All Good Things Must Come to an END…

I caught wind of what I thought was a rumor earlier this week. The rumor that HULU would become a paid to view site by next year was what someone wrote on a random blog. After some quick google searches and reading, it appears this is not a rumor.  After I got over my dissappointment and shock, I read some more about how this will most likely happen.

I really think this guys has some good points. You can read Jeff Bertolucci’s article  from PCWorld here:http://www.pcworld.com/article/174271/5_ways_id_pay_for_hulu.html Jeff articulates in what fasion this proposed HULU paid site might take form. He also highlights each proposal and if it would be something he would be willing to fork out some cash for services rendered.

Sadly it looks like it will happpen this coming year. Exactly how I am not sure but it re-enforces the saying I know all of you have heard at some point in your life – All good things must come to an end…eventually.

Fall is in Full Swing

Taken with the iPhone traveling on NC Highway 70

Mass Effect

I do not have much time for computer games these days. I do not purchase games like I used to in my youth. In the coming months I will be posting a couple of my personal favorite PC games.  A game that I periodically play that stands out is Mass Effect from BioWare.  Now this game is pretty fun to play.  I would argue that some of the content is pretty violent, and there is some adult situations content, but it is fun as hell.

The sheer amount of choices you are faced with during game play is astounding.  Each choice makes your character take on a different personality, and or limits future choices of weapons and abilities such as the art of persuasion etc. Each choice has the potential to change the game and ultimately the ending. The choices you make also effects the relationships between your character and other characters in the game. In short the replay potential is pretty great.

The lead character, Commander John Shepard must solve a mystery which ends up being a fight for all humanity and alien races against pure evil.  In short with the choices you are faced with, you can either be an ethical person who makes balanced nice person choices or you can be a big jerk.  To highlight the jerk part I am including this vidoe of jerk like Shepard behavior.

Now Mass Effect 2 is coming out soon and this is pretty exciting stuff. It seems like the characters are a little more vivacious than the first one. You can see an example of what I mean here:

Until then, when I have a few moments to kill here and there, I will still enjoy kicking some ass in Mass Effect, using a variety of weapons like the shotgun, special skills and biotics like lifting and hurling enemies against walls before I shoot them

Facebook Overkill

What does it do again? Facebook has added a new feature and I have been trying to figure out what exactly this new feature is good for.  I found some good answers here: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Facebook-Offers-Realtime-Highlight-Reel-News-Feed-For-The-Homepage-298115/ Clint Boulton does a pretty nice job of explaining what the live news feed feature does and some other additional quieter features that were included with the add on. In short it would appear Facebook is trying to add twitter like functionality. The thing that I find upsetting is that the new “Live News Feed” kind of forces you to use it  because now the current updates are not automatically added to the News Feed section. Maybe I have it all wrong.

Frankly I am not convinced it is necessary, but hey I really dont like Facebook that much anyway so whatever. I am pretty convinced that it is evil and way to busy with buttons and the obese features make it clustered and not user-friendly. But that is just my opinion.  I know a lot of people really enjoy Facebook so I wouldn’t want to take away anyones joy, but if anyone could explain to me how this live news feed makes my life better, I am all ears.

Bokeh

Out of focus photographs are starting to interest me a great deal. I shoot my digital Pentax primarily with a fixed 50mm manual focus lens, which happens to be of my first and oldest lens. It is still my favorite lens to use on most subject matter. But something that happens, especially when I am just goofing off is a horridly out of focus shot or two.  For the most part I have always loved these shots. Sure I force the frame out of focus on purpose sometimes, which I believe is techically referred to as bokeh.  Up until this past year I have been hesitant to post these images on my photoblog.

But the fact is I keep going back to those out of focus shots of mine. I normally give the out of focus shots my attention while I browse through my LightRoom collection.  I feel there is a kind of beauty to out of focus shots. Something that you can refer to in your sub-conscience, a memory (hazy), or some moment in time you remember from the past but it just wont come into focus in your mind.  But just the same, you remember the moment even though the photo is not crystal clear. That is how I view these out of focus shots. I do like crisp clear focused shots as well, but the blurry out of focus shots with splatters of colors or shades of black and white always make me look twice.

http://johnmasters.net/

iPhone Camera

Last weekend we were in Charleston and I took some snapshots with my iPhone of all things.  The iPhone camera is not spectacular, but it does the job. Most importantly it is always available. Some people say the best camera, is the one you have with you when you need it.  I find this to be very true as I don’t always carry my big SLR on all my outings. There are some pretty cool applications for the iPhone camera. I prefer the one called “Old Camera” which basically has many settings in various tones of black and white.  For most shots I find the iPhone camera requires you to have a steady hand and plenty of light. Given those two conditions with a dash of interesting subject matter and some luck the photos don’t come out half bad.  I hope you enjoy this selection I picked from some of my Charleston iPhone shots.

