I got a fancy new DSLR camera for Christmas, and got a chance to try it out while spending Christmas at Myrtle Beach with Stephanie’s family. I got a ton of pictures, but I have only put up 113 of them.

The camera also records video in HD (720p 30fps or 1080p 20fps). The video below is one I recorded at 720p, though here it’s displayed at only 360p (which I think is equivalent to YouTube’s “HQ” setting). I would have trimmed the video more, but my recent upgrade to Windows 7 left me very surprised to find that Windows Movie Maker has been removed. Supposedly it has been replaced by Windows Live Movie Maker, a completely different program that lacks a lot of features that were in the Vista version of Movie Maker. I guess I need to install Premiere or something. I haven’t needed it in the past for what little video editing I do for this site, and I’ve been doing pretty well at using only legally-acquired software for a while. Oh well.

Today I ran across what might possibly be the only cool Facebook app I’ve ever seen. It takes random Facebook status messages from 2009 and makes a collage of them. I thought mine was very interesting:

A week or two ago I discovered the blog How To Write Badly Well. Anyone can write badly badly, but it takes real skill to write badly well, and that is what the blog tries to explore. (The blog only has twenty entries so far, so it’s possible to read from the start if you’re so inclined. Some of my favorite entries are here, here, and here.)

One post asked for badly-well-written 300-word stories, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I made an attempt to ham-fistedly combine fantasy and sci-fi, while also abusing the character map. I wasn’t the winner, so I figured I’d post it here. Enjoy.

Aõgÿne could do this. He knew the dragon had a weak point near her upper rectum, if only he could trick her into exposing it. He tossed an antimatter grenade to the dragon’s left. The implosion would tear a tiny rift though the space-time continuum, which he hoped would frighten the beast. When the grenade detonated the dragon turned with a screeching hiss. At once he activated a laser-tipped spear and hurled it with all his might. It was a direct hit, and the creature cried out in pain as the laser burned through her bowels. Aõgÿne now unsheathed his sword, approached the writhing dragon from behind, and slit her throat in one swift motion. This Wævian moon would be terrorized no more.

But he knew the victory was bittersweet.

After six months on Fa£aña, he would now have to leave. It was all part of the job for an intergalactic dragon slayer like Aõgÿne, and leaving had never been a problem before. But falling in love was never part of the plan. His heart ached as he thought of leaving Eröå behind.

He paused before entering the building to watch her through the window. The sight of her beautiful elvish features was too much for his heart to bear. He scribbled a message on an electronic tablet and placed it in front of her door.  With a heavy heart, he flew away from the moon at three hundred times the speed of light. But he knew there was no speed so fast that the memory of Eröå wouldn’t catch up to him.

In years past I have mentioned my birthday on this blog, in one way or another.  Since I haven’t posted anything since Halloween, I figured why break the tradition.

Over the weekend Stephanie and Emma headed out of town for my sister-in-law’s final wedding shower, which meant I had the house to myself Friday evening and almost all day Saturday.  So what did I do with the time?  I played BioShock until just after midnight, went to bed, then got up at 8:45.  Now, compare this to the Kip of six years ago, when I would play Smash Bros. until 3am, go to bed, and maybe set an alarm clock if I would need to get up by eleven the next day.  So the following has changed: I go to bed earlier and get up earlier.  The following has remained the same: I love video games.  So I can only conclude that decades from now, when I get some time to myself, I will play video games till seven or maybe even eight, go to bed, wake up at five, have a glass of prune juice, and fire up whatever latest and greatest murder simulator the world has to offer.

Tonight Emma went trick-or-treating for the first time. (Technically this is her second Halloween, but last year she couldn’t even walk yet, so we didn’t dress her up.)  She had a blast!  You can see her duck costume here.  She didn’t have any problem with wearing it, and even got lots of extra candy from everyone who thought she was so cute.  She walked quite a long ways too, all the way down our street and back!  And she was good about knocking on the door, saying “trick or treat!”, and saying “thank you” after they gave her candy.

