2012 – The end is nigh

2012 is a terrible year when it comes to video games. There’s not much to expect this year that is worth spending time on. The terrible stats for this year, I started playing “Mass Effect 3” but stopped during mission two. I bought “Syndicate” that I stopped playing during the tutorial because the light effects simply made me sick. Then I got “Street Fighter X Tekken” a few weeks ago and that is the game that I actually play from time to time. Sadly did I have to cancel my “DC Universe Online” subscription, which is mainly due to a lack of time (like always).

One game that catches me from time to time is “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”, but even though it’s a giant RPG with tons and tons of stuff to discover it never really soaked me into it. The main reason for this is, for me personally, the missing story or this threat that catches you. I feel most of the time like, ‘Hey, this is your giant RPG world, now go for it!’

Nevertheless, the near future with its upcoming game releases looks dark, if you ask me. There’s some light at the end of the tunnel with great titles like “Far Cry 3” and “Borderlands 2”, but apart from these two, I don’t see myself gaming any new stuff. Maybe, but this is just a maybe, “Max Payne 3” can become a blockbuster. I liked its predecessor, but on the other hand, it wasn’t the perfect game like everyone says.

So what is left this year, almost nothing. Probably the “Torchlight 2” will kick some, but this is “just” an indie title. “Diablo III” actually does not bother me. I don’t know why, but “Diablo II” bored me to death and it looked absolutely terrible. I preferred “Dungeon Siege” back in the days, simply because it was way more charming for the eyes. And in addition, these days, PC gamers also had the uber-RPG called “Baldur’s Gate”. Who the hell needed a stupid Diablo game?

Well, as far as I can see, I’ll spend my time with several other things. Like photography and my Danbos. Like sports. Like progressive masturbation. Like watching stuff on YouTube®. Or I’ll just hang around and do nothing. Or I’ll read a book, if you still know what this is.

Danbo Mania

As a person who is into photography and watches tons of pictures every day, trends rather get unnoticed. I’ve seen HDR passing by, even though the 3D hype last year and the tilf-shift-mania a while ago. I didn’t jump the train of any of these trends. I’ve taken several pictures in HDR or tilf-shift style, but I never made it my main passion.

 

For quite a while, one can find lots and lots of pictures that do not follow a specific technique but focus one particular object – the Danbo. These little figures have one attribute that makes them special – they are cute. It’s this one thing that only kittens have and they make you want to say “Awwww!” no matter what they actually do in the photo.

The Danbo is a tiny figure that looks like as if it was made of several cardboard boxes usually used to delivery goods by retailer Amazon. There’s one rare 7eleven edition and you can also get some without any special prints. I personally ordered the Amazon edition, which is the most popular. I imported them via Amazon Japan because the prices in my country are way too high for a figure that is around 80mm tall.

I’m now a proud owner of a small and a big Danbo and I’ve already took some pictures with these tiny, cute bastards. And it was a good investment. And I can follow one trend in photography. Even though I’m not a big fan of that. But sometimes you’ve to howl with the wolves.

The cool thing about these Danbos is, that you almost get a decent picture every time. As long as you do not totally suck with setting up your camera right or you are completely blind or something like that. Danbos are just sooo cute, that they have these almighty uber powers to rescue even the shittiest pictures. Well, almost – like I said, as long as you know your camera you can’t fuck things up totally.

I’m sorry that this post doesn’t contain any special message and only the information that I now got two Danbos and I’m totally into this stuff. Sorry, next time something with some thoughts that go deeper.

The female descendant

Over the years, when you grow older and hopefully turn into a quite wiser person, you probably want to make some things different and want to try something new. By that I do not mean, that you have to invent something that will solve all of mankind’s problems, I mean these little big things that make the difference.

A lot of friends of mine and apprentices too made this by simply procreating. Sadly, a lot of these guys turned into a bunch of boring stereotype parents. But luckily, exceptions prove the rule and some of them remained the same or developed in a way I would totally approve.

