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Well I hope all you got what you wanted for Christmas. I know I did.

It's a Canon PowerShot A70 digital camera. It's a 3.2megapixel camera. I know it's not the highest resolution out there but I chose the camera because of the fact that for the price it's a very feature rich camera. It's also very small. Not as tiny as some of those digital ELPHs but still it fits easily into one hand and into a pocket with no struggle.

At 3.2mp it has the resolution to do 4x6 prints and even 8x10s although that's really pushing the limit. Since I mainly want a digital cam for posting pictures online I figured it was overkill to go with a 4, 5 or more megapixel camera. I would end up downsizing to 800x600 or 640x480pixels anyways so why spend the extra money on the unused resolution.

So now the only real thing I need is to find a good photo printer. The basic choice is between dye-sub and standard inkjet printers. The dye-sub technology is better because it's a continuous print method and not small dots like inkjets are. Plus dye-sub printers put a waterproof and uv protection layer over the prints.

I looked at the canon photo printers but wasn't too impressed. The color quality was a bit bland and honestly the prints seemed a bit flimsy. I'm just used to the nice thick prints I get with film cameras probably. I guess I'll just have to do some research to find a high quality printer.

Besides the camera I got the AniMatrix dvd and some belts (daily use leather belts and black and brown ones for dress). Besides that I got a Best Buy gift card, Dinesh D'Souza's book "What's So Great About America", X-Men 1 & 2 dvd set, travel organizer for holding toiletries, and the usual sums of cash gifts. In all it was a pretty good year. Maybe it was just a stressful year or I've matured but I just didn't want many things this year. It was a real struggle just to think of things to put on the list for relatives.

Well anyways it's just a few more days till 2003 is a memory and we move to 2004. Isn't it just so strange how time passes. Seems like I was just here wondering what 2003 would hold for me. Who knows what 2004 will!

 

I watched Bad Boys II last night for the first time. It's an excellent movie!

Admittedly the plot is a bit thin and the movie relies a bit too much on fancy tricks and action but who really cares. I don't think anyone goes into movies like this expecting compelling dialog and intelligent, provoking story lines. It's all about the action and boy do they deliver!

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith didn't seem to have the level of chemistry the first movie had but the story is suppose to take place years after the first one and Martin Lawrence's character, Marcus, is having thoughts of getting a new partner because of the stress Will Smith's character, Mike, is causing. So I guess you could use that fact to give a believable reason for the lack of chemistry.

They have your obligatory car chase on a freeway. However they mix it up by having the bad guys steal a semi loaded with cars. So you get an over the top chase where bad guys are tossing cars off the back of the truck. This of course causes lots of mayhem and crashes and everyone but the two stars ends up in a crash.

Plus there's this cool 360 degree spinning shootout in this old house in the slums. The good guys and bad guys are in separate rooms and are back to back on the dividing wall that has two French doors on either side. They spin the camera around and around focusing on the center of this dividing wall. It's a very interesting shot but it does get a bit annoying after a while as you start to get dizzy and feel nauseous.

The action was great, the story while thin still made enough sense so you don't finish the movie and say "What the heck was that all about?". Best of all it makes really good use of our new surround sound system! Every speaker was working in unity to produce a symphony of directional sound that was pure bliss. Many movies barely make use of the rear surround sound speakers or use any fancy effects. Bad Boys II used it perfectly. In the heat of major shootouts every speaker in the room was rattling with gunfire but only when appropriate for the camera angle. This is one of those movies that makes you feel good for spending the extra money on a good speaker setup.

All in all I liked the movie. So if you haven't seen it, go out and rent it. In fact rent both and have a Bad Boys movie night.

That's the last time I plan to speak French in my life! I just finished my last exam for the semester. It was for French incase you didn't catch the significance of the previous statements! With that class I've fulfilled my foreign language requirements and will probably never speak a word of French again. Ok that's not exactly true. The English language actually uses many French phrases and words but anyhow I don't plan to have any conversations in French again.

So I'm now free to goof off for the next 3 weeks. Then it's back to college for what should be my final semester. Oh how I hope so because I sure as hell don't think I could stand to take much more! Seriously folks, for all you highschoolers or freshmen in college, don't slack off! Stay focused and work hard. Otherwise you'll end up like me and be in school for 5 years pushing 6 if you're not careful. If you reach a point where your family asking you when you're going to graduate and you answer "I don’t know" you know you're in trouble!

Anyhoo, I'll be keeping myself busy over break. Going to start working on some long overdue projects I've been meaning to start on. Plus I'll probably start looking for a gasp job! I have Fridays off this next semester so I'll look into getting some part time deal where I work Fridays and Saturdays. Start earning some scratch so I can have a down payment for a car when I graduate. Although I'll probably just blow it on video games and new computer hardware.

C'est la vie. <- (That's a joke by the way)

It's been one hundred years to the day since that historic first powered flight by those Ohio boys, the Wright brothers!

It's just amazing how far we've come in that time. From that first simple flight that lasted all of 12 seconds and only went 120 feet to jumbo jets that fly around the world to rockets and the shuttles going into space. The Wright brothers curiosity helped pave the way for so much we now take for granted.

Sure there were others working on powered flight at the time but you can't help but wonder where would we all be right now if those brothers had never become so focused on what so many though was a silly project. Remember it wasn't just the powered flight, even afterwards many still saw it as a curiosity with no point. The Wright brothers created traveling exhibitions to demonstrate their airplanes and expose the world to flying. Without all that work they did would we have jumbo jets now? Would overnight delivery by UPS, FedEx, etc exist? Could you get fresh Alaskan crab legs in New York? Would we have gone to the moon? Satellite TV?

It's interesting to think about.