Some Recent Cool Things

Well, in the last few days some cool things have happened to me. I was asked by a friend who just recently opened a business (www.abellarose.com), to teach her how to use her server and website. So, I decided to put together an outline for what I wanted to go over, and the lesson went pretty well! I was able to complete the lesson plan, and go over everything I wanted to, so it was nice. We ran into some server trouble at the end, but it looks like it's fixed now...

Last week I was playing my guitar, and one of my stings snapped! It hurt a little because my hands were still on the guitar when the string broke, so it kinda whacked a couple of my fingers. Anyways, Dad took me down to Pecknel Music Company, and we got it restrung. We also got a new string for my electric guitar, which I broke a string on while trying my hand at ear-tuning...Obviously I'm not real good at ear-tuning! So, after the guys at Pecknel strung up my guitars, they asked if I wanted to hook 'em up to a Fender amp to see what they sounded like. Of course I did! Since, my main guitar is an acoustic/electric, I was very curious to hear what it sounded like on an amp; and I was pretty impressed. The amp's sound quality was very good with both guitars. So, that was neat and the guys were really nice.

The last thing I want to include in this post is about photography. There are these things called snoots. A snoot is a tube like thingy that you hook to your flash to control the pattern of your light. You can make a small spot of light, or a larger spot, and add some really neat effects to your images that way. I looked them up on B&H and was quite disappointed in the cost of buying a snoot. So, I decided to see what I could find here at home that would work. I am currently using a piece of black cardstock rolled up into a tube as my snoot. It really works pretty well, and I'd really recommend doing it if you need a snoot effect. You can see a sample of my snoot in use over at my Photo Blog. Let me know what you think!

BTW, this will probably be the last post on here for a few weeks because we'll be shooting and working on BROS! So, even though not much will be going on around here, head on over to the BROS Blog, and follow the production. And be sure to check out the BlockOne Flikr stream that we hope to be updating daily with production photos!

-Dominic

New YouTube Channel Design

Hey! I just wanted to let all you fellow YouTubers out there know about the new Beta channel design out there. You just go to Account >Edit Channel, and you'll be able to select the new Beta design. It's pretty sweet. You can see, I already updated our us4HIM channel, and Creation, Evolution, and Science Ministries' channel.

It's pretty cool!

-Dominic

Aaahhh!

Wow, I am so excited for BROS! I call this being uber psyched! It's a state of total euphoria when thinking of an exciting event within three days of the writing. Yeah, I came up with that all on my own. ;-)

-Dominic

The Squire and the Scroll Teaser

Well, Zeke's been at it again! He read a book called The Squire and the Scroll, and liked it so much he decided to do an animated film based off of the same story. Recently he and I have been working on a teaser for it, and here it is!

I'm amazed at what he can accomplish in Blender...

-Dominic

I Did it Again

So, I wrote another poem. I don't know why. It just came to me. It's free verse and not real impressive, but I thought I'd post it on here anyways.

THE WEATHER POEM – BASED ON MY INTERPRETATION OF THE WEATHER ON MAY 19TH, 2009.

By Dominic DiMaria

The Weather outside is familiar.
Though it reminds me of something I cannot recall.
Something I recognize, yet cannot realize.
It’s cloudy, the air is crisp.
There is a soft breeze in the air.

Yet, I cannot remember the mysterious but mundane smell.
The smell is in the air.
A delightful odor…It calls to my memory,
But, I still cannot recall
Where the beautiful fragrance comes from;
The place and time that I smelled it before.

-Dominic

PDN Photographers' Virtual Trade Show

Hey everyone! I wanted to let everyone know about the PDN Photographer's Virtual Trade Show. It's a virtual enviroment where one can visit booths from prominent businesses such as B&H, Adorama, Canon, DriveSavers, etc.

It's a really neat place. You can chat with other photographers, attend virtual presentations, and download useful documents. Today is the first event, and there will be another one on June 11th.

