In two short days I’ll be sat on a plane, embarking on a thirteen-odd hour flight to Vietnam via Bangkok. But this isn’t for a mere vacation, this is is the first step on a new chapter in my life. I’ll be undertaking my CELTA training so that I can be a qualified English teacher, after which I’ll be spending a year teaching in Ho Chi Minh City, whilst simultaneously attempting to reconnect with my Vietnamese roots and improve my Vietnamese along the way. Multitasking.

What does this all mean? Well, I’ll certainly have more interesting musings to post on this blog. In truth, I’m sure no one wanted to hear the rumblings of an unemployed (albeit happy) layabout over the past few months. Hence the distinct lack of updates. Hand in hand with being an unemployed layabout has also been a lack of motivation, inspiration and opportunity for any particularly interesting photography. So a change of scenery, a change of direction and a change of thinking should ultimately result in a more bustling blog space for you all to not read. I won’t actually be completing my CELTA course until October, so that leaves a few weeks to try and acclimate myself to living in Vietnam, whilst hopefully also visiting the neighbouring countries. So I should hopefully have a lot to share.

To anyone and everyone who knows me IRL, I’ll see you in a year or so and enjoy the British winter

I’d seen some sneak peeks of the new Content Aware Fill function of Photoshop CS5 in video demonstrations, and whilst in awe at what I was seeing, I assumed it wouldn’t be as easy in reality and the workflow was generally sped up. Well, having downloaded the trial version of Photoshop CS5, I can say I am won over. Content Aware Fill is mind blowing. I’m not even sure how it works or what sort of algorithms are happening behind the scenes to be able to intelligently manipulate an image, but it just works.

But an image, as they say, is worth a thousand words. So look at these two images. The edit was a quick job, less than 2 minutes in fact. It’s not perfect, but look what you can achieve with just a few clicks.

Before Content Aware Fill

After Content Aware Fill

Not bad for 2 minutes work. Content Aware Fill isn’t going to give perfect results all the time, but it’ll certainly speed up your digital workflow exponentially. Hey, maybe we don’t have to worry about good composition anymore. Annoying tree in the way? Clone it out. That’s sarcasm by the way. I do not condone poor composition.

Best Buy opened their first store in the UK on April 30th, Located in Thurrock retail park, just behind Lakeside shopping centre, something I knew would be happening well in advance then swiftly forgot about.  Fast forward to Saturday when I decided to head down to see what all the pandemonium was about and somehow ended up walking out with 2 Toshiba 32″ LCDs for £180 a piece. In my defense, only one of them was for me. Did I need a TV? Not really, but it did seem rather bargainous. The thousands who purchased them would probably also agree. Queues just to enter the store were on average an hour long, then once inside there was another queue exclusively for those wishing to grab an LCD. Whilst queueing I witnessed palettes repeatedly being carted around the store with yet more LCDs. I’ve read they sold through tens of thousands of units which were supposedly to be rationed over the entire Bank Holiday weekend, but current reports are saying they had already sold out by Sunday, undoubtedly leaving many a disgruntled customer.

The general handling and atmosphere was rather pleasant, and fortunately it didn’t rain though I saw a bucket of large Best Buy umbrellas primed and ready should the weather have taken a turn for the worse. I must tip my hat to Best Buy for the organised nature, they had likely learned some important lessons from Ikea store openings where there were reports of people getting trampled over £50 sofas and the like. Queues were civilised, music was played and the staff were friendly and courteous. A member of staff confirmed that staff, known as ‘Blue Shirts’, were required to undertake a 9 week training programme, so that they have a genuine knowledge of the products they sell. A nice touch. Apparently they don’t work under commission either, so advice is supposedly more genuine. I’ve yet to properly peruse the store because after queueing for so long, I wanted in and out as rapidly as possible. I’ll likely return to the store after the Bank Holiday frenzy has finished to get a genuine feel for the store. I did spot a rather nice ‘Green Zone’ (may not actually be what it was called) where they had various eco-friendly transportation on show – including a Tesla Roadster! I’ll be sure to give that a look the next time.

General review of the Toshiba 32AV615 32″ LCD are rather positive, especially considering the price. With 3 HDMI ports it’s easy to connect all my consoles up, the built in Freeview worked well, picking up all the channels my old dedicated Freeview Tuner had before. Aesthetically the television looks largely like any other LCD on the market, usual piano black gloss bezel et al. I briefly tried connecting my PC over VGA, but going from a 23″ monitor at 1920×1080 to a 32″ at a lower resolution of 1366×768 did not for a great experience make. [/yoda] I also managed to pick up Avatar BluRay/DVD combo pack for £9.99, so all in all a productive day.

Summer’s nearly here, so there’s no better time to enjoy a nice iced Vietnamese coffee, also known as the best damn coffee in the world. Vietnamese coffee can be enjoyed hot or iced, so if you’re like me, you’ll enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee to start your day, and a refreshing iced coffee in the evening. The perfect bookend to your day. Now Vietnamese coffee is traditionally made using a drip filter, which you can find either at Trung Nguyen or Ca Phe VN online. I’ve tried both, and personally prefer those from Ca Phe VN, firstly because they’re constructed a little nicer, with a nice handle on the side. But more importantly because they also have a 2 cup sized filter, for greedy people like myself.

