Juggling Mike

Oh boy! One month without posts! I have failed the blogospheres. As usual, I was busy, yadda yadda, but I should have some more time soon to work on my site. I restarted my redesign, but I also promised somebody I would make them a website as well. So, the gist of it is that I may or may not be on as often for the next little while. Hopefully, everything will stabilize soon and I will be able to keep up with a more regular schedule.

In other news, last week, Jiahui and I decided to try out a little project. She told me about using camera film twice to produce a double exposure. The goal would have been for us to take pictures, then send the roll of film to each other to use once more. The idea is that you have no idea what the other person took, so you might get some surprises with the output. Since she lives in Singapore, and I live in Montreal, we decided to try this experiment using our digital cameras and swap pictures over the Internet. We each took 10 pictures and marked 2 sets from 1-5. We sent the first set to each other, and then merged them with our other 5 pictures. We couldn’t change the order of the pictures and we used Photoshop to blend them together. We both produced at least a couple of good pictures. I will share my 5 pictures below, and you can see Jiahui’s pictures on her site here. Overall, it was a fun experiment and I hope to do it again in the near future.

If you don’t understand the title of this post, it was -30 degrees (celsius) here and +30 in Singapore, creating 60 degrees of difference.

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- Juggling Mike

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The end of the year is always accompanied with gatherings and events which take up most of your time. For the last two weeks, any day where I was not working, I was busy at an event. It is amazing how fast time flies when you are kept busy, and next thing you know, it has been over a week since you last posted. While I missed a Music Monday, I hope you were all too busy with the holidays to notice!

The Cirque du Soleil is currently back in Montreal with Alegra. This show started touring in 1994 and is still going strong. They changed their format in 2009 to fit in arenas, but the show is still the same. Since I had never seen it before (as if I need an excuse), I bought my tickets as soon as they were available. Unfortunately, my “awesome” front row seats (not on the floor, but first row in the bleachers) were directly behind some projectors blocking out part of the floor. Luckily, one of the attendants gave us seats in the third row which had not been sold for that night. Regardless of that slight annoyance, the show was great.

One thing you realize when you see many circus shows is that the acts all start feeling familiar. I had a sense of deja-vu throughout the performance. While that didn’t dampen my impression of the show, it is something to consider. My favourite act of the show was definitely the clowns. I often find that clowns are never fully fleshed out in Cirque shows, but I loved the dynamism between the two in Alegria. They were really funny and did a great job. It was no surprise that they had the biggest ovation at the end of the show.

Another great part of this Cirque show is the music. As usual, there is a live band and singers and it adds to the overall experience. The Alegria theme song is probably the most known Cirque du Soleil out there, and it brought me joy to finally hear it live.

Overall, I really enjoyed Alegria, but I didn’t find there was much that was new to me. This is my fourth Cirque du Soleil show in 2009, so after a while, the acts tend to repeat. If you are new to the Cirque du Soleil world, then Alegria will definitely impress, but if you are used to circus shows, then you will enjoy yourself, but will find nothing really new. To those who have seen the show and loved the clowns, I have only this to say: “Never surrender!”

Watch the official trailer here.

- Juggling Mike

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I was browsing my pictures from my Las Vegas trip, and I found a couple of pictures I had taken of the Grand Canyon with the purpose of stitching them together. I played around with them and the result ended up quite nice! The original picture’s dimensions are around 5000 x 1600 pixels, so I scaled it down to about 30%. Note that the picture is still rather large, so it may take some time to download.

Click on the picture below to see the larger version.

- Juggling Mike

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As promised, here’s a new post on some music you might not know about. Today, I want to introduce Cursor Miner. Considering how difficult it was for me to purchase his cds, I wouldn’t say he’s the most popular DJ out there… but his music should definitely be played more often.

I first discovered his music from a flash video I randomly came upon one day. It was extremely catchy and I would listen to it on repeat. Eventually I bought his cd, and started listening to that over and over. He releases some mixes now and then on his website [ed: seems his website no longer exists.. unless he's entered the realm of colon cleansing... check out his myspace page instead], and they usually find their way in my playlist. I’m going to post two songs by him today; the first being the original flash video I saw, and the second a song from one of his cds. (no video though) Enjoy!

- Juggling Mike

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Regarding the previous post, I had to go look up some old Quebec videos. For me, that means one thing: miniputt! For some reason, we used to worship minigolf. It played on the sports channel among all the other great sports and what made it so great was the announcer. Sometimes I like to scream out a “BIRRRRRR-DEE!” in public, and strangely, nobody looks at me weird. That show is legend, and it deserved its spot at Total Crap 6. Watch the videos below to understand what I mean!

- Juggling Mike

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Last month, I had a chance to go check out the Spasm Festival. It is mainly a movie festival where they play (mostly) Quebec horror and genre films. I had never gone in the past, which is curious since I love Fantasia so much. This year, I grabbed some friends and went to see the Quebec trash montage, properly called “Total Crap 6″, and it was awesome. There were so many snippets of old tv shows and movies that were so horrible that we couldn’t stop laughing. The intro video they picked is not from Quebec, but it was pretty funny, so I decided to add it as a bonus to Music Monday. It is a video from Christian rock/ska band “Sonseed”. From now when I hear this song, I want to go find some old Quebec videos… hmm.. watch the next post.

- Juggling Mike

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I have not been very consistent lately on the blog. I have been rather busy and I have neglected my duties as a web information peon. In order to try to post on a more regular basis, I have decided to do a “Music Monday” post. Every Monday, I will (try) to write a blog entry about a band or song that I like. My taste in music is somewhat different than the “club scene norm”, so hopefully I will be introducing some new bands to some of you.

