4AM

Wow? I can not believe the time. It is now very close to 4am, I've been up since 10am yesterday and the time has really gone by. Why? I have been editing since after dinner, cutting pieces of our latest film together on my lovely new machine. Yes that is right I have purchased a wonderful Apple iMac. Big 24" display and running Final Cut Studio. I am loving every moment on it. But what have I done to make it to 4am, the fight scene. Some of the greatest scenes have been these, and I am building one up to be great. One that for amateur independent films can be proud of. The style is fast, the camera is shaky and the action is all over the screen. I can not wait until I have completed the edit and added some sound effects. That just makes everything worth while. The previous scene I finished editing earlier was the major stunt in the film, where my pal Robert fell down a hill and I had the skills to make it look like it hurt. Which wasn't that hard because in actual fact it did hurt, tumbling down a steep hill about twelve times has to hurt at least a bit. For what it's worth the film is shaping up to be rather well made. A bit shaky even for my liking but it adds to the atmosphere and mood of the film. Some will find it a little disorientating but others will bask in its glory and see it for what it is, our latest masterpiece. Our action film.

COD4 Online

Australia and Call Of Duty 4 does not seem to go well together. Online services that is. For whenever I attempt to play against some online players I always have the lowest ping, highest lag. The one bar syndrome. Now this should make it really hard to frag the enemy, well it does. But for some reason, I seem to beat it, I seem to live through the lag and get frags. But not just a few kills, I am the highest fragger, I am on the top of the score list for that match. Now I don't understand what is happening, for some reason they see me at least 2 to 3 seconds before me, and I end up killing them. Am I that much better than most people online? I must be, because I played it again last night, and got the highest score, but not only the highest, I was so far ahead of the next player it wasnt funny. And I had one bar! Maybe I've just learnt to deal with the lag and addapt to it, make it my own, make it work for me. I believe I have. But for now I just want to write and gloat about how good I am at COD4.

When do Apples fall from the Tree?

When will it end? The waiting it killing me. My dilemma? The Apple iMac. This fantastic looking, great to use all in one computer is almost at the end of its routine lifecycle of 205 Days. But what we don't know about these lifecycles, is that they could go on for another 50 or 100 days. And keep us waiting for the immenent update. But what of this update? No one actually knows, only rumors, and only rumors that is could be this Tuesday. But is it the iMac update? Or just the MacBook Pro? Or something stupid like the iPod Shuffle! I am stuck with this dilemma, of either waiting for the update so I have a brand spanking new machine with better specs. Or get the one now, and hopefully not be dissapointed because an update came out only a week after. This is my first venture into the Apple world, I have read lots and lots on them and it seems people just never know whats going to happen next. Because Apple only have a select few spec options in their machines its sort of hard not to wait because the gear inside the machine right now is getting old. I'm used to getting a PC. A PC to your specs, A PC to your dollars, make it yourself out of hundreds and hundreds of different pieces of equipment until you decide on the right configuration. Yes it gets quite confusing making a PC, but you can buy at anytime because there is always the latest processor ready to buy if you have the dollars, you never get held down to a few select items to pick for the next 200 days, while seeing a better GPU or better CPU come out at an even better price. But what of this with Apple? The price doesn't ever decrease, at all, until the update mahcine comes out. So here I am again, with my dilemma, purchase a machine to have right now, that is 200 days or more in the red as old tech. Or wait for the immenant new machine, the one no one knows when it will be released until it pops up one day and says hello new world.

MINOTAUR and JAPAN

Ah haha, I recently went to melbourne and I had a great time. That's right, I had fun in the big smoke. But for good reason too. For Lauren took me to a store that I had been told about plenty of times, informed of the greatness and dissed for the lack of having gone there. But now I can safely say, Ah haha, I have been there, and I love it!

This store was called ,

it was full of things I love, full of DVD's, full of TOYS from JAPAN (evangelion), full of Movie Propaganda, full of Comics, full of the sweet sweet feel of Japan. Yes this store, in its wonder made me reminiss on Japan, the many many stores that were the same. I was back, I was in Japan once again. We stayed for a long time looking at all the wonders of the place and I found some great comics, the ones I was missing, Star Wars: Dark Times 1 to 5 :-D. A great read on the way home. So after we bought some things, and left we went wandering in search of some little dolls called Blythe that Lauren has been searching for for a long time. We wandered up and down streets to all the other Toy/Comic shops, I found some more things I wanted, Lauren alas, did not find anything resembling Blythe. But in the midst of it all, we wandered through China/Asia Town and came across a little supermarket. For some reason I was drawn to it, as if by an invisible force. We entered the store, it was very sqaushed. But in the distance we saw something we recognised, a bottle of green tea, the bottle was familiar. We went closer, that bottle was in Japan, we had purchased it before. But, if that is here, what else from Japan was here? Could we actually have found somewhere with the same food that we got so hooked on in Japan and was one of the main reasons we wanted to venture back there. The answer, was YES! We found the jackpot,