 

This whole procreation thing never appeared intriguing to me and to be honest I’ll always find better things to do than founding a family and raise kids. But that’s not the total truth. I always say that I don’t like children and to be honest the children of other people always stress the shit out of me. But it’s mostly a thing that a lot of these parents mistake raising children for a trial by error experiment. These kids are best compared with a kamikaze pilot in World War II. They don’t know what they are actually doing but causing massive destruction.

Whatever the case, I always think about this family kids thing and I’ve found out that I don’t like children as a whole. It’s more the boys I do not like, because human boys, when they grow up are, in my opinion, the most primitive and boring species to raise that mother nature has to offer. I personally find a daughter way more interesting because girls tend to be more creative and enarmoured to art.

Boys play football, smash their toy cars, play violent video games and try to prove muscle power whenever possible. Even as a little boy, I couldn’t stand boys mainly because of the recently mentioned reasons. I never felt connected to my own gender as a matter of completely different interests. To a certain degree did I have the same interests, but at the end of the day I always had something different in mind. My best friend when I was a kid was a girl, till she moved with her parents to another country.

Another thing that I don’t really like, when I think about this whole father son relationship is the competition. I have this problem with my father as well, where we always end up in competing each other for no apparent reason. It might be some sort of funny when your boy is something between zero and ten, but when they get into this complicated age things will become even worse and they try to make territorial pissings whenever possible. I always hated this. Always.

I don’t know why, but my view about family founding has decently changed over the last couple of month. Even with this awkward depression period in late winter/early spring. It did not just change, I’ve also got an even more specific view on what I want and what I (maybe) do not want. It’s basically no longer this whole anti-family attitude that I was spreading before.

Well, we’ll see.

A penis out of sight

The summer draws near. A lot of my trousers do no longer fit. Wide shirts currently feel like slim shirts. I can’t see my penis while having a piss. I’m out of breath when running around from point A to point B, no matter how far they are away from each other.

Basically, these are some of the problems, that I’ve to face at the moment and once again, it’s all my sodding fault and I’ve to get rid of these problems. The solution is quite easy to tell, but hard to turn into a reality. Sports. To be honest, it’s not that hard to turn this into a reality, the odd thing about it is to make the right decision between the good and evil conscience representatives sitting on my shoulder.

I’ve followed the advise of the good representative and took a sneak peak preview by wandering back into gym. Without a doubt, something has to happen and this is sports and a frigging healthier way of life. So I entered the treadmill and ran. So I entered the cross-trainer and crossed? Whatever, I went to gym for three days, just to get an impression, if I can handle it with my tight schedule. But, for the love of God, what else can I lose during a week, where almost all time of the day gets soaked up by sodding commuting?

 

A two hour attendance at the gym does not hurt and my social life and everything that stands in relation with it is ruined to death anyway. So here I am, the lonesome rider, doing workouts. The underdog running in the treadmill. The fatty bum-bum crossing the cross trainer. The first milestone I want to reach is to simply fit in my old sports outfits. I currently have this clothes size does not really match the body size problem.

The schedule that I have in mind will dictate that I’ve to go to the gym at least four times a week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. That’s the plan until 27th of July. My current weight is about 110 kg and I plan to reach 95 kg, but not in July. This would be unhealthy and unrealistic. The end of August or the beginning of September sounds quite good and not too dramatically unhealthy. My goal in a distant future is to level off at something between 85 to 90 kg. The last value will probably be the one that may be the more realistic one. 85 kg would be some sort of too skinny for me, as a person that is 188 cm tall.

Depending on how well everything will make progress I may go for diet as well. I don’t need to ban cigarettes anymore, because after my very first straight edge period, I kept being a non-smoker and I’m so totally happy with that. I would be even more happy, when I’ll finally manage it to have sports as a common part of my daily schedule and not as something that has to happen just because for a particular reason. Fun is the keyword.

And of course one important reason would also be that I can see my penis again when I piss. That would be awesome.

