eve of the new year

Trip back home went well, great to be home now. Sleeping in your own bed is amazing, especially after six nights being deprived from it. Great to see friends and family especially. Until next time! I got some cool presents from people, my sister even acquired some hand-made goods that are really intriguing. This will be my last entry until next year, I have loads more photos to upload from our trip but I will leave you with a couple random hdr's I just finished a few minutes ago.

cats cats cats

Here are a couple more cat photo's, Like I ever get tired of these right... Look at Abby playing fetch!

Breath easy my friends..

AP • New York Times • MSNBC • USA TODAY • AP Hi Tech

Music industry drops effort to sue song swappers


Dec 19, 6:08 PM (ET)

By RYAN NAKASHIMA
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.
The move ends a controversial program that saw the Recording Industry Association of America sue about 35,000 people since 2003 for swapping songs online. Because of high legal costs for defenders, virtually all of those hit with lawsuits settled, on average for around $3,500. The association's legal costs, in the meantime, exceeded the settlement money it brought in.
The association said Friday that it stopped sending out new lawsuits and warnings in August, and then agreed with several leading U.S. Internet service providers, without naming which ones, to notify alleged illegal file-sharers and cut off service if they failed to stop.
It credited the lawsuit campaign with raising awareness of piracy and keeping the number of illegal file-sharers in check while the legal market for digital music took off. With two weeks left in the year, legitimate sales of digital music tracks soared for the first time past the 1 billion mark, up 28 percent over all of last year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

"We're at a point where there's a sense of comfort that we can replace one form of deterrent with another form of deterrent," said RIAA Chairman and Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol. "Filing lawsuits as a strategy to deal with a big problem was not our first choice five years ago."
The new notification program is also more efficient, he said, having sent out more notices in the few months since it started than in the five years of the lawsuit campaign.
"It's much easier to send notices than it is to file lawsuits," Bainwol said.
The decision to scrap the legal attack was first reported in The Wall Street Journal.
The group says it will still continue to litigate outstanding cases, most of which are in the pre-lawsuit warning stage, but some of which are before the courts.
The decision to press on with existing cases drew the ire of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who is defending a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits.
"If it's a bad idea, it's a bad idea," said Nesson. He is challenging the constitutionality of the suits, which, based on the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999, can impose damages of $150,000 per infringement, far in excess of the actual damage caused.
Nesson's client, Joel Tenenbaum, faces the possibility of more than $1 million in damages for allegedly downloading seven songs illegally, which Nesson called "cruel and unusual punishment." The case is set to go to trial in district court in Massachusetts on Jan. 22.
Brian Toder, a lawyer with Chestnut & Cambronne in Minneapolis, who defended single mother Jammie Thomas in a copyright suit filed by the RIAA, said he is also set to retry the case March 9 after a judge threw out a $222,000 decision against her.
"I think it's a good thing that they've ended this campaign of going after people," Toder said.
"But they need to change how people spend money on records," he said. "People like to share music. The Internet makes it so easy. They have to do something to change this business model of theirs."

pleasantly surprised

Today turns out to be a Friday surprise. I finished my project that is due on Monday so my teacher said I had no need to come in on Friday, so things worked out nicely I think. I finished my 16 page annual report that I produced. It was done on the company,Nikon. I think the layout turned out pretty good, I mean you really cannot get to terribly creative with an annual report since it is a corporate document highlighting shares and business etc. The printer in class has a fuse problem so I will have to reprint if I want to use this project for my portfolio. So anyway tomorrow is open, I will try and mess with some photo stuff. I learned the process of creating HDR, which is pretty lengthy but awesome and worth it. I will post the first one I did, just a lamp in the living room. Not spectacular but cool nonetheless. Time to get geared up for the trip home, should be there Tuesday night if weather permits. Hopefully no snow on the grapevine. I am out!

Why now all of the sudden?

Hahahaha, What a good sport, pretty fast too.

It is raining in San Diego!!!
WOWZERS! I have bottled some in a shiny green jar as proof of this rare occurrence. I will be holding a press conference at 1:30 to show my findings. Yeah, I am stupid but whatever. The Kings fired their coach Reggie Theus which is also stupid. He was the best dressed coach in the league... now what are the kings supposed to do? That was about all they had going for them. In other news, Abigail is nuts. That is pretty much all I got.