If You Are Not Sure

Sometimes I get a sense of peace that when I get lost, even when I don’t know I’m lost, there are signs that show me the way.

HalfLight

http://johnmasters.net/

TV Antics

Ok first let me say for the record I do not watch much television. Occasionally I can be seen sitting in front of the “tube” to watch something on the History Channel and or SciFi…oh wait, I mean SyFy such as Battlestar Galactica which by the way is over.

Recently I started watching a program called Defying Gravity which I think is a well made program. This show has promise even though it is starting off a little slow, I kind of like it.  After watching the first two episodes I decided to give TV another shot and in this pre-season lull.  I wanted to check out what was available these days on TV by using the HULU site.  I looked for an hour or so and subscribed to three shows that I thought would be decent bets.  I decided to watch all the back episodes of the shows I was interested in so I could catch up on the series before the season started.  The shows that caught my interest were Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Dresden Files, and New Amsterdam. Yeah I am sure you know where I am going with this but just hold on a minute.

Terminator TSCC was my least favorite of the three but still it was quality made and hey, it had Shirley Manson the Scottish singer for Garbage. She did a great job of playing a terminator with a mysterious agenda. You weren’t quite sure if she is friend or foe. In any case the story lines were pretty good and there was some action and character development as they switched from present to future. Of course there was occasional terminator violence which is always nice to see.  Cancelled

The Dresden Files is another show I watched the full first season to get caught up for the anticipated new shows. This show I liked a little bit better than the Terminator. The stories did involve some pretty outlandish stuff like magic and sourcery, but if you totally believed the characters it was quite nice to watch and the acting was top notch.  Basically it was a Chicago based wizard who carried a charged up hockey stick who worked closely with the police to solve weird murders.  People would come to Harry Dresden with stuff they couldn’t come to the cops with.  Cancelled

Finally and best of these shows was New Amsterdam.  Now I really enjoyed this show which was basically about this dude who was a Dutch soldier who settling New Amsterdam (present day Manhattan) in 1642 when he was killed by a collegue with a sword as he was protecting a Native American woman.  Well she returned the favor and brought him back to life with the caveat that he couldn’t die until he found his soul mate. So now flash to present day and he is a cop in NYC. Yes he has been living in his home town ever since his demise and rise.  He has seen it all and watched the city evolve from its basic beginnings to present day. The individual shows have interesting plots with plenty of flash backs to different periods in his life where life lessons were learned. This show rocked because of its obvious attempt to tie in History and it was rich for TV.  Ok, now you can see it coming… About half way through of “catching up” on New Amsterdam before what I think will be a new season I start to read about these three new shows instead of just watching them on HULU. Come to find out, all three have been cancelled!!  Cancelled – Did I mention that I was not a TV hound? Had I been on top of the TV scene I would have learned months ago that these shows would not be returning to TV.

WTF people, the Terminator has run a couple of seasons but the other two only ran one before they were shit canned.  I am not really sure why these shows were cancelled except that I am sure they got a poor turnout or some critic thought they sucked. Maybe they were cancelled because producers do not have the patience to let things work any longer. I would be all ears if someone had some insight as to why the networks seem to cancel quality programming while they keep “reality shows” which I loathe.  I did find a lot of references of fan hate on the internet on all three shows. Fans speaking of their disdain to whomever would listen, raging against the sky to no apparent avail.

Presently I am now back to square one. I am once again “not” excited about TV – (thanks for the kill joy network producers).  Now I will just settle back in to where I was. I will continue to watch the History Channel of course. Who can get enough of characters like Hitler, Stalin and Cleopatra as the drama and exploits of their lives unfold before you? That is better than any reality TV show I have seen.  I will go back to watching some potential good shows like Fringe and Defying Gravity.  I will not get too attached to these shows in the future. I won’t watch them religiously, and I will not invest in them. Ultimately I know the same fate awaits them as the others. The impatient eager to please investor types Network producers will ultimately kill these series as well. The story will be untold and we will never know how it is supposed to end. You don’t believe me? Just go ask the cast and crew of other promising shows like “The Unusuals” or “Life on Mars“. – both cancelled.

Look I am no aficionado of television and I do not know how the industry decides what will live and what will die. Maybe I am in the extreme minority and 95% of people would say the aforementioned shows sucked.  I just know what I like and what I do not like. It seems like maybe I am not televisions primary target audience. All I want is quality shows with a good plot and good acting. I never was able to jump on board the reality tv wagon.  I do not find it entertaining even though this genre seems quite popular and is all the rage in print these days.  I should just stick to the movies I guess, but then again that is even starting to get depressing.  What is next, “Survivor 300 at the box office now…” – sigh – any thoughts appreciated.

The Pen

She’s gone. She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.