Soon after I blog about my concern on a big quake coming, of course a quake comes! I was just going downstairs for lunch and all of the sudden felt the tremor and I just stopped and stood in our mini hall way before our kitched holding the wall for dear life! Ok just kidding. It wasn't that dramatic but I was thinking "Oh sh*t" several times in my head. Nothing got knocked over but I could hear the fridge shaking. At one point, I was kind of scared our walls would crack a bit or maybe our windows would crack/shatter as I could hear the stress on them but it turned out not to be as bad as I feared.
Edit: USGS updated that the quake was in fact a 5.4 and not a 5.8.
I know it's been said a million times already but count me in as well in saying that The Dark Knight really lives up to the hype and deserves all the praise and accolades received. The Nolan brothers have written one of the most complex and satisfying screenplays. The storytelling here is terrific and all characters are given ample time to shine. I can't really add to what already has been said about Heath Ledger's performance except that it shook me to the core in a similar manner as Javier Bardem's portrayal of Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men." I have to be honest and say that I was unsure of Christian Bale's performance in Batman Begins but I now think he's more comfortable as Batman and gives such a strong performance that you really empathize with Bruce Wayne much more so than any of the previous actors. And I gotta give an ovation to Gary Oldman. He is one of the most underrated actors of our time. I hope he gets some Oscar recognition soon. Amazing actor.
Other comments - great soundtrack/score, just the right amount of action that furthers the story - nothing gratuitous, great blending of CGI + live action (the lack of which is huge pet peeve of mine) .
The Dark Knight is one of those examples of why film lovers love film so much. As great as Batman Begins was it now feels like more of a prologue and you (at least I) get the feeling that Christopher Nolan just couldn't wait to unleash the story he really wanted to tell in the Dark Knight. The film definitely takes a darker turn something typical of 2nd chapter movies (ie SW Empire Strikes Back, Indy Temple of Doom, LOTR Two Towers, etc) . At the end of the movie, the enigmatic title of the film suddenly is not so enigmatic anymore.. it's very fitting.
I'm tempted to see the film a second time but this time on IMAX. It really does deserve repeat viewings to really soak in the experience.
My sister posted on her blog about her friend's startup that recently launched RepairPal. Very cool site and very useful information. Just this morning I went to get an oil change and tire rotation. I was bracing myself for some unexpected needed maintenance/ repairs since I have never , EVER received an oil change without being "recommended" some additional work. Today I was told my auto transmission fluid was discolored as well as my power steering fluid. Cost? $149 for ATF and $122 for p/s flush. In my mind I was thinking "wow" and this is not even the dealership. I then went to RepairPal and for my car model, year and location the cost range is $64 - $78 and listed three choices. These choices are independent shops and are not open today so I'll have to double check the pricing but if the range is true, that is some big savings.
I recently received our revised property tax assessment. And let me tell you it is a lot lower. So the good news is that our property tax bill is lower but the bad news is if we were selling today, we'd be selling at a significant loss. Now, I knew this was a risk in 2005 but I have to admit I've felt like a deer seeing headlights (I'm talking BIG freaking headlights) when the property reassessment came. So I've been internalizing this fact and current events for some time now.
It is disconcerting when you hear about the Feds bailing out Bear Stearns and most recently Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac. I think time will reveal if this was the right thing to do but for now the message is is pretty disturbing. Essentially the actions by the Feds say "privatize gains" but "socialize the losses." And that you're a fool for putting down 20% (which we did) when you could have put down 0% and just walk away when things got rough. The only positive of putting down 20% was that it allowed us to re-finance much more easily given our LTV but that positive pales in comparison to the flip side.
Now the above may be more bearable if we were planning to stay here long term but it's no secret that we don't want to. Renting out our place may be the most sensible option at this point but I've also thought a lot about the risk of the "next big quake" and what would happen if our house required extensive rebuild. Would the goverment bail us out as well?
"Square One" - Chris sliding down the ramp on his back and singing.
What a great concert. It's like the AM/PM commercial -> "You can never have too much good stuff." The 20 track set list was awesome and pretty close to the Monday night (14th) show. There were 9 tracks from Viva La Vida or Death... , 5 tracks from Rush of Blood.. , and4 tracks from X&Y, and 1 track from Parachutes and 1 new track.
"Life in Technicolor" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Violet Hill" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Clocks" (Rush of Blood to the Head) "In My Place" (Rush of Blood to the Head) "Viva La Vida" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "42" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Yes" (Rush of Blood to the Head) "The Scientist" (Rush of Blood to the Head) "Chinese Sleep Chant" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" (Rush of Blood to the Head) "Square One" (X&Y) "Speed of Sound" (X&Y) "What If" (X&Y) "Lost!" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Strawberry Swing" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Yellow" (Parachutes) "Death Will Never Conquer" (new track or B-side?) "Fix You" (X&Y) "Lovers In Japan" (Viva La Vida or Death...) "Death and All His Friends" / "The Escapist" (Viva La Vida or Death...)
