A few minutes ago, after having bumbled around a dark room in a sickly stupor attempting to clean yogurt from the greatest mousepad ever (the HandStands Laser ultra thin mouse mat), I tweeted something:
Long story slightly less long, Chris found an older (though no less relevant now as then) post on The Ludologist and decided to respond on his own site with some: fun and interesting stuff.
ALSO: the anti-spam CAPTCHA on my visit to The Ludologist?
I guess I could stop there, but let's keep it going.
The Double Down looks horrible. Okay, looks aren't everything, but honestly: any traditional burger will be much more pleasing to the eyes. The contrast of golden colored toasted bun and dark grilled beef? The bright red tomato complemented by green leaf lettuce? The Double Down has nothing of the sort. Rather, its orange on yellow on white motif evokes memories of the worst of elementary school cafeteria food. The lighter color of the grilled version is even worse, drawing visual comparisons to bathroom sponges. Perhaps something could have been saved if the bacon wasn't so shy but, alas, the local KFC had both sandwiches sport bacon slices smaller than other fast food joints "junior" versions of bacon burgers. About the only thing good about the Double Down's presentation is it tries to set up the lowest of low expectations for just how bad this sandwich will taste.
It almost succeeds there.
The Double Down tastes bad. Okay, the original recipe chicken fillet ain't bad, if you're into that. I can tolerate a few pieces of the stuff myself. Unfortunately, they had to diminish it with slices of Monterey Jack and Pepper Jack "cheese" with no discernible flavor and and a plain as plain can be Colonel's Sauce. Despite the almost scary artificial color of the condiments, the stuff between the chicken fillets had absolutely no kick. The texture of the melted cheese and sauce also did an excellent job of detracting from the eating experience, complementing the decent juiciness of the fillets with a pastiness that made every bite pure torture. The bacon could have went a long way toward saving the sandwich; however, the little bit of bacon in both of these sandwiches did nothing to enhance the flavor. Perhaps any sort of meatiness or saltiness it could have provided was sucked away by the sheer disgustingness of the cheese and sauce that smothered it.
And that's not even the worst of it.
The Double Down is a bad value. Each sandwich is five dollars. Think about that! Five dollars goes a long way in today's fast food market. Subway has their five dollar foot long sandwiches that beat the Double Down in every way. McDonald's and Wendy's are providing options including fries and beverage at the three dollar level. Carl's Jr. has their large variety of Six Dollar Burgers which provide more flavor and more calories for the same price or even slightly cheaper. Even at KFC, five dollars can get you chicken and sandwich meal options that include sides and drinks.
So there you have it. Normally, this is the time where one might suggest that it's worth one try. I'm not going to do that. The Double Down is: Horrible. Verging on inedible. The worst fast food sandwich I've had in years.
I've been going crazy in the mean time. Good crazy, but crazy nonetheless.
Probably the biggest change has been my new job. (Not the most important change, though. That honor goes to my girlfriend, Valerie! ^^) For the last year, I've been working as the audio director on a fighting game that should be released very soon. Being a hardcore console game title, the team is working: hardcore!
My own work situation has me balancing this job with my teaching gig at USC. If it's a day where I'm not lecturing, I'm usually spending about 4-6 hours at home doing sound and music before doing another 6-10 hours working in the game itself, whether it's further design, scripting or (oh please god no!) coding. If it's a day where I'm teaching, well... things get out of hand. Friday, for example, has me lecturing for 7 straight hours, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Usually the best I can do is fit in 2-4 hours before or after that stretch... and then I get brain or ear fried. (I'm using headphones 95% of the time thanks to the open floor plan, so I'm getting some serious ear fatigue...)
Going to try to get back in the habit of posting stuff. Who knows if it'll actually happen, though! At the very least, I hope it's not another year before I do another post; hopefully the next one has a little more substance than this...
Yeah, I've been doing it for a while, whether it be for friends at cons or (rarely) at private photoshoots. I enjoy photography, and I appreciate cosplay, but I've always considered myself more a con photographer than a cosplay photographer. A cosplayer facing the camera with a practiced pose never struck me as quite so interesting as the con itself: a huge writhing beast, barely in control by the executive decision makers at the top and the gofers at the bottom; always undulating, creeping forwards with the funk of con attendees and the cries of memes.
Con photographs, pictures showing the convention in action, comprise the vast majority of my personal favorites.
I usually took these pictures with a a digital SLR. However, I didn't have one available by the time Anime Los Angeles rolled around this year. Instead, I had a Casio pocket-sized point and shoot camera. Honestly, I felt like I couldn't give the con or the cosplayers a proper service with just this cam, especially next to the guys rocking out things like $1000+ Canon L lenses and even more expensive Steadicam rigs. Still, I had to do something; if I couldn't be better with the Casio, I could be unique.
One of the reasons I got the Casio was because of its slow-motion video recording. The Casio EX-FH100 can record video at 640 x 480 resolution with 120 frames-per-second speed. If I can't do comparable quality-wise, maybe I can do something unique...
Here are some videos of cosplayers which follow logically from typical cosplay pictures...
And here are some videos of the con being... well... a con...
This last one, I particularly like. We see pictures of organized cosplay gatherings like this all the time, but few see it from the cosplayers' perspective, especially as they are being called to the front.
So... yeah. Though I did do some typical picture stuff (see: my flickr set), I did a lot of slow motion video (see: my youtube account) and... I enjoyed doing something different. Despite a different process, I think I did a decent first attempt of sticking with what I enjoy, which is: conveying the con itself while letting the other photographers focus on doing the usual cosplay photography.
(edit: Certain things detailed below are bit different, namely the availability of an ACE-EDGE bundle for $99. Check out this more recent post.)
Right now, Fry's has a fine deal on Ace Combat 6 bundled with a Madcatz Aviator flight stick. Gotta admit, $50 dollars makes for a pretty cool alternative to the original AC6 bundle with the Hori ACE-EDGE HOTAS (read: hot ass) system that's rarely discounted from its initial $150 dollar asking price. I personally love the HOTAS setup, but I understand that for some people out there, a stick is a stick; as long as the functionality is the same, it's all cool. So besides the design (and basically throwaway faceplate and DVD in that big old Namco packaging), what makes the $100 dollar difference?
(edit: Certain things detailed below are bit different, namely the availability of an ACE-EDGE bundle for $99.