At a recent conference, Microsoft's "I'm a PC" campaign took a strange twist when BG himself released a plague upon the crowd. Apparently Petsmart was fresh out of locust, though, so he went with mosquitoes instead. And then the dancing monkey [and the talking walnut] rushed, naked from socks-up, onto the stage chanting something about developers malaria (now he's just making up words). Silly monkey.

this post was inspired by real events

It appears as though somebody with access to Comcast's Wii'mote wasn't a big fan of Arizona. Their people are 'working tirelessly' to figure out how or why people in Tucson were treated to an unexpected package, by which I mean a penis, slapping about back and forth, after the big Arizona touchdown. My guess: someone was a Steelers fan.

Michael Desir, one of many to have seen the incident, best sums this up with the following:

M. Desir: It's like my uncle always told me: "Eventually, you're going to see someone's cock waving around on television."

The link is safe if you want the full story, but don't hit play if you're A) at work, or B) experiencing self-esteem issues.

I can't find words...

I got an email this past Friday from the folks at Zacuto telling me about a test they've done that pits the following cameras against one another in a sort of Battle Royale:

Kodak Vision3, Red ONE, Panasonic HPX3000, Panasonic HVX200, Panasonic HVX200, Panasonic HVX200, Sony PMW-EX, Panasonic HPX170, Canon XHA1, Canon 5D MarkII, Nikon D90.

You may notice that a couple of those cameras are DSLRs. I've been waiting for someone to put together a test like this - same scene, same lighting, lots of different cameras. And I'm happy to see that the pros think the 5D Mark II's video is worthwhile. On the other hand, they basically say the D90 is useless to them for pro video largely because there is no audio-in, so you're forced to use the D90's built-in mic for your audio. Drew agreed, for more than one reason, in his article: Nikon's D90 Through the Eyes of a Video Pro.)

If this is something you're even vaguely curious about, check out the video below, and for a full list of specs etc. of the equipment used in the test, check out this page.


Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout '08 from Steve Weiss, Zacuto USA on Vimeo.

So I figured tonight I would try to get some great images of the city at night, including some of the beautiful bridges. My cousin Steve was nice enough to drive around with me to find the perfect locations. Around midnight we find a nice park overlooking the city and I take some photos and panoramic images. Then I decide we should try to find an even better spot, and we find one at about 1am. After fending off a bunch of rats in another park, I get my camera and tripod setup and begin taking my first few images to determine proper settings for a beautiful panoramic. Just for kicks, I take a quick set of slightly defocused photos in a pano series, because I like the way the lights look out of focus... Then I start taking the real pano shots from this amazing, pretty much perfect location. At 1:17am, there's an audible click off in the distance, and the Brooklyn Bridge's suspension cable lights turned off... Annnnd, that's a wrap. Will have to try to make it back there tomorrow, unfortunately. Here's a teaser of the view I got thanks to the defocused set:

Given the type of photography I'm doing here in NYC, I think this is appropriate:

In case you're not keeping up with all the important me-related news... I'm uploading shots from each day of my NYC trip to a flickr set, so check 'em out if you haven't already. Please feel free to comment on the photos on flickr or email me with any questions.

Today I headed over to Times Square in mid-town to get a few of the typical shots and to try to get some creative new takes on probably one of the biggest tourist spots. I spent much of my time shooting for a series idea I had involving [relatively] long exposures in daylight (1 second), to de-emphasize the actual persons in the shot and give greater weight to the movement of said persons. For me it's sort of like capturing the soul of the city, as it breathes. The original idea was to take 60-second exposures, but it became a little more abstract at that point than what I was really aiming for. Half my time shooting today was probably spent in the subway system. At day's end, I'd recorded a bit more than 600 images and I narrowed those down to about 115. Here are some of my favorites from the day:

// day five

As I mentioned before, I'm uploading shots each day to a flickr set, so check 'em out if you haven't already. Please feel free to comment on the photos on flickr or email me with any questions.

Today I strolled through Central Park for a bit again, mainly around the 'mall' area and Bethesda fountain... Then I headed back downtown towards NYU and the SoHo area... And then I took the a train back uptown to Rockefeller center, hoping to get to the 'Top of The Rock' to catch the sunset over NYC, but I was a bit late to that party so I hung out for a bit around the skating rink. I shot over 500 images today and narrowed those down to about 100, which I'll further narrow down when I get back home. Here are some of my favorites from the day:

// day four

I just thought I'd make a quick post to mention that I'm in NYC through October 28th (I got here on the 18th) to take photos in the city. Some of you already know I'm a photographer at heart, and I decided it's time to start pursuing the craft aggressivly in my spare time. I'm uploading shots each day to a flickr set, so check 'em out. There's a lot already, and I still have 5 days of shooting left!