Like I did in previous “projects”, I will report progress and will also post about certain events that I’ll find important or interesting. You’ll get to read the change of numbers regularly, but I’m not currently certain on what day this is going to happen. Anyhow, you’ll get something to feed your statistic charts or whatever you want to do with these numbers. But in the end, every good sports event comes with some nicely investigated statistics.

Now you know what my current plan is and what my first goals are. I’ll keep you informed and welcome to “Straight Edge 3.0”

The grey flap

Always talking about changing gets quite odd and is simply not the bottom line I actually want to drop here. I’m saying this, because I just wanted to start this very post with words like “Something has to change” or “It’s time for a change”. But that’s basically wrong, after rethinking the choice of my words. A correct term would be something like “I’ve to continue following and influencing evolution”

So, what does that basically include. First of all, it will include a change, but for certain reasons I won’t and can’t mention it here. Details will follow in a couple of month, when everything is safe and secure to talk about here. Period.

On the other hand, I will start doing sports again, no matter what. My spare time shrunk to a minimum, which is still pissing me off, because most of the time that it has finally gotten that way is because of the incompetence of others. I’m a person that don’t like to fail because of the mistakes of others. The only fail I can accept, is when it’s based on my own faults. Messing up, just because of anybody else, is completely unacceptable.

But back to the actual point – sports. I gained an overweight that became badass dead serious. It’s like 25 to 30 kg too much and it’s getting more and more the more weeks do pass by. I’m not having a detailed and completely scheduled plan at the moment, but the basic rules are set. It’s the ban of sweets again. Nutrition has to change as a whole in my life again. Even though there’s a lot of seduction going on with commercials and ads in the supermarket popping your eyes like a needle. I simply have to learn to resist again. I pretty often think back to those days where I lived straight edge. And then I remember how lucky and happy I actually was.

It wasn’t only a thing because of the endorphins that were pumped through my body and brain in this sports period. It was also a thing that all the poisons that I once ingested were gone and my whole body fell back to its basics. This sounds pretty much like the words of an odd and creepy philosophy professor, but that’s what describes it the best. More than ever do I feel like I’ve to get back to this way of life again. I’m probably go to make certain rules again, but not that strict like I did back in the days.

The other thing that I’m currently try to improve on is my creative eye. I revisited my photo collection and reviewed all the pictures I’ve done on several journeys and it’s terrible. Apart from all the technical mistakes I made, it’s a creative disaster. Seriously, out of around 7,000 pictures I took, only a handful is actually worth using and editing. It has improved during the last couple of month, because I took a lot of effort by studying workflows of other photographers, their techniques and composing pictures itself. I underestimated how much wrong camera settings can do, to actually destroy your vision of a certain picture you have in mind.

I have tons and tons of examples in my collection to prove that particular fact and I will continue working on getting better and drift as far away as I possibly can from these terrible results. I’ve recently ordered some books to give me more theoretical understanding in the field of composing and simply seeing things creatively. One of the reasons I’m doing this, I’m tired of only working with computers and networks, they bore me to death.

These are the things for now, my plans on how to influence my own personal evolution and give certain things a flap and improve. Because improvement is what makes lives worth living.

R.I.P. MCA

I sadly took note of Adam Yauch’s death earlier this day.

Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch was one member of the band called Beastie Boys, which one of the very first hip hop bands that got accepted by my young metal heart, back in the days of my youth. Actually, I was fascinated by the Beastie Boys for a very long time. They were the role model for true rebels in music and even a way of living. And that’s also what described Adam Yauch and his best at its best – true.

Whatever he did and whatever they did, it was true and something that was done with passion. I’ve never managed to visit one of their concerts. They stood on top of my concert wish list and now I’ve to sadly withdraw them.

