so they aren't very good, but you'll get the point.

First, the Reality of The Cheese. What should have been yummy shredded cheese was actually some sort of tasteless slimy mess. I have no idea what it is. Three people polled were also at a loss. Yes, it was as 'moist' as the picture makes it look. (note: the blue tint was due to my cameraphone not dealing with white LED light).


On one side of the "cheese" the cubed tomatoes were living. I saw 'living' and I mean it. Upon closer inspection it was not so much 'cubed tomatoes' as it was a 'semi-gelatinous tomato-based entity'.


Another thing that the fogged cover hid was that the yellow crumbled egg yolks were not evenly yellow. There were some sections that were bright yellow, but there were also some real tasty looking brown areas. This picture doesn't really work very well - oh and the liquid isn't some weird decompsed egg, it was the oil/vinegar salad dressing.


I didn't take a picture of the 'bacon'. I was tired of having this 'food' in my office. The picture would not have revealed that the crumbled bacon was actually made out of fetid weasel meat.