A nitpick but I felt that right after the "Technicolor" intro, the band jumped into the vocals of "Violet Hill" a bit too quickly and the leading intro for "Violet Hill," which I think is very nice and has a certain mystique to it, was cut out. I was hoping for "Trouble" or "White Shadows" was going to be played but they weren't. "Trouble" was actually performed the night before. I was surprised they played "Chinese Sleep Chant" . This was the one track the crowd did not seem to get into as much which did not surprise me since it has more of that indie/alternative sound. Toward the end of the show, the band went all the way up to the third level (same level as us but other side) to play an acoustic version of "Yellow" followed by a new track "Death Will Never Conquer" that was sung by drummer Will Champion . It was funny because when Chris got up there, he said "So this is what it's like?" Chris screwed up a bit on Speed of Sound but he's so charismatic that everyone just laughed along with him. The highlight of the show for me was "Fix You" as well as the encore performance of "Death and All His Friends"where the music reached a climax and the VIVA background drops down. It was incredible.
The crowd was awesome. Lot of energy and sing-a-longs. During show, Chris told us (Tue 15th night crowd) that in "Starbucks terms" the first night (Mon 14th) crowd was "Grande" and that we were "Venti." Funny.
In terms of visuals, there was the album cover as the backdrop - which later became a black & white live video feed of the band performing, and you had the signature "Coldplay globes (orb/bulbs)" which changed colors and later on became a live video feed of the band performing, a nifty laser light show, and toward the end lots of confetti shaped like butterflies that filled the air for several minutes during "Lovers In Japan." It was like NYE in July. We sat in the back so it was bit hard to see the band. I know I sound like such a total whiner by now but I wish they had made better use of the projection system for the fans in the back.
And dude! You can't have a concert in LA without the stars. I didn't see them but apparently Kathryn Heigl , Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Miley Cyrus (Mon 14th show) were rockin' out with Coldplay as well.
At the end of the concert, I heard a fan comment how it went by so fast and how it felt like the shortest concert ever. I clocked it in at around 90 minutes and to me it did feel a bit short but I also think that time flies when you are having a good time.
I think back to high school when I use to go to the local record store and spend what little money I had on B-sides and live tracks so that I could have every version of that track that I loved so dearly. But a recording is just a recording. For me there's no substitute for live music as you will never hear that song as it was performed that evening. Listening to the albums now bring back happy memories.
Ok, I learned that despite the nice looking post greyscale adjusted CIE chart that I had on my 1st try, I had an issue of running out of red at 80 IRE. This can be visibly seen on the RGB graph from the previous post . STEP 6.12 from Kal's guide explains this phenomena in greater detail. The fix is to lower the contrast but the catch is that you lose light output. So a tradeoff has to be made - color accuracy vs light output. Now I use to hear about this tradeoff all the time but it wasn't until I actually saw the results that I better understood and appreciated what it really meant.
Some good guys over at AVS have been helping me out as well. Long story short, on my 2nd try I fixed my red contrast to 0 and adjusted the green and blue and I also set Brilliant Color to off per the recommendation of an ISF calibrator. My latest results are still not perfect but I am getting even closer now. My latest settings are now at,
1) Gamma: Cinema (this was pre-set. I did not change during calibration) High: 0 Med: 0 Low: 0
I do appreciate the much improved color accuracy even at the expense of light output. I don't think I would have happy with the 1st try results long term. What I don't know is if I could get use to such a dim image. The dimmer image that results from calibration is exacerbated by the fact that bulbs dim over time with today's projectors. My lamp is in low mode and I could set it to high in increase brightness but I would be concerned with the added fan noise and greyscale could require calibration again. Still, I might experiment with it. Another option - much to the scorn of videophile purists/ISF calibrators is that I could turn Brilliant Color back on which does indeed improve the luminance. Brilliant Color might be the compromise.
After 2nd try - With green contrast down significantly versus before and with Brilliant Color set to off the image is dimmer. But on the plus side you can see more details on Tobey's face.
Before 2nd try - on the left side of Tobey's face, details are crushed.
2nd try - less pink on the veil folds but now there is a pinkish cast overall. It's been a challenge to get that perfect white. But you can see more details now in Charlize's face.
1st try - the veil folds were overly pink and Charlize's face is lacking fine details.
CIE Diagram after 2nd try. Everything within the circle this time and hence even closer to D65!
RGB levels after 2nd try - No more red drop off at 80IRE and DeltaE less than 3 which is even better than before.
Luminance after 2nd try. The problem is that after 60% or so, red starts dropping off relative to green and blue. I will try to set red contrast lower than 0 and readjust.