Coffee in a Can ,
Pocari Sweat ,
Chocolate Tree Stumps ,

oh it was everywhere. We had found it at last. I loaded myself up with some coffee and sweat and we were off again in search of the dolls. But both much more happier, we had found that little piece of Japan we were searching for, it may not have been dolls, or Evangelion toys, but we still left feeling a little bit closer. Closer to that wonderous place we knew existed, closer to that land of the rising sun, closer to a place we also call home.

An HD-PS3?

The other day tragedy stuck me, my beloved Xbox 360 cafuffled itself and I knew it was only a short time before it finally carked it. Since I had two months left of my $90 extended warranty so I decided take it back to my local EB store and get a new one. To my not so suprise they were out of stock, all the EB's were out of stock of normal XB360. They had one XB Elite system, but I had to pay another $80 for it. Which I was considering when a thought crossed my mind, blu-ray has won the DVD format, PS3 has blu-ray, get a PS3. I asked the EB man if I could do this, and yes, he said yes. I was extatic. I got a PS3 for $50, how awesome I thought. I've been playing my PS3 for a few weeks now, I got 3 games, COD4, Burnout Paradise and The Darkness. All awesome games. But one thing kept happening with the games, for some reason even though I have a TV that supports 1080i the games were only playing at 720P. What was going on, why is Burnout playing at 720P? I went through all the settings on the console, I couldn't figure out why the games were only playing at 720P. Until I looked at the game cover, Burnout's only resolution is...720P. What is going on? Maybe it's just Burnout, the other games can support 1080i and p. So I was stumped at why the PS3 was only showing the minimum resolution on my TV. I forumed it a bit, and found that the PS3 will downscale games to 720P if the TV will not support 1080P, the reason I found was that a majority of the games only support 720P. A Majority? What games? Well I went on the hunt. Assasins Creed, Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4. The three newest games released across both systems. What's going on, I had to find out if it was the game creaters decision. Alas it wasn't, after checking the XB360 versions of the games I found that all of them supported up to 1080p. What happened sony? What happened to more storage on Blu-Ray discs? What happened to the Cell Processor? What happened to High Definition gaming. Now I know some people will address that 720P is high definition. But it is not when the XB versions of the exact same game support better resolution, it is not when I've had blu-ray means high def drilled into my head, it is not when I trade in my beloved XB360 for a "superior" console system, or so they say. I say not, I say I am pissed off. I say if it wasn't for Metal Gear Solid 4 I would not have a PS3 right now. Damn you sony for making the PS3 so hard to program for and making everyone have to downgrade their games just to release it on your console. Damn you...

CARS

I love my car, and I hate my car. Why oh why does my car have to have problems right now? Right when insurance is due, rego is due, and I've been saving my coinage for a while to get myself a good ol Apple Imac. But alas, my car had to have problems. Now I am stuck with a dilemma, spend money on my car and fix the twenty year old vehicle. Sell my car and spend money on a newer car that could have just as bad problems. Ride out these problems until my car blows up or get a bike and ride.
Well I have to make these decisions quite soon, I've got some personal work to do on the vehicle before I give it over to the mechanics that say there are a million and one problems that need attention to it. So I guess my week has been chosen for me. Why oh why do we build things that are designed to break? Why don't we strive for excellence. I know what I am going to do, save up for the Tesla, the electric car, the revolution. And buy that Imac that I've been putting off for weeks and weeks.

The Studio - Part 01

As most of my friends know, I, along with Robert have been working on developing a studio for film and television media in Albury Wodonga. It's been an idea for a while now, and is starting to see the light of day. Back before christmas I emailed many people in the Wodonga Council. I got one reply, not a generic reply, not a 'you're out of your mind'. I got a reply from the production ad develpment manager, he along with others there were very keen on the idea of a film studio. We organised a meeting for the start of February.
The meeting was very well recieved, Robert and I went along thinking that it would be me and him talking to a guy and than, our minds went blank. We didn't know what to do next. Robert had been thinking the same thing over and over in his mind all morning, 'they're going to ask us how old we are, we're going to say, and they're going to laugh and walk away'. That was quite a misconception that he had, for in the meeting they were quite extatic that we were so enthusiatic about the product that they didn't even care to ask us.
Since the meeting Robert and I have been putting together a few points on why a studio would work, how it would survive, how it would grow and establish itself in the region. We sent our finding off last thursday and are awaiting a reply. It will come, we just have to wait.