Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

When it comes to a declining economy and everyone, including the media, always reminding you so, begins to sink into your mind. You begin to think, that your calm little world is about to explode into a chaos of havoc and crime and will to sink into a demise similar to Gotham. That's kinda how I feel this week.

At work, people every other day come into report that their computer/ iPod/ hard drive, etc. was stolen and we are meant to do something about it. These people, I do take seriously and we send out emails to staff reminding them to keep an eye out for so forementioned stolen object. That gets 10X more serious when your own sister experiences her first break in by some desperate meth head/kid who saw her shiny white laptop and made a run for it. The guy (we'll assume its a guy) busted in through her bedroom by pushing in the air con and the continued to scavenge his way through the small apartment, nabbing a backpack in order to throw the laptop and a digital camera into. On his way through, he spots Kim's vintage cookie jar with "Munchies" painted on the side in old 70's style. He snags a chocolate bar and takes a bite of it. Upon realizing its baker's chocolate, he abandons the unsweetened bar and proceeds to grab Kevin's screwdriver in order to hit up the next door neighbors' apartment. (They had fortunately moved out the week before). The police made their stop at the apartment and went through the protocols but the forsenic inspector found the best fingerprints, nonetheless, on the abandoned candy bar in the kitchen. If this guy has every had his prints logged before, an arrest can be made on account of a CANDY BAR.

Meanwhile in other news, that same night, the lights were stolen off my bike. This is very unfortunate for me because if I get anywhere, its on bike. However, the situation is almost laughable.

Meanwhile today, two more people reported stolen laptops. What kind of country are we living in?

The best part about living in economic decline is seeing your friends on the daily news – alone sitting at a bar, as was the case with a co-worker friend of mine. The story was about how not as many people are going out to eat or drink in this past few weeks. I'm going to vote that drinking has not been affected.

But there's hope!
Get out and vote!

Posted in: chaosgurl, portland, technology, united states on September 28, 2008 at at 9:47:00 PM 0 comments    

I saw on the news the other day that the US Mint is planning to introduce new designs for the penny in 2009 to celebrate the bicentenary of President Lincoln's birth. I have a better idea - get rid of the useless things.

Coming from a country that discontinued use of its one cent coin in 1991 (the year after I left high school!), the use of the penny here shocks and astounds me. If I get one in change, I just don't take it. I see no reason to clog my wallet/pocket/house up with a coin that I'll never actually be able to use as a meaningful piece of money. The sooner the Australian system of rounding purchases to the nearest five cents happens, the better!

On a side note, one bank here does do rounding up to the nearest five cents - but on electronic purchases. Let's say, you spend $24.43 on something and pay for it with your debit card. The bank extracts $24.45 from your checking account, but puts the extra two cents into your linked savings account! Clever! One could imagine that all your transactions over a given period of time might add up to a considerable boost to your savings.

On a further note, when the designs for the new penny were unveiled, certain conservative members of the community worked themselves into a lather. According to them, the words "In God We Trust" had been removed from the penny – a sure sign that atheists and communists were running the country and the end of the world wasn't far away.

What they were (conveniently?) forgetting was that all the images of the new coin designs are only showing the obverse of the coin. The reverse of the coin is remaining the same, and on that side of the coin is Lincoln's head... and the words "In God We Trust".

Posted in: chaosboy, united states on September 25, 2008 at at 8:25:00 AM 0 comments    

I was a little surprised the other day when Christine brought home a new computer game for us to play. Christine's not much of a gamer, thinking that everything since Super Mario Bros 3 has been unworthy of her efforts. However, the concept and potential of this new game had her itching to try it out. The game? Spore.

The only way you couldn't have heard of Spore is if you've been hiding under a rock or have negative interest in games, your brain actively repelling all the hype that's been thrown at you about it. Basically, it's the ultimate God game - in the vein of, but far surpassing, all the "Sim"-type games that have been around since Populous and the original Sim City. You start the game with a single celled creature and evolve it all the way into a space-conquering civilisation.

The game isn't perfect by any means - it's more like five completely separate yet increasingly complex mini-games than a continuous narrative, and a lot of the gameplay is either far too simple or repetitive. I'm not even going to get into the whole storm about copy-protection that's blown up around the game's release, as it hasn't affected me at all. Where the game really shines is in its total customisation abilities. You get to shape pretty much everything about your creature (and later on, their cities, vehicles, planes, ships and spaceships). Think your creature would look good with five heads? Maybe eyes on its knees? Eight legs? Whatever you can think of, it's possible. There's something strangely addictive about creating your own monsters and then watching them interact with other strange beasts, all of which have been created by other people around the world.

