Quicktime 7

I have solved the mystery of the “movie is burry on my PC” problem – you need Quicktime 7. Unless you are already are an itunes user download the standalone version – I had a problem with itunes on my PC and I had to do a system restore to get my computer to see my CD burner. No fun when you are under deadline. Here is a link to Quicktime 7 without itunes.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html

BTW you need Quicktime 7 to see Jon’s movie which I enjoyed. I feel like that sometimes – you know a thing is going to be a disaster yet trance like you move toward it anyway… The plaintive and lonely trumpet music was a nice touch.

I am doing etching on metal for my movie seeing as I did not have a sequence for the pity party and I’m in enough trouble with the classification project. Got all that feedback on vacation categories - came home and looked at the thing and became more confused…

Sound Forge Rocks!

If you are going to use your voice (or your voice as a robot) to explain your "how to" movie I recommend Sound Forge. My co-worker turned me on to it and it is very robust and easy to use. I used 100% voulme and medium room reverb and it sounds pretty good! Here is one of many sites that you can download a trial version. - no MP3 support though :(

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/SoundForgeXP/

Hey baby, do you wanna come in and see my etchings?

I taught Surface Embellishment (etching) at The Gemcutters Guild Sunday. We had a great time!

Here are some samples of what my students did. I’m so proud of them, sniff.

Pulp Ink & Hops

here is the site:
http://baltimore.aiga.org/
this is a really fun event - it gets really packed - and bring your own bag to put stuff in cuz they run out and there are tons of great goodies to grab! Paper vendors come and ply you with samples and there is FREE BEER. I hope they are kidding about the semi formal attire for this year.

I blame Aristotle.

Stupid Aristotle and his stupid rhetorical strategies, damn him. If he were still alive I’d throttle Aristotle! There I feel better. This category project was brutal to write. I feel spectacularly and majestically bruised. I did vacations and boy do I need one!

Here are a couple of interesting taxonomy sites:
http://tolweb.org/tree/
http://www.biocollections.org/
http://www.virtualherbarium.org/

Here are some cool photo sites I found of Iran. I was really surprised to find a lot of robust and friendly information on that country. I was sad to learn about Bam being destroyed in an earthquake – it looked like a magical place.

http://www.irpedia.com/photos/
http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/bam/collection/
http://www.clipfile.org/marcia/

Cheers!

How to –

I think I’m going to do "how to throw a pity party" cuz that’s how I feel right now!
I did see a SUPER great blog entry about how to write a good story.
All of you interested in politricks will enjoy this one:
http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/agoodstory.html
More tomorrow

Scooby Snacks and Corel CDs

I was board at the lab waiting for my poster to print and I got to looking at those Corel disks on the Scooby server. They are PCD files which is that old Kodak digital format. If you just double click they don’t have anything to file associate with on those spiffy OS10 MACs. Photoshop does open those PCD files. And the open dialog box is PSCS2 is a wonder – you get a really nice preview with it, and you can navigate. So I looked at a bunch and I’ll summarize what I found here. The disk number is followed by my best guess as to the contents.

18 desert, 19 desert flowers, 20 Buddhist, 21 Racing cars, 22 bridges, 23 children, 24 cathedrals, 25 forest, 26 lakes, 27 waterfalls, 28 grassy plains, 29 cars, 30 Egypt, 31 interiors, 32 more desert, 33 mynas, 34 airplanes, 38 Zion national park, 39 white sands new Mexico, 40 fireworks, 41 large grazing mammals, 42 small predators, 43 birds, 44 icy landscapes, 45 dining, 46 surfing, 47 ruins, 48 cities, 49 monkeys, 50 coasts, 51 flowers, 52 butterflies, 53 Peru, 54 southwest, 55 Asia, 56 places of worship, 57 more Asia, 58 moody sky, 59 doors, 60 skiing, 61 more skiing, 62 sail boarding, 63 industry, 64 Mexico, 65 – more Asia, 66 farm animals, 67 Greece, 68 tropical beaches, 69 down under, 70 raptors, 71 India, 72 Christmas, 73 fireworks, 74 NYC, 75 owls, 76 Cambodia, 77 African grazing animals, 79 Rome, 80 Thailand, 81 more Thailand, 82 San Francisco, 83 Vietnam, 84 roses, 85 china, 86 Japan, 87 snakes, 88 Ireland, 89 Native American rock dwellings

Happy Hunting!

here are my dogs!

Diamond in the rough

Hi – I just got home from Gem cutters and I’m all pumped to upload a picture of a rock. Here are some uncut diamonds. I must say I agree with Rose and Amy that the already faceted diamonds just say diamond so much better. Although uncut diamonds are being set now in some circles and they have a very fabulous Wilma Flintstone look. Black diamonds are getting some play now too. The people I know that concern themselves with diamonds (professional jewelers and GIA types) say that diamonds are no longer a stable investment. Any day now (they have been saying this for a long time already) Russia will flood the market. I also read that DeBeers is turning one of their South African mines into a tourist attraction. People in Florida, China and Russia are now making synthetic diamonds that cannot be detected by traditional means. There is a state park in Arkansas where you can hunt for diamonds - and people actually find them. The new hot spot for mining diamonds is above the polar circle in Canada. Those are my random diamond bits. Rose has done a great job in speaking to the hidden cost of diamonds. If you want to know more about diamond grading and business visit www.gia.edu