Today, I want to introduce you to the Penguin Café Orchestra. They have been around for a while, but I have only started listening to them recently. I heard one of their songs on a Café Del Mar album, and I fell in love. Something feels slightly off when you listen to them, but it is that touch of individuality that makes them interesting. You probably heard one of their most popular songs on “Napoleon Dynamite” near the end of the film. It is the same song that I heard on the Café Del Mar album, and it is called “Music For A Found Harmonium”.

My only gripe with that live rendition is the constant humming of the (I’m guessing) harmonium. It is not as loud in the record studio version. Another song I quite like is “Perpetuum Mobile”, though it is probably not as known.

I think from those two samples you can get a clear idea as to why I enjoy their music so much. I will try to keep this schedule and talk about more music next week.

- Juggling Mike

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I love the audio/visual. I’ve owned my DLSR for a couple of years, but I have never owned a camcorder. I was going to wait until there is a Nikon SLR body with proper 1080p video capabilities, but I figured I could get something smaller for now and upgrade later. I ended up choosing the waterproof Sanyo VPC-CA9 720p camcorder. It is not the best quality, but it is not too shabby either. It can go up to 5 feet underwater, so I will not be afraid of getting it wet outside. I have already tested it in my Oktoberfest mug!

While I have done a bunch of sample videos, I finally uploaded something online. It is probably the least suitable video to show off the HD, but that doesn’t matter. It is another video of me juggling my glowballs. Once again, there is nothing impressive in this video, but I had fun doing it. One thing I discovered is that I really enjoy finding the proper audio to go with my video. I’ll probably shoot some more footage in the coming weeks and post something more interesting. Until then, enjoy the short video. Or, if you prefer, watch it in HD.

- Juggling Mike

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It has been a while since my last post. I try to post regularly, but sometimes days pass by way too fast and next thing you know a month has passed since your last entry. For shame Mike.. for shame. I guess I’ll end this stagnation with a summary of my month of October. For starters, I’m house hunting, although that hasn’t kicked into full swing yet. I have also spent a lot of time with Dharti (not enough time, but the house should help fix that). I have been spending some time with friends and vacation plans have been made. I practiced my unicycle and I am finally starting to “get” what it is supposed to feel like. If I can ride it properly by Spring, I may have to invest into a 24 incher. Wow, that can be totally misinterpreted…

Besides that, I have also been playing games. I didn’t touch much of my consoles over the summer, but lately I have been giving them much attention. I bought three games this month, which is a lot more than I would normally buy/play. I started by playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune which a friend lent me. Awesome game, but that playtime has been interrupted by the arrival of Brutal Legend.

Brutal Legend is the newest game from Tim Schafer, one of my favourite game designers. I own every one of his games, and have played pretty much all of them at least twice. His days at Lucasarts produced some of the finest adventure games, and his first platformer Psychonauts remains one of my favourite games ever. If you’ve ever played Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, or Full Throttle.. you have this man to thank. Brutal Legend takes place in the world of metal music. It is a universe imagined based from covers of old heavy metal albums, and a lot of music love went into the game. You play Eddie (voiced by Jack Black) who can slice enemies with his axe, electrocute and burn people with his guitar, or drive through them with his Druid Plow. It is a mix of all sorts of genres such as action, racing, and RTS, and it is all blended well. The humour is excellent and the pacing is well done. My only gripe with the game is that I’m not a huge RTS fan, so a good portion of the game loses some interest over the other sections. Still, overall it is a lot of fun and I recommend it. I am not finished the single player yet, but I hope to get through it soon.

The next game I bought was Borderlands. I originally knew nothing about this game, but when Wal-mart announced that they were selling it at a reduced price, it peaked my interest. I bought it along a couple of friends and we started playing together. I like to think of it as a Fallout 3 - Lite. It is a FPS with RPG elements. It has a very original art style and is quite addictive. The coop play is a lot of fun and well implemented. I keep wanting to play to reach just one more level. If you like shooters and want something different, you should check Borderlands out.

The last game I got was a bit of a guilty pleasure. I had posted about it before and then said I would not buy it, but I caved today and picked it up. I’m talking about DJ Hero. I never bought Rock Band because I would always be playing it alone, and I can’t start banging on the drums in my apartment. I was pretty excited when DJ Hero was announced since it is a relatively quiet game (regarding the instrument) and is mostly solo. Also, it is my kind of music. I love this stuff. I wish they would release a soundtrack, since a lot of the tracks in this game are just simply awesome. My biggest gripe about the game is the price. It costs over a hundred dollars which does not make it easily accessible to everyone. It has a new plastic peripheral, but compared to a plastic guitar, this is the kind of toy I wouldn’t mind having on my living room table. The turntable controller works really well and feels great. I haven’t played too much so far, but from what I’ve seen, I love it. Hearing Queen mashed with Daft Punk is simply (excuse the pun) music to my ears. If I didn’t work tomorrow, I would probably end up pressing plastic buttons and scratching plastic records for a good portion of the night. If you like music games, and you like the sounds DJs produce.. you need this game.

Anyways, I need to get to bed. Till the next post!

- Juggling Mike

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Ever stand in between two mirrors and felt like you could see yourself repeated to infinity? As a programmer, I would call that recursion, but to the rest of the world, it could be considered as the Droste effect. This is when one image gets repeated inside another over and over again. You’ll see this in photographs/paintings in which the person is holding a picture of themselves holding the same picture. M.C. Escher was really good at doing this kind of stuff.

With today’s technology (I’m looking at you Photoshop), these kind of effects can be easily reproduced without too much work. Of course, it is nothing compared to what real artists can produce, but it is still pretty impressive. Using an old picture of myself, I managed to make a repeating image and it definitely gave me the itch to create more. I know that next time I will be out shooting pictures, I will try to think outside the box so that I can post manipulate it to infinity.

- Juggling Mike

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