So while Spore isn't a multi-player game as such (there's no direct head-to-head competition with other human players), the game is a veritable menagerie of creatures, constantly changing as new creations are uploaded by players around the world. That's what keeps it interesting and fresh - getting to see what other people are doing with the amazing God-like tools contained within the game.

Here's a couple of our creatures as a sample. We've only been playing for a week or so and still have so much to learn about how to make truly unique creatures, but at least we've gotten past our initial, "oh look, I've made a dinosaur!" phase.

Posted in: chaosboy, computers, games on September 24, 2008 at at 8:41:00 PM 0 comments    

Tired of being stuck here in Portland all the dang time (one of the few disadvantages of not owning our own car!), Christine and I resolved to take advantage of a small gap in my work schedule and get the heck out of town for a few days.

So we rented a car and drove on down to Crater Lake, an enormous clear blue lake that is entirely within the enormous (6 miles by 4 miles) caldera of a volcano that blew itself apart a mere 7,700 years ago - a mere blip in time geologically speaking. In a few weeks' time, the area around the lake will be covered in snow that will last until June next year, so this was probably our last chance to see it for a while. The drive down was fairly uneventful and quick - the I-5 corridor may be dull, but it does get you places quickly!

We entered the National Park from the north and soon achieved our first view of the lake. It certainly didn't disappoint!

No photograph can possibly do justice to the scale and majestic grandeur of this remarkable place (although that didn't stop me taking almost 200 shots over the next couple of days!), with sheer, soaring cliffs over 700 feet tall surrounding the bluest of blue waters that you have ever seen.

After soaking in the view from this initial view point, we quickly headed down to the campground, 7 miles south of the rim and set up our tent for the night. We were warned that bears frequented the campground and took all necessary precautions to secure our food in the provided bear-proof lockers before heading back to the Rim Village to view a beautiful clear sunset over the lake.

The small island is known as Wizard's Island, supposedly because of it's resemblance to a wizard's hat. It is a small volcanic cinder cone that rises from the lake's floor, and has a small crater of its own on top - a crater within a crater!

The next day, we drove a complete loop around the crater rim, stopping often for photographs. Our main goal was to walk to the top of Mount Scott, the highest point within the National Park at 8,929 feet (2,721 metres). The trail itself rises 1,200 feet over its 2.5 mile length, making it a pretty strenuous climb, especially for those unaccustomed to exercising at higher altitudes (i.e., me!). However, we made it to the top in just over an hour and were rewarded with absolutely spectacular 360 degree views, including the whole enormous lake laid out before us. Totally worth the effort!

(Our car is parked on the road at the absolute bottom right of the picture, just to give you some idea of where the trail has come from!)

In the evening, we climbed to the top of Watchman Peak on the exact opposite side of the lake (it's just to the right of my hat) to view another sunset - this one completely different to the previous night. Forest fires were raging to the south and the north of the park and had covered large parts of the sky with a thick pall of smoke. So where there had been crystal clear blue skies, there was haze and smoke, which was spectacular in its own (slightly eerie) way.


After the sun sank under the horizon in a blood-red blaze, we descended the mountain ( much easier path than Mount Scott) and retired to our campsite for a very well-earned beverage and meal. We left pretty early the next morning, as we were unable to secure seats for the boat cruises around the lake itself (curse you, large tour groups, for booking out all the early cruises!).

Posted in: chaosboy, oregon, photography, travel on September 9, 2008 at at 9:52:00 PM 0 comments    

Last Sunday night, Colin Lake and Wellbottom played their first gig at one of Portland's main music venues, the Crystal Ballroom, as a support act to the Bodeans.

What made this show different from the usual old Colin gig was that he asked Christine to bring our video camera along to see if we could get some footage for a demo reel. Colin had been in contact with some people who are trying to organise bands for the 2010 World Expo – in Shanghai! Needless to say, Colin jumped at the opportunity to apply, but it meant that he had to get a press kit – complete with a live performance DVD – together in less than a week! And while he could rely on me for all his graphic design needs, he was getting a little desperate regarding the video. Christine had done a great job just the other week with an impromptu video for Kevin's benefit shows, so Colin turned to her in his hour of need.

We turned up at the show early and got some footage at the soundcheck, then hung out in the green room with the band - playing at being groupies - until it was time for the band to go on stage. It was Kevin's first gig back with the band after his recent illness and everyone was raring to go. Christine spent the entire show getting footage from every angle, climbing all over the stage, yet aiming to be unobtrusive for the appreciative crowd. Because, quite unusually, the crowd responded very warmly to the mere support act and gave them their full attention. I tried to help out by shooting some video on Christine's new little Olympus camera, but the format ended up being tiny and pretty much useless.