Here are a few night long exposures. Nothing too cool but I had fun experimenting down the street.

calm before the storm

I am really enjoying my new toy.
My camera is fun to play with, the cats are tired of getting photographed I think though. I went outside earlier and took a few photos. I love my 50mm f/1.4d lens. The rich depth of field is great. I also upgraded my flickr account so now I can upload better quality files without any restrictions. I can also upload video to flickr now as well. I still have not fully experimented with it yet but be sure that I will. I will post a few photos after this. Tonight if it is clear I might take a shot at some long exposures down the street. I will get to posting those later tomorrow if that works out.

School is going well. I am in the middle of the last project for this class which should take us until the end of next week or monday I believe. I have honestly enjoyed having the teacher that we do. He is a straight shooter and definitely is real with everyone. He is full of useful knowledge so It has been very productive and I've been trying to soak everything up like a sponge. After break I will start my last design class for my A.S. degree then it is on to general Ed which has to be taken during the mornings. Yes, I will have to start waking up at like 6:30 to get to school every morning. No more afternoon laziness on my part. I should be done with the A.S. in May I believe, then the next day it is on to the B.S. program where I will be focusing on 3d animation etc. That too will only take place in the mornings so I seriously need to soak this afternoon gig up while I still have the chance. One good thing is that I will be out of class by 12:00 everyday which is early day in my book.

For Christmas break Mary and I are going back to Merced for like 4 or 5 days I think. Her family is kind enough to put us up during our stay, Her Auntie Joe and Uncle Romie as well as cousin Rowell are the coolest and nicest family, funny senses of humor as well. So there are a ton of other people here in SD going back to Merced, it is like the San Diego's Merced chapter coming for a visit. Hopefully we will all have a good time. Mary's sister Glenda, Tony and family should also be making an appearance there in Merced. It may be overwhelming during our stay but we will make-due. We are forced to acquire the services of a cat sitter while we are away, ensuring they are fed and taken care of during our trip. I thought it was a pretty clever business being an animal sitter albeit kind of odd at the same time. They are willing to do the work on Christmas Day even so it saves us a lot of worry at least. By the way, Abigail is doing well after her spaying debacle, crazy as ever to be honest. She now has a tail which is broken in two places due to her rowdy nature. So anyway Merced is our destination for the holiday because naturally, that is where all of our family is. I hope it is not too cold but of course it will be. Can't wait to see a few old friends as well as family. My nieces and nephews are probably all taller than me by now.

at least there is that..

Season is in full rebuild mode, no Kevin Martin... no problem???
Wins against the Lakers go a long way. They meet back up on friday in LA. Oh yeah, nice 9 for 25 Kobe, That was John Salmons guarding you if you hadn't noticed. Happy to give you your third loss on the season, it's all the Kings have going for them at the moment.

HOLY HELL

So I was on a walk coming back from the Cafe down the street and as I turn the corner I hear what sounds like a sonic boom—the noise was loud enough that I could feel the bass ripple through the air. I am thinking,"holy shit something just happened!" I see some smoke billowing into the air and I am thinking something just fell from the sky or something. I walk back into the apartment and I hear tons of sirens, turn on the tv and breaking news almost immediately..they are sending helicopters and engines asap to get coverage. My coverage was just down the street so I grab my camera and get as close as I could. An F-18 fighter jet crashed directly into a house, the pilot was ejected while my neighbors could see the guy float down from the sky into an area school field. Mind you this is within a quarter mile or so from my apartment. As of right now two homes are completely destroyed, I don't know if anyone was inside the homes, hopefully no animals or people are hurt. CRAZY way to start my afternoon. I wish I would have bought that telephoto but oh well. I might go see what the wreckage looks like in a little while if they let people that close. Here are some photos I got. Notice there are like 40 cars in a row in the no parking anytime lane and the one where the soccer players aren't phased in the least.. Game On!!! ( EDIT: two people are confirmed dead and two people are missing.)

Impulsive tendencies.

