The new Mario Bros is so awesome. And my favourite character, Yoshi is back! Wii!
I also picked up a sweet new blue DSi and instantly got hooked on the musical game, Rhythm Heaven. It is the silliest game I've played since WarioWare Smooth Moves for the Wii, which is definitely cool in my books. As you may have guessed, I'm a wee bit strange. 8-P
3 Comments » | Tagged in Entertainment, Geeky Stuff, Videos
Last week I visited Nintendo Canada & Mario at their Vancouver offices to check out some of the new games and gear that they announced at 2009's E3 conference. It was loads of fun. Especially when I beat Nintendo game guru, Matt Ryan at Swordplay. Ha! Well... he may have won best 2 out of 3, but I gave him a run for his money!
Also, my arms were so stiff the next day that I could hardly type. The new Wii Sports Resorts kinda kicked my butt a little. *starts to head to gym... grabs a donut instead :P*
Stay tuned for Part 2. Even more embarrassing moments playing the new Wii Fit Plus & Super Mario Bros and an inside look at the new DS games! Oh boy!
PS I'm actually pretty ace at frisbee. It was that darn Wii Mii dog that couldn't get his act together.
11 Comments » | Tagged in Geeky Stuff, Videos
Shot with the Sony DSC-T500.
The last time I was in San Francisco, I was determined to go to the zoo to catch some wildlife shots to add to my growing collection of animal portraits. I had such an amazing time at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in the Gold Coast of Australia with the roos, koalas, and attack emus and I was excited to get up and close with some other cute, but ferocious beasties.
But as usual, there were several things that prevented me from acquiring some awesome animal portraits.
1. I arrived at the zoo, one hour before closing. Nice one, sleepy pants.
2. It was literally so foggy that I nearly walked into a giraffe.
3. My camera battery was 1/4 from deadzo. Sweet.
4. I forgot my memory cards. Not a single one. Uh. How does that even happen when you have like 10.
5. All the lemurs, gorillas, and cool animals were hiding, asleep, or had made an escape earlier that day.
I may have cried a little, but then I realized I had the lovely little Sony DSC-T500 with me, so I decided to capture some "moving pictures" instead. I shot this at 720p and it looks fantastic.
Also, after visiting this park, I really felt morally torn about zoos and animals raised in captivity. The animals just seemed so cramped and sad and annoyed at the screaming bratty kids. I certainly love seeing these animals up close, but seeing their faces behind bars made me so very sad. Maybe I just don't know enough about how zoos are run, and maybe I am just naive about what life is like in the wild for these creatures. Basically, I just want to hug each and every one of these animals, even the prickly ones.
23 Comments » | Tagged in Opinion, Videos
Sublime Sunset on Kits Beach captured with an iPhone.
So many people whine about the iPhone's camera quality and say that it can't take good pictures. It's my strong belief that you can take great shots with any camera, even a 2 MP iPhone camera. It's definitely a greater challenge to get a good exposure on an iPhone vs a 5D MkII, but it's not impossible.
If you are up for the challenge, here are 5 apps that will help you take smashing iPhone pictures:
Fast Tap Camera snapped my awesome new scooter trick. :P
Shaky hands = shaky picture. Unless you are going for some motion blur, or light painting, then you probably want a sharp picture. The problem is the camera button is so fracking small and awkwardly placed, especially if you are taking a photo from any other angle other than straight in front of you. That's why you need Fast Tap Camera. Press anywhere on the screen and snap! Excellent for narcissistic twitpics of yourself. :P
Easter eggs in a supermarket never looked so good.
The exposure is locked on the iPhone, which means that you can't change it. There is a way to mess with the exposure by focusing the camera on a dark spot and quickly shifting it into the light, and snapping the shot almost simultaneously. This technique requires serious ninja skills. If you aren't quite at a black belt level with your iPhone camera like Chase Jarvis, you may need a little post-production help.
Photogene allows you to adjust levels, exposure, colours, saturation, among other things (cropping, adding text, speech bubbles, etc.. I use this app more than any other. It's well worth the $2.99.
NightCamera gives Buena Vista Park, SF a little boost.
You shouldn't really have high expectations for iPhone shots taken in a dark restaurant. They are always going to look noisy and fairly crappy, but using NightCamera makes them slightly less crappy. Yeah! My suggestion is that you try using NightCamera any situation where the light is low, like the forest in the above picture.
Either way, NightCamera has a neat accelerometer assisted camera mode where the shutter fires when the phone is steady, and a timer mode. You can also prop up your iPhone on a table top or against a wall to keep it steady. If you are really gung-ho, Joby makes a gorilla pod for mobile devices called the Go-Go.
I used the Center Spot filter to fake the LensBaby effect around my mum and I.
Add an optical filter of pizzaz to your shots by applying one of the 26 filters in Tiffen's Photo fx. This is one of my favourite apps for making photos pop. Add a colour gradient to make sunsets more punchy, a polarizer to make skies richer, vignette to make faces stand out. You can even layer a bunch of filers on top of each other for a super cool effect.
This boat house looks extra derelict with Camera Bag's Helga preset.
CameraBag is the easiest photo apps to use, and one of the coolest. Choose your photo and scroll through the 8 presets. I like the Helga (faux Holga) & Lolo (faux Lomo) settings the best. I find that the Fisheye setting never really comes out and the Infrared setting is just plain weird, but experiment with your own shots. You never know what you'll come up with.
Photos don't have to be perfect to capture a memorable place, scene, or moment, but they do need to be taken. So shoot with whatever you've got and make it spectacular!
16 Comments » | Tagged in Featured, Photography
1. I missed an early morning Fedex pickup for an iMac that I needed yesterday because I was sleeping and didn't catch the phone until the last ring, so I ran down to the street after the Fedex guy in my pajamas, and literally missed him by a second.
2. I gave myself whiplash as I was running down the stairs to catch the Fedex guy and couldn't turn my head to the left for about 3 hours.
3. The hot water in my shower ran out as I was trying to alleviate my neck pain.
4. I DROPPED MY iPHONE IN THE TOILET when I was calling the landlord from the bathroom. I hit my funny bone on the tap which caused me to "ow ow ow" and kurpluk! Right in the bowl. (Remarkably, due to the fact that I had the Griffin Clarifi case on it and I have reflexes like a cat, it didn't get completely wet and still worked. For a while).
5. The entire side view mirror on my crappy 1995 Pontiac Firefly fell off as I was driving downtown.
6. I got stuck in rush hour traffic for 50 mins and missed two appointments because I had to stop the car and retrieve the side view mirror wreckage from the road.
8. Returning to the car, I realized that I had lost my car & apartment keys. This was of course when my iPhone died, so I had to use a cafe's phone to call for help. After retracing my every step for 3 hours, I did not find my keys.
9. Then I got a parking ticket for $60.
What can you do but cry, laugh a little, and sob until snot is running down your face? Thanks to Ry & Paz for helping me find my way home.
Worst. Day. Ever.
Have you ever had a really bad day? Tell me about it in the comments.
I will give away a Griffin Clarifi case and a big online hug to the best answer. If you don't have an iPhone, or you also dropped your phone in the toilet like me, or the bathtub, then I will find some other fun prize to send you.
Follow me on the Twitters so you can find out who won!
74 Comments » | Tagged in Life