May, 2008

I’ve been interested in photography for a long time. I’ve never really taken any kind of classes in it or researched it that much but I’ve always liked taking photos, usually of random stuff.

With the recent release of the Canon 450D, I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a “proper” digital SLR camera. I’ve read a bit about canon cameras, and a few people I know recommend them so I’m pretty happy with the decision.

A workmate pointed me to the Teds website and I got in contact with a great salesperson there. He was extremely patient with my numerous emails, many of which I am sure where beginner questions by his standards. He gave me some great advice and I ended up ordering the following:

• Canon 450D Twin Lens Kit
• 2 x UV Filter (1 for each lens, mainly for protection)
• 4 gig SD memory card

$1700 all up, including postage from Brisbane to Rockhampton.

I was told when ordering that it would be around 2 weeks, but it seems there is a bit more of a delay. The cameras seem to be selling like hot cakes and there is very limited stock in Australia, with most camera shops having no stock at all.

According to forums, the main delay seems to be with the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens, which is bundled in the twin lens kit.

UPDATE: Well it arrived today and it’s awesome. The 55-250 lens is still on backorder but I got the rest of the order. Will be good to go out tomorrow and take some snaps.

The shock shaft on the front right side of my LST2 got broken over xmas (yeah, 5 months ago ) and I finally got around to fixing it this weekend.

It took around 30mins to pull the shock apart, replace the shaft, replace the oil, put it back together and re-install it on the truck. Since it was the first time I had done it, I am guessing that the whole process could be done a lot faster if not referring to the instructions

I gave the truck a good de-grease, blew it out with the air compressor and charged the batteries. I didn’t actually get a chance to try to drive it though, so that will have to happen sometime this week.

Took me a while to get it fixed, but it’s good that it is done now. I will have to go and see if the housing estate area is still vacant or whether it’s been built over.

Emu Park, QLD

Cleaned my iMac keyboard on the weekend following the directions at

http://theminiblog.co.uk/archives/2006/11/16/how-to-cleaning-the-apple-keyboard/

It worked really well and was actually really simple. Whole process took maybe 30mins.

Now my clear iMac keyboard is all clean and new again!

So my New Scientist subscription is up for renewal. I’m still way behind on my reading, something like 6 months or so but it’s not from lack of reading. The topics are just so interesting that I find myself re-reading certain articles which really slows me down. Then there is also the website access as well with extra stuff to read.

Anyway, an ‘incentive’ to re-register is a chance to win a trip to Borneo and also a free Orang-utan adoption from the Australian Orang-utan Project. It had never crossed my mind before that you could adopt an Orang-utan, but I think it is really cool. You get sent a photo of it and can get regular updates and also feel good that you have helped these little creatures. Very nifty!

So, even thought I’m behind, I think I will end up renewing again. I really enjoy the magazine and find it really interesting plus I can adopt an Orang-utan!

WiiFit was released and being a Wii owner I had to get one.

I was a bit skeptical at first (sorry Nintendo), but after using it for the past 3 days I’ve realised how awesome it is. The WiiFit board is really good and is very responsive and the activities in the game are really well thought out and implemented perfectly.

Over the past 3 days I’ve done about 1.5 hours total of the various activities and according to my log I’ve lost 0.5kgs. I’m not sure how accurate that is or whether I was just wearing lighter clothes or didn’t have a stomach full of food. Either way, I’ll take it.

I seem to be a whizz on the hula hoop but I find some of the yoga poses a bit tricky. The other various activities are all fun. I don’t think I’ve done one yet that I haven’t liked.

Only thing I wish it had was a automatic exercise plan generator. So you could basically queue up activities and then do one after the other instead of having to stop after each one and manually pick the next. Would be even better if the ‘trainer’ allocated you a plan of activities to do based on what you had previously done. I think that would make it a bit more random and perhaps push you to do certain activities that you had otherwise been skipping.

Another awesome product form Nintendo though. There’s no doubt about it they definitely know their stuff when it comes to this type of thing. The board works superbly.

So there is a new version of MSN messenger out for mac.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/messenger/default.mspx

After previous mention of the mac version being bought up to speed with the windows version I was a little bit excited. I go to the website to check it out and find they have implemented voice and video chat! …. for the corporate contacts only… w..t..f

Where is the voice and video support for regular users wanting to voice and video chat with their friends / family using messenger on windows?

I’m sure the mac people who work on messenger at microsoft have no idea.

Picked up Mario Kart for the Wii and have been playing it a fair bit.

So far impressions are good. It came bundled with a steering wheel attachment that the Wiimote plugs into, which at first seems fun but I found it soon became very limiting especially when driving in the manual mode.

I imagine it would be a lot of fun using it with a group of people who all have the steering wheel, but for trying to break records and unlock maps you really can’t go past using the Wiimote + Nunchuck.

As far as the game goes, it’s a heck of a lot of fun. A lot of the tracks are re-hased from previous titles on GameCube, N64, DS, etc but that doesn’t really take away from the entertainment value. The addition of bikes is good and adds something new to the Wii version.

There are numerous un-lockable tracks, cars, bikes and characters which gives the game a lot of replay value, but it’s also really fun just racing against over people both locally and online.