I got it.
I have a new object to obsess over. I got a new dslr. I have wanted a dslr for a LONG time, I just could never justify spending the dough, besides they are much less portable and quite pricey if you want good lenses etc. Now it is important that I start accumulating good quality shots for design work. Also it is great to have high quality images for documentation of our lives. I used to LOVE my photography class back in high school, I thought maybe that would be what I went on to do as a career but it never materialized obviously. I have shot film here and there on my Nikon n90s but it has seen much better days. My little casio usually gets the vast majority of jobs done, no problem—well actually one BIG problem, Lack of creative freedom. I love having that versatility of a slr.. besides having a rangefinder, I could not be more content. I got the new Nikon d90 and it is a pretty awesome camera. It is capable of 720 p high definition video, although it is tricky since there is no autofocus, You can only get 5 minutes of footage at a time in 720 blah blah blah. What IS cool about it is that your creative touch is limitless since you have all these nikkor lenses to match up with that 720p. I have seen some really creative videos from the camera, I personally have not had a chance to even attempt one but I will be sure to post them when the time comes. I coupled the Camera's body with the 18-55mm kit lens that comes on the d40 which is decent but flimsy feeling. I also acquired the 50mm f/1.4 which is SWEET in low light ( I hate flashes for the most part.) The camera has a lot of pretty cool settings out of the box which is good for people who are not privy to controls on a slr. Anyway I got a ton of stuff to do this weekend, large project due monday for critique so looks like I will be going to the lab on sunday. Here are a few of the first shots taken last night.

I think I am needy

I am a needy person. Come to think of it, you can call it a lot of different things, spoiled, entitled, accustomed. When things aren't going according to plan, I get in a rut. Not like a deep depression but some days things are just kinda whatever you know.
I am used to hearing new music just about every week. I seek new tunes pretty much every tuesday awaiting a new release that maybe I did not realize was coming out etc. I await this like a child awaits an afternoon snackpack. When there is a week where nothing seems to catch my ear I get a little irritable. I look for those jams that I never got to get a feel for from the past or maybe just some classics. The music scene has gotten very saturated so these days it is difficult to differentiate between shitty music and artists who are onto something, I enjoy taking this task—it is like an adventure to me. This time of year is slow for music as well. Hip Hop is one of my comfort genre's, I have been very passionate about my hip hop as I feel there is a very large gap between what hip hop is and what hip hop is not. The scene is very shitty right now to be honest. Nothing like what it was in the early nineties to early two thousands. There is still good hip hop out there but sometime you get fooled by artists you thought were set in their musical foundation and they totally flip the script on you. There is nothing wrong with innovation but there comes a breaking point when you just have to put down the craft once it is unrecognizable to those who got them to where they are today.

Indie music is a beast, there is so much raw talent out there that most will never hear in their lifetimes which is sad. I used to be stuck up and mislead. I thought good music was only for those who truly knew what was REALLY going on. I acted pretentious and was probably annoying to a lot of people. I think everyone should be exposed to artists who take pride in their crafts that go far beyond any monetary gain. I think there is a place for commercial music, there is also some good commercial music out there—just not for me on the greater scale. It is like some record execs got together and did brain wave testing on primitive animals and passed the data along to the vast majority of commercial producers. That beepy, whispering shit simply bothers and perplexes me. The thing is that if more people drove the independent scene, don't you think more people would produce good, whole hearted music? Maybe, maybe not. The marketing giants know what works and won't waste too much time on risky business. The problem is that they are the ones who control the airwaves, see CLEAR CHANNEL. Well that is my morning rant, I've been up since early this morning eagerly awaiting the fedex man so I can itch that spoiled scratch. It is a love hate relationship being a consumer.

Adidas Commercial etc..

New Adidas commerical is too good... Homage to the roots. The track is a remix done by Palooski by Frankie Valli and the four seasons. Also that new Lebron commerical is pretty good sans the Lil Wayne appearance. The track on that one is by Cornershop...remember them? the album "When I was born for the seventh time," is a solid one for the collection.

under the knife.

This morning I took Abigail in to get spayed. I felt pretty bad since this was the first time she ever showed a lot of fear while entering the cat carrier, it is like she knew what was at stake on this day. So I take her in, say I am sorry while she is being transported to some unknown place behind the scenes at the vet. I come home and Penelope realizes that there is something missing, she starts purring and being playful with me.. she looks content just sleeping with peace of mind, knowing there is no little monster lurking, awaiting an attack. So we will see what Abigail looks like with a shaved belly and one of those cone neck things on. Also get to see what disappointment looks like in Penelope's eyes once she sees the little nuisance is back.
Poor little one, I think she saw it coming.