Astrophotography Redux!

Well hacking seems to have crossed into another area of my life. This time it's astronomy. I have a nice telescope that I haven't gotten out for a while and it was calling to me. However, I didn't answer it's call. Nope, instead, I got my tripod and my digital cameras and turned them skyward to see what they could see. I was amazed! I'm sure other people have done this but it was so quick and easy to take these pix that it got my old stargazing juices flowing again. This pic is actually of the constellation Orion. Don't worry, he's there. You can go to my Flickr stream and see the big photos. Make sure to zoom in to see all the little stars in the belt and sword! There' s one of Mars too that's pretty cool. The detail is mostly a lens effect so don't get too excited. Next full moon, I'll be taken some more pix! Enjoy and keep looking up! 

Movie Review: Underworld: Evolution

Starring Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman, this sequel does the original one better by adding more action and back story to this tale of werewolves and vampires meets Romeo and Juliet. It does what most sequels fail at, truly expanding the universe the original created without destroying it or corrupting it *cough MATRIX RELOADED * cough REVOLUTIONS cough, hack *. I really enjoyed this film and I will have to admit that part of that is simply because I'm a guy. Kate Beckinsale looks incredible throughout this film. Period. This movie shares a certain quality with Sin City where both films are great with fine acting, sets, story and... and made.. well better looking by the eye candy that is brought in by the truck loads. In all honesty the T&A in this movie got distracting at times. There's a whole five minutes of film that I believe was made for all the fanboys out there and well they're turning out in droves to see this film. Now, all this coming from a fan of Kate Beckinsale from way back in the "Much Ado About Nothing" days of her career. The movie, whose plot I don't need to go into (if you liked the original you'll like this one or if you like werewolf and vampire movies and come on.. who doesn't?), does a great job of entertaining, telling a good yarn and leaving just enough open for more movies or even a TV show without leaving you hanging (please bring back Firefly first, then Underworld. Buffy left a void or so I'm told.).
Now I happen to love this genre, as many of you know, and I have been waiting for this particular movie for some time. If you're like me and are wanting something sooner than next Underworld sequel, then there is a whole trilogy of films all ready slowly making there way to a theater near you, that you and I both need go check out. From Russia comes the Nightwatch series of movies. Check the trailer out. This looks like one scary, action packed, whatthehelluvaride movie.

Sunset Over Lake Michigan

I took this a while ago but I thought I'd share it anyway. Although there's still a few inches of snow on the ground, it's sunsets like these that make the winter months a little more tollerable. :) 

Career Day

My son Thomas and I recently spent some quality time together. I was working on some presentations at home and spent the better part of a late afternoon helping him create his first video project. Oh, sure, my son has been an actor for years in such elementary hits as "Oh Deer!" and "The Nutcracker" but this is his first foray behind the scenes. He directed and helped in the production of this VERY small video. It's the first part of an entire "fake" news cast starring nonother than himself and THE BATMAN. Really, I didn't have that much to do with the subject matter. My influence on him has firmly taken root. Enjoy, after the link.
GNN Breaking NEWS

For those playing along at home: I used Adobe Premiere Elements and used the Chromakey filter along with three yards of neon green cotton fabric from JoAnn Fabrics. I used my Canon Digital video camera and did some basic chopping and titles with Microsoft Movie Maker. (see previous post for Adobe bashing).

Cheers

Production, Day 1

Production, day 1, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

Yep, that's a green-screen. I'm just doing a little work, for.. work in my kitchen. Which isn't really new or surprising or anything. I'm using Adobe Premiere Elements' Chromakey effect and it works quite well. Now I too, can drive my desk around like Conan O'Brian or interview people in the comfort of my home and make it look like FOX News or CNN. Speaking of Adobe Premiere Elements... I have to say this software is basically a light version of Premiere and unfortunately therefore too hard for the casual user and not powerful enough for the poweruser. It has some great powerful effects like a fairly configurable chromakey (think bluescreen special effects) but doing basic titling like you'd find in Microsoft Movie Maker is a lot harder (but more customizable) than it ought to be. It sticks real close to it's Premiere roots which is both a curse and blessing. It's one of those tools that one should have but not use all by itself. So, anyone out there done any editing lately and have anything to share with the rest of the class?