[As a side note... Before I left for NYC I installed a 500GB laptop drive in my Macbook Pro, which only had 20GB of free space left on a 320GB I'd installed shortly after I bought it. Well, it's a good thing I came prepared, because I've already eaten up 25GB of the new drive with photos from the trip just so far. I'll end up with at least twice that. It's not hard to do when you're filling up 8GB CF cards.]

I'll definitely have to narrow things down a lot when I get back home. When it's all said and done, I'll be putting some series' of prints together, along with some coffee table books, etc... Please feel free to comment on the photos on flickr or email me with any questions. Here are a handful of my favorites so far - I'll post a couple new ones each day [on TheTechLounge; I'll post a ton on flickr], but I have some catching up to do:

// day one


// day two


//day three

For a long time now, we've had the Hot Deals link at the top of the page. There was a time when it was full of really amazing deals - I purchased several Dell displays and computer systems over the years with huge discounts, and I even bought some lenses and then sold them for a profit thanks to the deals. Unfortunately, the quality of the deals has been going downhill for the last year or so... That's about to change.

We've struck up a partnership with DealNews.com so that we can provide better deals than ever before, with improved functionality and helpful Hotness ratings to help you spot the best deals. And this is only the beginning. We'll be working closely with DealNews to create some features that will make the Hot Deals more useful than ever. Check it out, let us know what you think, and stay tuned for more!

Many months ago I purchased my first HDTV, and I wanted to take full advantage of its capabilities so I ended up purchasing both an Xbox 360 + HD DVD add-on and a Playstation 3. The format war didn't seem like it was coming to an end anytime soon, and I was impatient. It didn't some as much of a surprise when Toshiba officially announced the death of HD DVD, but what did come as a surprise is the email I received from Best Buy shorty thereafter.

The email basically said how they were sorry for my poor choice in techno-gadgetry, but that they were dedicated to my satisfaction (that's what she said) and would be sending me a gift card, no strings attached. This is really where I was surprised. I wouldn't have thought it particularly unusual had they only offered a trade-in, but to just offer a gift card for nothing in return is a really nice gesture. Today I received my $50 gift card from Best Buy along with a short letter - so I guess they weren't just kidding. Here are some choice excerpts from the FAQs on the back side of the letter:

Is my HD DVD player still useful?
Absolutely. It will continue to play HD DVD movies and continues to be an excellent player for your regular DVDs, improving the picture to near-HD quality.

I bought an HD DVD player as a gift. Can I still use the gift card? As the purchaser of the HD DVD player, you've received the gift card. You can choose to use the gift card yourself or pass it on to the gift recipient. But you'll be a total douche if you keep it for yourself.

Okay, so they didn't really say that last little bit. Image above the result of "HD DVD for teh win" on Google Image Search.

Last week I bought an Xbox 360. I've been thinking of getting an HDTV recently, and I was bored, so I figured i'd get the console and it would be even more fun when I do take a dip in the HD pool. My experience up until now has been positive. And by "up until now" I mean now I'm not so happy with it.

I was minding my own business, playing Forza Motorsport 2, when I suddenly realized that in horizontal orientation, the green player indicator light on the front of the Xbox was oriented differently than I'd remembered. Then I suddenly thought to myself... Ooo, I bet it re-orients itself when placed horizontally or vertically. So, making sure to pause my game so as not to lose my current race, I walked toward the console. The child inside of me beckoned, Make it vertical, you know you wanna... And so I did. KCCCHT EEEEK. WTFOMG!!1!!one! I feared the worst. And I was right. El disco scratcho fantastico.

So the rhetorical question of the day is... Who makes a re-orientable consumer electronics device that doesn't play nice when you re-orient it while it is on? Obviously, the answer is Microsoft.

A quick search on Google brought up plenty of results, showing me that I was not alone. Some might call me an idiot for moving my Xbox 360 while a drive was spinning. I'd like to point out that, while such claims may be valid, this is not a universal problem for any optical drive. I can shake my laptop around while a drive is spinning and not have a problem. I can lay my computer on its side while a drive is spinning and have no problem. So what genius decided to put a drive in the Xbox 360 that will etch such a horrible scratch into your disc that it can no longer be read, by simply moving it when it's on? And taking that question a step further, why does the pretty green ring on the front re-orient itself? That's why I moved the damn thing, because I saw that it had re-oriented and I wanted to see it in action. So yeah, that might make me an idiot, but that's why companies are supposed to idiot-proof their products, and not create pointless tantalizing features that queue such "idiotic" behavior.

