How about that, Tamron has a Photography Learning Center. Guess I got another link for the ol’ archive.

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Lots of photos up from my latest visit to the Cox Arboretum. Most are of the macro variety.

While there, I learned one invaluable lesson about macro photography: Still life, isn’t.

I’m really happy with this set, but I have lots more to upload and I’m going back there today.

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Looks like Takahasi, creator of Katamari, isn’t fond of the Nintendo Revolution. That’s cool, but I think he’s cheesed at it for the wrong reasons:

“I’m not really interested in it. I don’t think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.’ He continued: ‘I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they’re putting such emphasis on the controller; ‘Woah, this controller lets you do this!’ and I’m thinking - are you messing with us?’”

Excuse me? The controller shouldn’t have that much influence on the enjoyment of games? The controller is the only interface you have to the game system, if it sucks, so does your game system. Controller design is just as important to a console’s design as the graphics hardware.

Remember the N64? The Atari Jaguar? I though both controller designs were terrible and both game systems tanked (though the N64 did have it’s following). I’m not all that crazy about the Game Cube’s and Xbox’s designs, either. Besides, it’s about time someone started actually innovating in the console area instead of cranking more money into fitting more graphics cores onto a board. Games need more than just graphics.

What also sticks in my crawl is that Takahasi is singling out the controller like it’s the only feature of the Revolution. He completely ignored the online game store coming down the pike which will allow the owners to purchase and play games for every nintendo console up to the N64, the ability to use SD cards as memory cards, yes, the new controller, how the DS will act as a wireless controller for some games (much like the gameboys do now) and a host of other things.

All-in-all, I found his comments very myopic and just not very well thought-out for someone of Takahashi’s mental caliber.

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Easter photos are up.

For those who just want to see Shelby on Easter: here ya go.

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A routine test of the foam firefighting equipment in a hangar goes wrong. And by wrong, I mean hilarious.

More photos can be found here.

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I really should learn to follow up on my own posts. Earlier this month, I wrote about my uncle having colon cancer and never followed up on it. Yeah, I suck.

Well, he ended up at the Mayo Clinic for treatment where he received a biopsy and some exploratory surgery to determine if it had spread to any other parts of the body and how bad the cancer was in his colon. The biopsy revealed that his liver was cancer-free and the exploratory surgery showed the doctors that, luckily for my uncle, the cancer was in one central mass.

They removed the cancer, held him for about 5 days for recovery and treatment and he came home Easter weekend now worse for wear from what I hear.

Just goes to show you that cancer != death sentence.

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Crystal got flooded with comment spam last night. Pretty bad hit, too; 300 spam-ments got through her blacklist and bad-behavior (no small feat, I assure you). At that point, I decided to upgrade her to WP 2.0 (yes, I’ve been lazy) and get her setup with Akisment.

Well, today, I got that done. While I was at it, I decided that she needed a new look, so I put up Becca Wei’s Remember theme. It’s purple-y, which is one of Crystal’s favorite colors and I’m going to work on customizing a graphic to replace the fish.

Go see her new look and let her know what you think!

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You Are a Learning Cook

You’ve got the makings of an excellent cook, and the desire to be one. But right now, you’re just lacking the experience. You couldn’t be a top chef yet, but you could be an apprentice.

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Everyone, meet Toto, our new Yorkshire Terrier puppy.

She’s much more tame than Oreo (our former Jack Russel Terrier pup) was and is much more obedient.

I got her primarily because she looks so much like Lacey did as a puppy that I just couldn’t say no.

We’ll see how everything goes long-run, but, so far, she’s been a furry little gem.

For the curious, the dog’s name *is* Toto and my wife named her.

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So Shelby developed this new magick trick where she can turn one penny into a $250 medical bill. Cute, huh?

So, around 9 p.m. last night, she lets out this blood-curdling scream, followed by an equally louder scream of “I swallowed a penny!”

Shortly after, she started throwing up. Crystal and I thought that she had just scared herself into a fit but, after a few minutes with no change, we decided to give her some juice to help. Once that came back up, we decided Urgent Care was the next stop.

After several x-rays, we seen that the penny had become lodged in her esophagus, just behind her voicebox. It wasn’t causing any breathing problems, but couldn’t stay, of course. Off to the hospital we were sent. Shelby and Crystal by ambulance, me in tow with a map on how to get to the hospital.

At the hospital, another x-ray was taken to confirm the coin was still lodged (it was). Lots of waiting before and after that. After even more waiting, we were shuffed into a staging room so Shelby could be monitored during the night. Yup, Shelby and Crystal got to have a sleepover at the hospital so an early x-ray could be done to see if the coind moved on during the night like they were hoping and to await the black hole that is surgery scheduling.

I should have probably stayed as well, but I thought I could get up early enough to get to work for a few hourse before I had to pick them up. I was wrong. I didn’t get to sleep until around two, guaranteeing that I would oversleep the next morning.

A little before nine in the morning, I got a call from Crystal saying that she’s gone into surgery and I needed to get to the hospital to be ready to pick them up. The surgrey was done before I got there and Shelby was in recovery waiting for the anestesia to wear off.

Several hours and may checkups and waits later, we were on oour way home. Too late for me to make it to work, but the coin is out of Shelby (I have it in a little jar), she’s feeling much better and Crystal didn’t have to miss work.

Kids. I swear.

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