Christine worked hard in tandem with Colin over the next couple of days to produce the demo DVD, or - in essence - a music video for one of their songs. The audio captured by our little camera was pretty sketchy, so Christine ended up having to meld audio from a live track recorded on Wellbottom's Spring tour with the video from the show, and she did a pretty good job of matching elements up to give the illusion that they came from the one and same event.

In the end, Colin met his deadline and everyone loved the finished product - I think it's amazing, especially considering the timeframe it was produced in. I'm in awe of Christine's ability to work with time, something that this little print designer still has trouble wrapping his head around. So without further ado, I present Colin Lake and Wellbottom, through the lens of Christine:

Posted in: chaosboy, music, portland on August 21, 2008 at at 8:39:00 PM 2 comments    

Adobe has just released version 2 of Lightroom, their photography management/development application, and all I can say is that it is amazing. There are so many enhancements and upgrades that it's hard to know where to start. It's probably best to say that unless I actually want to do a whole heap of tricky retouching, I'm hardly going to fire up Photoshop at all anymore.

It's not perfect, however: a rather nasty bug in v2.0 stops all your old keywords from v1.4 from exporting with your photos, although a very simple SQL command (so simple, even I could do it!) fixes that problem. There have also been reports of Lightroom being everything from somewhat sluggish to completely glacial in performance, although my Mac Pro makes light work of just about anything, so I can't really comment on this!

Of all the tools, the selective adjustment brush was the most touted. With it, you can now mask areas and apply exposure, sharpness, colour, clariry (and more!) edits to specific areas of your photos without having to hand the image over to Photoshop. All your edits are non-destructive - just as in the previous version of Lightroom, all your edits are simply saved as instructions that are applied in real time to your image. The interface takes a little getting used to, especially for us Photoshop mavens, but once you've got the hang of it, it really is intuitive and extremely powerful.

However, my favourite tool is the adjustment brush's poorer, less glitzy cousin, the graduated filter. As its name suggests, this tool emulates the coloured or neutral density filters that you can physically place in front of your camera lens to achieve certain effects. My use for this tool so far is extremely prosaic - I use it to fix overexposed areas of sky.

We've all taken photos like this. While the foreground is fairly well exposed and detailed, the sky is completely blown out. If I had shot this picture in JPG, that would be pretty much the end of things - an 8-bit image simply wouldn't contain enough information for me to be able to regain all that lost detail in the sky. White is white, and would always remain so.

But when you shoot RAW, there is a ridiculous amount of information contained in the file (4,096 levels as opposed to JPG's 256 levels). And the important thing to realise is that most of this information is in the lighter areas of any image. As explained in this excellent article at Luminous Landscape, exactly half of the 4,096 levels of information are contained in the brightest fifth of the image, while there's a mere 128 levels of information in the darkest areas, the shadows.

What this means is that it's very possible to restore missing detail from overexposed areas when you shoot RAW. However, this was kind of a painful process before the new tools in Lightroom. To retain the properly exposed foreground but also get the corrected sky, I would have to export two versions of the file to Photoshop (one exposed for the foreground, the other for the backgroun) and then use layer masks to blend the two versions together. It's not something I'd do except for a photo I really thought was worth it.

With the new graduated filter tool, all I have to do is specify my exposure adjustment for the sky (around -2.0 to -3.0 stops, depending on how blown out things are) and drag out my gradient from top to bottom. The gradient is fully adjustable to taste after it's been applied, both in location and intensity. The results are nearly instantaneous and it's ridiculously easy to apply. Here's a before and after of the shot above, just so you can see how much detail can be regained using this technique.

This is an extreme example, requiring a full -3.0 stops to regain the detail in the clouds - probably about the absolute limit of this technique. But just think - there is that amount of information and detail just hiding in that brightest part of your image, and you have to shoot RAW if you want to be able to release it.

Posted in: adobe lightroom, chaosboy, photography on August 8, 2008 at at 9:42:00 AM 0 comments    

Last weekend, Portland played host to one of the craziest days of entertainment that I have ever witnessed - the Red Bull Flugtag. Flugtag means "flight day" in German (Red Bull being an Austrian company), and it certainly lived up to its name.