So, that ended my night of gaming... Hopefully tomorrow Best Buy will replace the disc for me, but I really don't know what to expect from that. I didn't buy the replacement plan for the disc (I mean, who screws up a disc?), though I did buy it for the Xbox 360 in light of all the overheating issues etc. that have plagued it since launch.

For the curious, here's a link to a site I came across on google when searching "xbox 360 scratch disc" - they talk about how it happens and even show a video of it happening.

The image above the result of searching for "the child inside of me beckoned" on Google Image Search.

Bit of an upgrade from the Camaro. Me so happy. :)

Tonight I decided to try my hand at something that I've always wanted to do... take photos of water, you know, in drippy-drop form. When I feel like I'm a bit more experienced at it, I'll write up a thorough guide on how to take drippy-drop photos, but for now I'll just show you some of my experimental results thus far, and continue practicing. =)

I was checking my mail just as I normally do in Outlook, when I noticed this...



It's like a sign. I always knew I was different. No... special.

Today, an inbox. Tomorrow, the WORLD!

Its'a Niiiccceee...

I haven't really kept up with games for a while, simply because I don't have the time for them these days. Tonight I was doing a little random web browsing and stumbled upon a game called World in Conflict. Maybe you've already heard of it, but this isn't about you. Got it? =)

At first when I saw the trailer it looked exactly like BattleField 2. And then I realized I wasn't looking at rendered footage, this was actual gameplay. World in Conflict is an RTS with FPS-like graphics. Think Company of Heroes with a sprinkling of Hell Yes. If you haven't seen it already, check out the movies at GameTrailers. Now if only I had time to actually play it when it comes out in September...

Note: I also had never been to GameTrailers.com before... it's nice that they don't make you register to watch stuff like on GameSpot and the other big gaming sites. You have to watch an ad (only once per day it seems?), but if I don't have to register or pay, that's cool with me. I'm easily excited, huh?

So, this really has nothing to do with TheTechLounge, but such is the beauty of a blog, no? Since their first album, LP has always been one of my favorite bands (of which I have few), so it follows that I've eagerly awaited a new album from them since Meteora came out. Today it finally hit the stores so I swung by and picked it up.

I reserve any judgements until I have listened to the album at least a few times over and had time to let it sit. But, my first impressions follow:

This latest album is a big leap from anything LP has ever done before. They are quite clearly evolving, as artists. I haven't decided for myself yet whether this change is for the better or not. Either way, though, I appreciate the creative process and I know that as an artist you must continue to challenge yourself and step outside of your comfort zone. Otherwise you will quickly bore yourself and your audience.

So far I have listened to the album once over and am just beginning to listen to it again as I write this. My overall impression at this point is one of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am sort of mourning the death of LP as I knew it (yeah yeah, pour on the cheese). On the other hand, I truly am appreciative of their evolution as a band and I do think I would have been disappointed if the new album was just more of the same, especially after such a long wait.

I'm leanings towards a thumbs-up for their new direction; some of the songs are immediately catchy, while I think others will grow on me.

I'll post in a couple of weeks with my updated thoughts after I've had time to listen to it more.

I recently signed TheTechLounge up for ReviewMe, a site which allows companies to pay publishers a small fee to have their product or service reviewed. The fee is pretty insignificant, so I can't say I'm really doing it for the money. I just figured it would be an interesting new way of finding new (read: random) things to write about. This will be my first ReviewMe review, but you can expect more to be posted on my blog in the future.

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If you're anything like me, you probably spend hours researching products before you actually make a purchase. And much of that time is spent looking at all the various prices, sales, discounts, and rebates available for that product. When you do a little research, sometimes it really pays off, as it did with my Canon 24-70 2.8L purchase with huge discounts from Dell. I ended up selling that lens for a profit a couple of months later. You gotta love a good deal.

FuseDeals.com is a website which basically consolidates deals from all the major deal websites such as SlickDeals.net, FatWallet.com, TechBargains.com and more... There are 12 total feeds. The site is updated automatically throughout the day, so you don't have to worry about any lack of updates. This is a really great idea for the frequent deal hunter, and I can see myself using it in the future. With that said, the site isn't perfect, and I have a couple suggestions for improvement.

1) It would be nice if there was some sort of categorization of the deals, like there is on FatWallet, for example. I realize this may not be possible to do automatically, however, so it may not be doable.
2) A more realistic feature which I think should be implemented is a search function. It should be possible to parse all of the feeds in order to search for something specific, such as "Dell" or "iPod Nano." This alone would make the site much more useful.

Check it out here: Daily Deals