hobinator dot com

Or I suppose it’s a new section of this site. Recently I’ve been visiting a few photoblogs, namely topleftpixel, and his photos have inspired me to start a photoblog of my own; photo dot hobinator. I try to keep it updated more than this one, actually everyday, we’ll see how that works out. Eventually I’d like to use a splash page in which to navigate to the photoblog and general blog, but that requires some effort, and I’m not that worried about it right now. Just go to that address as there is currently no link to it from this section of the site.

Tonight is the Psyopus show at the Rock-It Club. It should be a decent show, I just hope there is a nice turnout, I’ve seen as little as ten people there before, and no one is ever happy about playing a show like that.

Nice! Click here, here, and here, for more info.

Didn’t see this one coming. I haven’t been to the Rock-It Club in a long time. A few days ago my friend tells me Psyopus is playing there soon, I’m blown away. They usually just get small touring bands, but it feels like this is going to one of the best shows they’ve had. I hope they don’t cancel it.

I’ve been using this phone for around six months or so and I’m completely dissatisfied with it. When purchasing this phone the salesman made it sound like such a good idea, despite me telling him that I wanted a Blackberry. He talked me into it. After all, he did have a good argument; he, as well as 4 or 5 other people that work at AT&T, use a Samsung Blackjack II. All that proves, I suppose, is that they like using phones that completely suck.

Selling points; It’s relatively inexpensive, only $99 after the rebate; it’s from a well-trusted brand, Samsung (my Samsung LCD TV is great); it’s Windows Mobile based, although I have no prior experience with Windows Mobile, it couldn’t be that bad, right? Well, I was wrong.

The design of the phone is decent; it’s solid, the keyboard is nice and responsive, the screen is large and bright although somewhat weak since I dropped it once and it cracked halfway across the face, and I’ve met one other person with this phone who had the same problem (compared to the extremely durable glass face of the iPhone).

The extreme downside of this phone is the software. Windows Mobile is so ridiculous and counter-intuitive in its mechanics it’s not even funny. I had no idea Windows Mobile was this terrible. Everything, down from its text messaging to its menu navigation is completely opposite of the way you would expect it to be.

Verdict: No good.

I think I’ll go with my original choice, the Blackberry. I’ve never heard anything bad about it.

PALIN: “Barack Obama even supported increasing taxes as late as last year for those families making only $42,000 a year.”

BIDEN: “The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she’s referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way.”

THE FACTS: The vote was on a nonbinding budget resolution that assumed that President Bush’s tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, in 2011. If that actually happened, it could mean higher taxes for people making as little as about $42,000. But Obama is proposing tax increases only on the wealthy, and would cut taxes for most others. In the March 14 budget resolution supported by Obama and Biden, McCain actually did not vote.

-MSNBC

Take that!

Banksy, a well known graffiti artist and museum trickster from the U.K. has recently made his way to New Orleans. In one part of his excursion he explained how he couldn’t understand why this section still hadn’t been cleaned up from the hurricane damage, the taxi driver replied, this place wasn’t affected by the hurricane, it always looked like that.

I started using Google Chrome last night. So far I like its minimalistic design; the title bar is not there, instead the tabs bar goes clear to the top of the screen, with the address bar, and bookmarks bar directly below that (bookmarks bar optional). It runs very smoothly, even on the quite slow Lightview plugin I have running my photos through. The status bar only appears when you hover over something that would involve using the status bar, which is nifty. I like it thus far, the only thing that could make it better is some nice plugins, but for a beta release it’s very solid and will be giving Firefox a run for its money.

In other news I’m leaving shortly for a weekend in Morgantown, fun times await.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Richard Dawkins, reading from Louis Walpert, I enjoyed it; “Every time you drink a glass of water, the odds are that you will envive at least one molecule that passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell. Elementary probability theory.”

In July I posted about Matthew Tote’s electronic project Observer playing a show at the Riff Raff Arts Collective, I never got around to posting those photos, so here they are.

Although I’m not a student at Concord University any longer I’m still going to try to stay updated with the Film Society, I mean, there’s not much else to do around here and a good film once a week shall serve as a nice break. This week we are showing Lunacy by one of the society’s favorite directors, Jan Svankmajer. He is well known for his use of stop motion animation. Among his other films that Concord has shown in the past I’ve seen Little Otik and Faust, both of which I enjoyed. As always the showings will be Thursday at 8:00pm, Friday at 3:30pm and 8:00pm, and Saturday at 6:00pm. Come on out and be wowed… On a side note, Netflix says that Lunacy is enjoyed by other members who enjoyed El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and The Saddest Music in the World; all films that we have shown at some point, and films that I enjoy myself.

Now that school has started and I’m not going back I realize how much I’m going to miss it, especially Film Society. It feels odd not being a student any longer.

After enduring a vivid nightmare in which he’s dragged off to an insane asylum, a young man (Pavel Liska) is forced to face his greatest fears in this haunting philosophical horror film from Czech director Jan Svankmajer. A bizarre blend of live action and stop-motion animation, the film is based on the works of the Marquis de Sade and a pair of stories by Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial and The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether. — Netflix

Darkness Remains played their final show Friday, August 22nd, at the Princeton Rec Center. Knowing this was the last time I’d ever get to photograph them, I went a little crazy. I took around 300 photos, and posted 187 of them. You can check them out here. With no where else to post these photos but here, having let darknessremains.net expire, I decided to try out a new gallery plugin called Lightview-Plus, while it doesn’t make posting all that much easier, viewing photos is now more elegant and streamlined. A new section has also been added to the sidebar for Photography, in which I’ll be adding to more often. Enjoy the photos, and come back for updates.