Hope to see you there! (either today or June 11th)

-Dominic

Skype Chat

The following is a fairly typical Skype conversation between Anth and I. He was making a comment about my little status message which was "Oh darn, I broke a guitar string...":

Anthony DiMaria: poor you
Dominic DiMaria: referring to my satus?
Anthony DiMaria: si
Dominic DiMaria: yeah, tell me about it
Anthony DiMaria: oh, well, what can you do now?
Dominic DiMaria: get a new string
Anthony DiMaria: yep

Seems a bit random, but Anth and I seem to have some random Skype conversations...The weirdest thing is that we're only about 10 feet away from each other when we Skype. That's why our conversations are usually pretty short...

-D

The Secret Project *wink*

Happy 19th b-day, Geno! As you know, I've been working on a secret project *wink* for this day. I'm now unveiling it for you! I hope you enjoy it. Take a look!



And, thank you, everyone who did a video for this. You helped make this project work, and make Geno's b-day special.

-Dominic

P.S. For anyone who would like to download this video, here is the link to download it from our server. Direct Link: http://us4him.com/mediauploads/Geno19.mpg

Man, I forgot the hosting company changed my FTP password, so it took me a while to get in the server! :-)

P.P.S. The Ower's also wanted to say Happy B-day!

Well, I Didn't Get the Job

Well, as the title of this post implies, I did not get the video internship position down where Dad works. But, I'm okay with it because 1, we knew it was a long shot, and 2, now I can focus all my attention on finishing up school next week, working on Bros, hopefully doing driver's ed over the summer, and also doing some CLEP tests this coming school year.

So, in some ways it's good that I didn't get it. I know that if God wanted me to get it, I would've got it. That's obviously not the case, so I'm gonna focus on other stuff for now.

Anybody need a website?

-Dominic

P.S. I'm considering doing a blog redesign here soon...I'll post a poll on the side to see if anybody wants one...If anybody even reads this. =P

I'm a Mac...

Well, I've been saving up for a laptop for a while. I figured I would get a nice Dell or something because I didn't think there was any difference between Mac's and PC's besides the fact that Macs are more expensive. But once Geno got his MacBook Pro and let me use it, I realized why Macs were more expensive. They are soooo much faster than PC's and it's easier to use the operating system on them.

I decided I was going to keep saving for a Mac even though it would take about double the time. Well, I was looking on craigslist every day for a new deal and, finally, about 1 and 1/2 weeks ago, an amazing deal came along. There was a MacBook Unibody that was only 60 days old that came with iLife '09 (obviously), iWork '09, a carrying case, VMWare Fusion so I can now run Windows on my Mac, and MobileMe, all for a really cheap price.

My dad, Dominic, and I went to meet the man and all the disks were there and everything was in great condition so, I bought it!

-Anth

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms I know! (especially my dearest mother ;-)

-Dominic

Today is Weird

Today is weird. It's hot outside, yet the wind is blowing, yet the breeze is not cooling the temperature at all. It's cloudy, but not raining, though it looks like it might here soon.

And it smells like roses outside...

-Dominic

The Hunt for Gollum

Well, a few days ago Geno found out about this LOTR fan film called The Hunt for Gollum. I viewed the trailers, and though "Hey, this looks like it might be cool!" The very next day I went to the site again, and realized "It comes out today! In HD! For FREE! Cool..."

So, we hooked up Geno's MacBook Pro to our TV and sat back to watch it.

It wasn't the greatest film of all time. The story was a little weak, and it dragged at times, but for a fan film I thought it was awesome. It was like the LOTR fan film I always wanted to make. The acting was good, the landscape visual effects were good (the close-ups weren't bad, but they weren't great), the orcs' prosthetics were decent, and it was a cool filler for the LOTR story.

The battles were actually quite a bit bloodier than in the real films...at least from the orc side (no good guys get hurt, just the bad guys). I don't think it was necessary, and it actually took away from the LOTR feel because of that. Some of the shots were just plain nasty, honestly. And the orcs were a bit creepier than in the real films...

Now, little disclaimer here, I won't recommend or discourage this film. I know that no matter what I think, someone will always disagree in some way; so I don't really recommend or discourage most of the films that I watch.

All in all, I think The Hunt for Gollum is a worthy fan film with some awesome visual effects (and some just okay ones), that most LOTR fans will enjoy!

-Dominic