It’s also sad for me to see, that one idol of youth actually passed away. It makes me feel somewhat older. But it also reminds of the undisputed fact in life, that everything has to end at a certain point. Now I know how my parents felt like, when John Lennon got shot back in 1980. Like I said, the Beastie Boys were one of these bands – hip hop bands, to be exact – that received my attention even though I was bounded to rock and metal music. They opened the door and also my mind for all kinds of different music.

With “Sabotage” they also released an all time favourite music clip of mine. It stressed my VCR and the tape where it was recorded on. I still adore this clip.

The world has lost a very creative, innovative artist. Adam Yauch, may you rest in peace and never be forgotten.

Cathedral excursion

The Cathedral of Saints Catherine and Maurice, or Cathedral of Magdeburg, was one thing I had in focus for a very long time to photograph. But I never actually managed it. On Monday, my day off, I finally made it to this wonderful, beautiful piece of Gothic architecture. Currently it’s only worth taken interior pictures, because it’s getting refurbished on the outside. It’s such a rare event, to see this cathedral without any scaffold.

After getting the photo permit and clarifying certain things me and my Canon 60D were on the hunt for subjects. And we’ve found a lot. I did lots and lots of pictures of small figures in mural reliefs. It was so nice to see, with how much love for detail everything got restored. Back in the days, as far as I can remember, the Cathedral of Magdeburg was a very dark spot to visit. These days, warm diffuse light reigns inside the cathedral, not to divine.

jesus

Seriously, I was very impressed how beautiful everything looked like and most importantly, no dark spots. Having a lot of light and also a lot of good light makes taking pictures so easy and such a pleasure. I spent more two hours inside the cathedral. I used my 17-85mm zoom lens, but only for a few shots. Most of the time did I walk around with my cheapo 50mm with a completely opened aperture of f1.8.

I also did some shots with my 8mm ultra wide angle Walimex lens, but I’m not very satisfied with the finals results. It’s still very difficult to get something in focus. And taking pictures with an aperture lower than f8.0 could have only been made with an extremely high ISO filmspeed, which I try to avoid as often as I can. Normally, I take pictures at f22 with this lense, because focus is no longer an issues you have to care about.

The final result was a virtual box of almost 400 photos to chose from. It’s a lot of material, but also, despite my excursion in the past, a lot of pictures are worth to get seen. I’m releasing them all publicly, but you’ll find a couple of pictures when you visit my profile on deviant art. You’ll also find some pictures I did on my last trip to Berlin, which was the first photo excursion with my 60D.

The gallery on this domain is currently down and will probably stay down, because I’m currently working on a new website, which will be dedicated to photography only. I’m not giving any details right now, but as soon as progress has gone far enough, I’ll inform you.

Lightroom 4 experience

Sodding time is the issue, once again. And a bunch of different things that keeps me busy. Basically it’s my PC that I use for editing pictures and developing photos that soaked a lot of time recently. I abandoned my AMD Phenom 965 and switched to my old Intel Q9550. Main reason for this was the overclockability of the Intel CPU. The 965 is also a fine CPU to overclock, but the only platform I could give is a AMD 770 or 790 chipset. Bummer! One can overclock with the boards I’ve got, but the CPU clock is static. And I don’t want to waste the majority of my salary for the utilities.

So, I rebuilt my PC that I usually use for work and the more serious things. It’s overclocked at 3.86GHz with an air cooler and everything looks save. Temperature and stability are within limits. And most importantly, the overall performance has increased as well. Working with Lightroom became much smoother. One of my main issues was developing with the two-monitor setup. I use one monitor for the main-view and the other one is for comparison view and cropping.

Additionally do I have to mention, I was running on Lightroom 4.0 for the last few weeks and I had performance issues on both systems, Intel and AMD. Nevertheless, the Intel system felt smoother, thanks to a much higher clock rate. I upgraded Lightroom to version 4.1RC2 and Adobe has done a brilliant job. Some slight improvement on the UI and several new featues, but most importantly, Lightroom performs much better with two monitors. As far as I’d experienced, it’s even with Lightroom 3, but there’s still room left to get it even smoother.