Mr. Monopoly Remodeling

Mr. Monopoly, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

I'm just about done with my Monopoly Bathroom project. I've decided for the time being to NOT purchase the Official Monopoly Shower curtain. Instead, I'm going for solid curtains, rugs and some orginal "ART". These pictures are from the master bathroom and I'll be ordering some furniture for it soon. It's theme? The World of Tomorrow, circa 1939.

University of Chicago Visit

, originally uploaded by johnmknight.
My annual trip to the University of Chicago went without incident. It rained (as usual).

Special Project Announced

I have a special creative project that I will post a little more about as things start to solidify. I'm starting to enlist volunteers as this will be a non for anyone elses profit type project. I've currently gotten people from three states to volunteer for various roles and raw materials. For those willing to go out on a limb and have some fun this summer, contact me and I'll tell ya a little more.

Lights, Camera, Action...

More from CES... later

Ok, I've been working on a post with some more info from CES. I'm simply not going to write another post. I'm going to vblog it! That's right. I'm getting lazy and instead of typing with the perfectly good two hands that God gave me I'm going to talk into my Canon Digial Cam and bore you all to tears. I ran into some technical difficulties with the new software I was using so, it didn't get posted. It's probably a good thing too as I seriously needed to shave before putting my mug back on the internet. Rembers... with out pix or video on the internet, no one knows if you need a shave.

Teller and Me

Teller and Me, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

Teller of Penn and Teller after their show. The show was great and a few kind fans were good enough to snap a couple of photos with me and the guys.

Penn Jillette and Me

Penn Jillette and Me, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

A quick photo of me and Penn Jillette after their show at the Rio in Vegas. The guys were very gracious and posed for picture and signed autographs for everyone.

REALLY Live from VEGAS, Part 1

Ok... many technical problems later I'm able to post live from CES (The International Consumer Electronics Show). This post is brought to you by YAHOO, who was kind enough to have access to broadband and a laptop. So, hats off to Yahoo. Now back to CES.

What's NEW and REALLY BIG?
Well LCDs and Plasma rule and they're big.. REALLY big. I like big video like the next guy but it's not really new or much cheaper (just bigger). BlueRay is great and will empty the pockets of many. I heard more people just comment on how many flat screens there are here and from how many new players. Polaroid is heave into consumer goods now.. tvs, dvds, etc... that was a surprise but not a big one.
Yahoo (see disclaimer above) is really pushing their data and connections to Flickr through Media Centers and Tivo as well as their iTunes like media player and music services. It still looks like content is king and everyone is getting in on it. The cool news about that is that the content can really go from device to device, pretty much anything you can think of can access it.
ACC... Apples Achilles Heal? Got ACC and want to put it on a non Apple device or network.. forget about it. Time will tell on this one... I want to watch Lost on my Dell Axim with out a bunch of hoops and conversion to go through. Heck, I'mn not even sure if it's legal to do so.. seems silly to me that I can't....

Whole home multimedia and remote control is everywhere. Neat stuff, again not new but more people making it and selling it. One note is I've seen things people had to hack together (like me) that are now being offered as produt and services. Seems like there's a good pace of conversion going on from concept (or hack) to real product.

XM is EVERYWHERE. There has been an explosion of devices using XM. Expect lots of new services as more and more customers jump on board. What if iTunes and XM got together... hmmmm, now that would be something.

More later.

LIVE from Las Vegas (starting tomorrow)

I WILL be posting live-ish from the Consumer Electronics Show starting tomorow. Actually that means, I'll be posting some horrible pix from my camera to the blog with very tiny captions such as "cool", "wow" and "huh?". In the evenings I will be uploading a video post and better pix from my main digital camera. Thanks to a new laptop Santa brought (instead of a an XBOX 360), I'll be able to do some decent post production on the video. So... let the fun begin.

P.S. Santa, thanks for the laptop. I guess even the guy in red wasn't willing to stand in line as much as some people I know :) *cough* Jim *cough*