Back from D.C.

We got back from Washington D.C. a little while ago, much longer of a drive than I thought it would be.

I resized and uploaded all 447 photos I took. I didn’t label them all yet, so you’ll have to figure out what’s what, until I get around to that. But, enjoy!

Update, I’ve begun moving all my photos to Flickr, so I can display them at full size. (My host doesn’t have the processing power to resize a 10.1MP photo for thumbnails.)

Here’s the new link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejandreau/

Lens Testing

The wife and I are headed to D.C. this weekend, for a long weekend away to celebrate her birthday (which is tomorrow.)

To prepare, I ordered a new “wide angle” lens for my Canon Digital Rebel XTi.  Being the thrifty shopper that I am, I decided to give the Sigma lens a chance.  It was my first non-Canon lens, so I was a bit scared, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

According to various photography websites, this lense is just about as good as Canon’s version, but at $400 less, I figured I should give it a shot.

I haven’t taken it out to shoot with it, yet, just did a test here in my living room.  Though I can say I’m impressed that it comes with a lens hood.  No Canon lens I ever bought did that.  Anyway. Here’s the four different shots I took, with my four lenses, to compare them.

The first image was taken with the stock 18-55mm lens from Canon.
The second was taken with a 60mm Macro lens, also from Canon.
The third was taken with a 75-300mm Zoom lens, from Canon.
The fourth was taken with the new Sigma 10-20 lens.

As you can see, the 60mm Macro lens and the 75-300mm Zoom are pretty much the same.   The 18-55 and the 10-20 are pretty significantly different though.

Just to be clear, these shots were all taken from the exact same spot. The camera was mounted on a tripod, and I only touched it to change out the lenses on the body.

I’ll report back, post D.C., with out the Sigma lense fared when used in the “real world,”, but according to my living room test, I’m pretty happy. It takes shots exactly how I wanted, zoomed really far out.  It makes my living room look freakin’ huge, too. Kudos for that.  Check back in a week, and I’ll put up the photos from D.C., of which I’m sure there’ll be 90 million.

My Anniversary Gift

Though Christine was bummed it got here late, I didn’t care.  Technically our anniversary doesn’t exist, because we got married on leapday, last year (February 29th).  So, we just celebrated all weekend.

Christine’s anniversary gift to me showed up yesterday, and it’s a very sweet gift.  She took one of our wedding photos of us, and had it printed on M&Ms.  Knowing how enthralled I was with the M&Ms with the RockBand logos on them from the RB2 release party, she had ours made.  Check ‘em out:.

It’s nice that the M&M detail is so great you can tell I needed a shave by the time that picture was taken. Damn 5 o’clock shadows.

Omega Pedals Review

So, I got my two Omega pedals (and twin rocker) two weeks ago.  And holy shit, wow. Amazing.

Having played drums for half my life now (15 years), they were easy to set up.  I had no issues figuring it out, like some reviews of Omega pedal have pointed out.  Since I’ve played Pearl pedals since I was old enough to afford them, it came naturally to me to set them up.

They do take some getting used to, which others have noted.  I probably could have done with just one, but why not get double bass, right?  You really need to hold the pedal down, which is what I’d call a downside, until you get used to it.  The way the pedal’s set up, if you let it bounce back even a little bit, it’ll register another hit, which you don’t want.

Another downfall is that the pedal(s) don’t clamp onto the drumkit as well as the stock plastic pedal does.  Which, if like me, if you have to move the drumkit from where it’s stored, to in front of the TV, becomes somewhat of a task.  You get used to, but it’s not as simple as “pick up and go” like it is with the stock pedal.

The pedal itself performs exactly as you’d expect a real drum pedal to.  It’s a Pearl pedal after all, they’re amazing.  Once you get used to the pedals, you certainly play better. With the stock pedal, songs like Aqualung were difficult for me, the repeatitive motion of constant bass pedaling, gets tiring. Especially when you’re fighting the reverse motion of the spring in the stock pedal.

My best percentage on …And Justice for All:
Stock pedal: 97% – 23 notes missed
Omega pedals: 99% – 1 note missed (boy was I bullshit, too.)

At first, you may have some difficulty with getting used to the pedal (should you buy it), but keep at it.  I notice that with the Omega pedal I can play for many more hours than I could with the stock pedal.

As I said, I’ve been drumming for 15 years now, and would say I have great drumming stamina.  However, the stock pedal that comes with the wireless XBox drums causes strain after an hour or so for me. My inner thigh would start aching.   I’ve yet to experience that with  the Omega pedals.  Even after playing for 4+ hours at a time.  My ankle hurts a bit, because I’m out of practice, but not my leg.

Overall, would I say the Omega pedal is worth it? Totally.  It may seem pricey, but factoring in the cost of that Pearl pedal, Omega Pedals really are a good deal. If you were to strip the electronics from it, you’d get a  good old Pearl P120 pedal, which sells for the exact same price as the Omega pedal.

I’m glad I got mine.  If you’re serious about Rock Band drumming, and want to bring your A game, you should spend the cash to get one (or two) of these Omega pedals. They’re amazing, and well worth the money.

 

New Webhost

As of right now, I’ve got two webhosts.  My previous webhost, that I’d had for almost 4 years now screwed up pretty majorily over the last 10 days, losing 20 of my MySQL databases, twice.  That, coupled with their terrible MySQL speeds forced me to look for a new host.

Over the weekend, I signed up for hosting with a relatively new hosting company. The price was right, and I figured what’s the worst that could happen? It couldn’t possibly be worst than that other company, so I went for it.

I moved over 6 domains so far, and the majority of them are lightning fast, including those using MySQL.  I’ve never had a host that utilized MySQL on the same server as my website before, but it’s nice having “localhost” for MySQL.  It’s certainly much faster.

Their support, so far, is great.  My new server went down last night. I noticed it (because I was working on moving stuff), and contacted their live chat.  It’s evident that the live chat people are in India somewhere (but really, who doesn’t outsource?), so they said they’d notify an admin.  The server was back up 3 minutes later, literally.

That, and they promise a 30 minute response time, in most situations.  You can buy premium support, but I’m sticking with the basic stuff for now, to make sure I don’t end up hating these guys, too.

So far, so good.  Only another couple dozen domains to move, and I’ll be canceling my other hosting package early.  I really hope they ask why.

RockBand Drumkit Complete

I finally got all the stuff I wanted to incorporate into the Drumkit for Rock Band 2.   It’s pretty bad-ass, if I do say so myself.

Total cost is roughly $435 for everything, but totally worth it.   So much fun.   Check out the gallery below.

 

Breakdown:

• RockBand 2 Drumkit: $80
• Omega Twin Rocker: $25
• Omega Pedals x 2: $130
• Roc ‘N’ Soc Drum Throne: $165

It’s Mega cold in Boston today

-9 is colder than normal for Boston

That’s the widget on my desktop that tells me the temperature outside.   It says -9 right now.   I thought it was bad enough when it said 4 yesterday, but I guess not.   Bundle up, Bostonians.

I wonder what the temperature is with the wind child.   -9 is without it.   I’m pretty sure someone’s going to freeze to death today.   I’m thankful it won’t be me.