Gamma after 2nd try - average at 2.26 which is not bad
Closer to D65 - adjusting greyscale on the Mits HC3000
For some time now, I've wanted the HC3000 calibrated but the thought of paying $400+ dollars for an ISF calibration was a bit too steep for me. I also held off until recently because it's known that the color output on a digital display bulb can drift quite a bit over a short duration of time vs other technologies like say a CRT tube whose color output will more likely remain stable.
I think my DLP bulb now has about 1,000 hours or so. I am pretty sure the light output on my bulb has dropped by at least some amount but it's one of those things that has not been very obvious to me since I use the projector enough that the change is gradual to my eyes. My point being, because of the gradual dimming I have never known the best time to calibrate the projector. However, as I watched more movies, I slowly noticed how off the colors were. And so I've built up this itch to have the projector calibrated as I mentioned above. Using calibration discs like DVE or Avia by themselves and adjusting by eye are better than not calibrating at all but it's generally agreed upon that if you really want the best picture possible out of your display, it's recommended to use a device like a colorimeter that can perform accurate measurements so that you can appropriately adjust all the various settings like the color temperatures.
Not too long ago I came across Kal's GREYSCALE & COLOUR CALIBRATION FOR DUMMIES and realized that a great, cost effective DIY calibration solution exists and many people seem to give it a lot of praise. As per the guide, I finally picked up an Eye One LT colorimeter and a DVE HD Basics and with Kal's calibration guide, I was off to the races.
All said and done, the settings after adjusting the greyscale are now as follows,
1) Gamma: Cinema (this was pre-set. I did not change during calibration)
6) Brilliant Color: On (this was pre-set. I did not change during calibration)
My other "first stab at it" results are described in the screenshots below. One other side note (and this is maybe more for myself to help me remember for future reference). When I set up on the tripod as shown above and adjusted the positioning recommendations as described in step 1.14, I could not get my peak light output (The 'Y' luminance value) above 39.6 (or 11.562 ftL). I'm not sure if this was due to the age of my bulb or a design limitation of the HC3000.
Post-greyscale adjusted image. Charlize Theron's face looks more balanced than before the adjustment. I compared to Art Feierman's image on the BenQ W5000 and while my image is not as nice as on the W5000, it's an improvement over the pre-adjusted image and seems to be in the right direction at least. Like the reds on Tobey's face, I think there is a pinkish cast over Charlize's veil that does not look right to me. So despite the progress as shown in the charts and measurements below, I think some additional work might need to be done. It's a real challenge to find out what the director's intent was.
Pre-greyscale adjusted image at "default" settings (color temp: medium). Dude, way too blue!
Post-greyscale adjusted image. Tobey Maguire's face looks less ghastly for sure. But I'm not sure if the face is too red? Or Director's intent? If anyone knows, please do share.
Pre-greyscale adjusted image at "default" settings (color temp: medium). Tobey Maguire's face looks too blue, lifeless, almost corpse-like *gasp*
CIE Diagram - Post greyscale adjustment: Ah, much better! I felt a sense of accomplishment when I saw this diagram. Again, the 90 and 100 IRE point were off as shown in the RGB level chart below and you can also see they are outside of the blue outer circle. All of the other points fall well within DeltaE<10> which is a good thing.
CIE Diagram - Pre greyscale adjustment: Dude, way outside D65. *shakes fist to the sky*
RGB levels - Post-greyscale adjusted. RGB levels are much closer to the 100% target. The 90 and 100 IRE points are off but all of the other points fell well within DeltaE<10> which is a good thing.
RGB levels -Pre-greyscale adjustment. RGB levels are way off from the 100% target.
Another summer, another season for ants. We've been lucky so far in that the ants are mainly in our kitchen *knock on wood* and not in our bathrooms like in previous years. Terro did a great job with the ants that were on our kitchen island but for over a week now, we've had a lot of ants coming from underneath our countertops near our kitchen sink. According to what I've read from other users, Terro is one of the best solutions but it can take a bit of time as the ant colonies can split up or you may have the next generation of ants to deal with. The thing that annoys me the most is when the ants are on kitchen floor. I hate stepping on them. I've used Black Flag spray on some of the gaps/cracks around the floor/cabinets where the ants were coming in but it only stops them for so long. Ants are quick to adapt and will find another way in. Also the thought of all the neurotoxic chemicals inside the house is not very comforting. So after some additional research, I've learned that Johnson's baby powder is non-toxic (obviously) and can be a very effective part of an ant control solution. As you can see above, I've sprinkled some baby powder around my Terro bait and it really does keep them contained. The ants will not cross the powder! And thus I've also sprinkled baby powder around the cracks/gaps near our kitchen floor and while there are some ants on the kitchen floor it's better than before.
We also picked up a bag of Diatomaceous earth that I plan to use on the areas around our house like windows, doorways, dry plant areas. We'll see how well that works. More pest control tips here.