A crowd that has been estimated at being in the vicinity of 80,000 people crammed into Tom McCall Riverside Park, the Hawthorne Bridge's entire southern sidewalk and one east-bound lane, and even the Eastbank Esplanade on the other side of the Willamette River (which was jam-packed with boats both big and small) for this event, which is interesting in itself.

You see, ol' PDX generally prides itself on being staunchly anti-corporation, looking somewhat down its nose at coffee and fast food chains because we're better than that here in Portland, don't you know? Except when afore-said corporation is promising a day chock full of idiots throwing themselves and their home-made magnificent flying machines off a 30-foot high runway into the drink. Then we'll drop everything and turn out in droves.

And we did. I've never seen the riverfront so full, not for the Blues Festival, the Brew Fest, Barack Obama or anything. I arrived a little late and tried to force my way through the seething masses to take some pictures from down the front - it was impossible. I eventually found a few good locations on the periphery of the park, but things were hectic the whole time.

As for the flugtag itself, it was all about showmanship and spectacular crashes and the crowd loved it. We had a giant plane made out of "Lego", complete with "Lego Men" pilots, the Winnebago from Spaceballs (crowd favourite), pots of gold, sporting mascots, hot dogs and more. Some of the "planes" didn't even have wings! The winner flew some 60-odd feet, but no one really cared. Distance was irrelevant; the crowd only cheered for suicidal death plunges into the murky water below and everyone went home happy.

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, sport, weirdness on August 6, 2008 at at 8:49:00 PM 0 comments    

Well, we've actually got a few seconds to spare and can finally post an article about our big Late Wedding/First Anniversary bash that we recently held in Boston, MA. Certain persons have been clamouring for a review of events, and we just love to share, so here we are!

Ever since our humble little space wedding atop Rocky Butte just over a year ago, we had wanted to throw a bigger and better party for all our extended families (Booth, Moore and Garcia!) to attend. As things turned out (mainly because of my parents' travel itinerary), Boston presented itself as the perfect venue and plans were set in motion. Our spies in the area (Ann Elise) searched high and low for the ideal party spot, accommodations were found, airline tickets were booked and we soon found ourselves on the Atlantic side of the USA (via Minneapolis and New York airports!).

After settling in at our comfy hotel, we ventured out into Boston in search of a restaurant to celebrate Christine's birthday. With the help of her swanky new iPhone, we located a wonderful restaurant in the North End, just off the main drag, Hanover Street. The difference this 100 feet or so made was incredible: every trattoria, ristorante and cafe on Hanover Street was spilling out onto the sidewalk, while our restaurant was only about two-thirds full and quite relaxed and romantic. The food was exceptional, and the wait staff knowledgeable and friendly. Here's a pic of us about to enjoy some delicious desserts:

Early the next day, Keener picked us up at our hotel and whizzed us off to catch the ferry from Wood's Hole to Martha's Vineyard, a small and somewhat exclusive island just off the coast of southern Massachusetts (next to Nantucket, if that helps any). Christine's Aunt Alison and Uncle Peter were to be our hosts for the this day and the next, and they made sure to show us all the sights of their island. Peter took us out on his boat and we took full advantage:

After enjoying the warm sun and water for a while, we tried our hands at waterskiing. Keener, as you can see, is obviously a salty seadog and had no problems whatsoever.

... while the less said about my attempts the better. Needless to say, I never actually stood up. All too soon, it was time to return to Boston, where we met up with my friend John who had flown in all the way from Sydney via Yosemite and San Fran for the party. As my "guest of honour", we spent as much time as we could with him and even managed to walk the entire length of Boston's famed Freedom Trail... on a day where the temperatures climbed into the 90s!

Finally, the night of the party rolled around and all our hard work and planning finally came to fruition. After some early doubts about the size and suitability of the area that he hotel had set aside for us, everything turned out perfectly and a fantastic time was has by all. In honour of our first anniversary, the theme was paper and everyone turned up wearing paper hats of all shapes and size. Some people even commissioned artists to make a hat for them! Here's a rogues' gallery for posterity's sake:

The happy couple: me in my Aussie cork hat and Christine in her amazing papier mache chicken creation.

The two mothers. Karen and Keener made hats for my parents, as they probably wouldn't have had time to do it themselves, having just flown in from France.

King Nick. Or is it a court jester? He seems to have a mischievous grin either way...

And finally, here's Peter proving that a hat doesn't have to be an enormous production number to be a winner... the happiest dang pirate I ever did see!

We finally rolled out of the hotel at around 12:30am, quite a bit later than our original booking was for! Quite a few people had been incredibly sensible and had booked rooms in the same hotel the party was in, smart thinking! The party was an incredible success and it was wonderful to see so many members of our extended family. A big thank you to all who attended and to all those who couldn't make it but passed on their best wishes - it means a lot!