Of course, these things don’t come naturally.  We had to practice saying “trick or treat” first!  The video below shows a little bit of that process.  (We were practicing with toys instead of candy.)

I’ve been using Mint to track my money for a few months now.  Most of you reading this are cool people who have been using Mint since before I heard about it, though, so I won’t bother explaining how the service works.  I guess I’m supposed to set up budgets or something, and if you don’t it kinda guesses based on your past expenses.  Then it alerts you when you go over-budget in a category.  Which is nice sometimes, but other times you get things like this:

Okay, so ummm... what am I supposed to do about it?  If I could have payed only twenty-three dollars I would have.  Maybe they need an “e-mail a complaint about this to your congressman” button or something? :)

Below is the first paragraph of some spam I received today:

Dear Kip,

Since you recently supplied your email address to Marriott, you’ll now receive advance notice of new hotels, services to save you time and money, and hotel specials and packages.

Now, reread that, but this time use a cartoon super-villain voice, and end with “and there’s nothing you can do about it!  A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

That’s more like it.

PS: Their unsubscribe page also told me it might take up to 10 days to complete the unsubscribe operation.  Idiots.

Those of you who don’t follow video game news too closely may not be aware of Heavy Rain.  It’s a game I’ve been following for some time, and every new trailer that is released makes me even more excited about it.  Calling it a “game” is even a bit of a stretch, it truly is more like an interactive movie.  Kind of like a really sophisticated “choose your own adventure” book.  Below is a video that was released this week that gives a really good overview of what the game will be like.  (It was aimed at a Japanese audience, hence the Japanese subtitles, but everything except the game dialog is in English.)  The basic idea is that there are four characters that you control through the course of the game, and they all end up investigating a serial killer (the “origami killer”).  I like the idea (which is discussed in the movie below) that you can’t truly mess up.  No matter what happens, you can keep playing and just deal with the consequences.  Even if all four characters end up getting killed, there is an ending to the story for that situation.

Anyway, the game won’t be finished until sometime next year, so I don’t want to give too much praise to a game just because of a clever concept.  That said, I totally dig the concept.

Also, this video is over nine minutes long.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Every so often, the popular answer on an Everybody Votes1 poll surprises me.  Here is one example from a few weeks ago:

Is this really what the majority of people think about how a series with prequels should be viewed?  I imagine there is some portion of the population that didn’t understand the question and thought “well I don’t know anything about Star Wars but why would you watch them out of order”, and chose the “I, II, III, IV, V, VI” answer—inadvertently choosing the “watch them out of order” answer!  But as popular as Star Wars is, I doubt this could account for that many people.  The question also doesn’t specify whether the numbers correspond to episodes, which could have confused some people.

If this is really what most people think, though, then I guess that would explain why the The Chronicles Of Narnia compilations inevitably feature the books out of order, with The Magician’s Nephew first (even though it ruins the book to read it first!).  But I can’t imagine, for example, a compilation of the Metal Gear Solid games featuring Metal Gear Solid 3 as the first game, even though the MGS3 story takes place thirty years before the others, and the MGS4 story picks up right where MGS2 left off.  Of course I said the same thing about the Star Wars movies last year, when I was talking about the Narnia books....

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.  It happens sometimes.  Anyone care to weigh in with a good reason why someone approaching a series of movies/books/video games/whatever would want to start with the prequels first?  Or maybe you want to weigh in to tell me you agree with me.  That’d be cool too.

PS: I think another problem with the question is that neither answer was the correct answer.  The correct answer is “IV, V, VI, II, III.”  Episode One is unwatchable garbage.  Two and Three are just garbage, but they aren’t unwatchable.  Episode Five is still the best.

How to tell if Kip will hate a television program: ask yourself, “does this show feature amateurs doing some kind of performance, after which they are critiqued by three judges, one of whom is foreign and mean?”

If the answer is yes, then Kip will hate the show.