Posted in: boston, chaosboy, party time, travel on August 5, 2008 at at 8:49:00 PM 2 comments    

It's true! The work front has been good recently and has just got a whole lot better.

I've been working at a fantastic design studio called Downstream for the last few weeks and it's been a lot of fun. They mainly do large scale environmental design for universities and financial institutions, which is something I haven't done a lot of to this point in my career. I came in to help out on one specific job, a series of big informational screens for an enormous financial advisor. The screens show a ridiculous amount of stock exchange, commodities and currency information, all in real time and I had to take the general design and apply it across every screen, while still making sure that it was technically possible to produce! I spent the entire first full day researching actual stock market data to use in the mock ups to present to the client... my brain still hurts three weeks later.

While I was working there, 52 Ltd let me know that Wacom were interested in getting me back for a couple of weeks, but that there was also a long-term contract job designing and producing a huge Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a multi-national infrastructure development company downtown. This is the first time I've actually had to choose between two jobs since I've been in the US. While I loved working at Wacom the first time around, the lure of long term employment meant I had to at least enquire about it.

I interviewed for the position on Tuesday and was accepted by Thursday. The job will see me gainfully employed all the way through until January, although the hours will vary quite dramatically from month to month as the EIS goes through approval and revision cycles. During August, I'll probably be working 50-60 hour weeks, while September may drop down to less than 20 hours a week. We'll see! I just love getting my teeth stuck into large projects; I see them as huge puzzles that have to be solved... and they don't come much bigger than this! Multiple authors, huge rounds of internal and client changes, diagrams, charts, maps... and I have to make it look attractive and easy to read! I start July 21st – wish me luck!

Posted in: chaosboy, employment, portland on July 11, 2008 at at 10:53:00 PM 0 comments    

Today was day that embedded itself into history. July 11th marks the worldwide day known as the release of the new iPhone just in case you didn't notice. Crazy geeks and hipsters gathered at Apple stores and AT&T outlets in order to claim the ultimate prize: a phone.

But wait, you say, who took all these pictures? Uh, that was me of course; in line to get my phone, because I am neither above or below everyone else. I am a whore to new shiny gadgets. It is all Sam's fault really. He is my capitalist consultant. It was Sam who got me to sit in front of Toys R Us to get a Wii at 3am in order to buy my $299 Wii in order to sell it on Craigslist before Christmas for $500 and now it is Sam who convinced me to sell my old iPhone for $400 and buy the new one for $199. Sam is going places in life.

Anyway, back to the Opening! Sam and I arrived at the Apple store at 6:30 in the morning. The line was pretty timid. Maybe 75 people back after some of these folks had been CAMPING outside the mall since midnight. Their determination makes them much more worthy than us to receive the coveted iPhone. Sam and I had to work sometime that morning but we were pretty confident that the line would scoot along pretty speedily. I began to feel like we were in an airport after awhile wainting to check into our flight as stood between our rope barriers. But the Apple staff were very genial and passed out bottles of water and even cups of coffee as people piled up behind us. We half expected a breakfast cart to come out next stacked with hotcakes.

We did find a fellow coworker at the beginning of the line - excuse me, not the beginning but NUMBER ONE in the line. He had been there since 12:30am. The store opened at 8. Sam and I waited another 1.5 hours before we got in the store. We were so relieved to get out of the halls of the mall as it has become very claustrophobic.
Getting in the store was a breath of fresh air. The staff was overly friendly and helpful and my iPhone was purchased, activated, and in the bag in under 10 minutes. We met up with our coworker who had nothing but trouble buying his iPhone as activating it with AT&T is mandatory and the network kept failing. So although he waited nearly 10 hours for his phone we ended up walking out around the same time. Poor Sam on the other hand was not granted the miracle of the phone as he was not the sole account holder for his AT&T account. He took it well enough, although I'm sure he would have killed someone given the chance. He had to go to and AT&T store to get his iPhone. But by the time he got there, the phones had sold out.

This whole AT&T shenanigans is the whole reason why Cam could not participate in the good times of waiting in line to pay money.

Afterwards, Sam and I went back to work 2 hours late and had to apologize to customers that although we were an Apple Reseller, we didn't have iPhones to sell them . *insert evil laugh here*

If you are wondering what is so great about an iPhone but don't want me to write 5 more pages of blogginess then you can check it out here!

Posted in: apple, chaosgurl on at at 9:42:00 PM 0 comments