Ice, Drip Filter, Coffee and Condensed Milk!

So now that you’ve got yourself a drip filter, you’ll also need some coffee grounds. I get mine from Trung Nguyen because it’s a well known brand from Vietnam and you get a lot of choice. I’ve yet to try Ca Phe VN’s ZGOZ grounds (which is a reworking of the Vietnamese word ‘Ngon’ meaning tasty or delicious) so can’t pass judgement on their quality. Finally, you’ll need some condensed milk if you want to make a true Vietnamese cup of coffee. Condensed milk is used to both whiten your coffee like milk, but also sweeten as well. Oh, you’ll need ice too, duh.

Ice and Condensed Milk in glass

Now, to kick things off, pour some condensed milk into the bottom of your glass. How much you use is really up to personal choice. I like my coffee relatively sweet. Experiment to taste, you can always add more condensed milk at the end should you find it not sweet enough. Pop in a few ice cubes as well and don’t forget to boil the kettle.

Grounds in filter

It’s time to place your drip filter on top of your glass then remove the metal screen from inside it. Add 2-3 heaped teaspoons of grounds into the filter and give it a tap on the sides to help even the grounds out.

Metal screen back in the filter.

Now you can place the filter back on top and give it a little press to compress the grounds.

Hot water added

Pour a little hot water into the filter just to heat the grounds up, and allow them to compress. You can push down on the screen a little, and rotate it to help compress the grounds further. You do this so that the water doesn’t pass through too quickly. Wait around 20 seconds.

Now we wait

Now that this is done, you can fill the filter all the way to the top with hot water and replace the cap on top. Now the waiting game begins. If you’ve got the right amount of grounds in, and compressed it the optimum amount, the whole drip process should take about 4 minutes.

Place the filter on the cap

Once it’s all done filtering through, remove the cap and then place the filter on top of it. Yes, the cap is a coaster as well. Vietnamese ingenuity. This avoids any last drops getting all over your kitchen counter. Huzzah.

Give it a stir

All that remains now is to give your iced coffee a rigorous stir, mixing the condensed milk in. It’ll stick to the sides, so seriously, be rigorous. All of the ice here has melted, but the drink is cold. You can pop some more ice in at this point if you want. Add a straw, kick back and enjoy! I’m going to assume I don’t need to write a guide on how to make a hot cup of coffee.

Hipstamatic is a neat iPhone application that allows you to take photos that emulate the unpredictability and quirkiness of old toy and plastic cameras. Which in essence means it makes your more mundane photos a little more visually interesting. It allows you to choose different film types and lenses for different effects, with a few available preloaded with the application, and more available as microtransactions. I won’t weigh in on the microtransactions debate; I’ve been having to deal with that concept in video games for long enough as it is. You can also turn on and off a flash effect.

Above are some examples of photos taken with the app, and yes, I took them all from the comfort of my desk. Expecting me to go outside is asking a bit much, no? Not the best examples for sure, better ones are available from the Hipstamatic App Website. Still, this should be fun to play around with when I have the time.

I bet a lot of you spend every last hour leading up to hitting the sack in front of  your computer monitor, which is akin to staring straight at the sun. Now this is probably not conducive to gently easing you into a good night’s rest. Here’s where a clever little application called F.lux could help. F.lux runs in the background, and changes your monitor’s colour temperature to match the ambient or artificial light around you. So during mid-day when your room is caressed by natural light, your monitor’s colour temperature is around the 6500k region. Whereas at night, when your tungsten bulbs are lighting the room, the colour temperature is at 3500k, far warmer. This means your monitor isn’t so jarring to your eyes.

I’ve been using F.lux for the past few weeks, and I genuinely do think I’m beginning to feel tired far earlier than before. Hell, I’m dozing off as I write this, so it’s definitely worth giving a go. It’s available on both PC and Mac from here and is absolutely free.

My blood type is AB+ apparently, which means I’m a universal recipient. So rather than just take, I decided long ago it was time to spread some love. Besides, my theory rather is that I can disseminate my awesomeness through my blood. So some lucky soul will get a few pints of my good stuff and one day might be as awesome as I.

Pros: Good Karma. Help people.
Cons: Spend the rest of the day looking like you’ve been shooting heroin.

Head over to Blood.co.uk to book an appointment.

You’ve probably seen the Adidas x Star Wars posters plastered across London buses, or the Adidas Originals Star Wars Collection promo video on YouTube (which inexplicably features David Beckham, Snoop Dogg and Daft Punk), but if you haven’t, Adidas Originals have teamed up with Star Wars to release a number of special edition versions of their trainers and clothing. I managed to snag a pair of the Stormtroopers which are based on the Superskate Mids, and they’re pretty damn awesome. I wanted to get a pair of Skywalkers as well, but they were supply limited and I was just too slow and the eBay scalpers far too quick. Alas.

But the Stormtroopers are pretty nice anyway, with the Stormtrooper helmet design on the rear, the word ‘Stormtrooper’ down the side, and an awesome logo on the tongue. They even went so far as to have a Star Wars label on the tips of the laces, now that’s customisation. Did I mention that the packaging is AWESOME, they come packed like your favourite action figures used to. They’ll set you back £70, so get ‘em while you can. The next set of releases are coming March 1st, so I’ll be prepared this time to hopefully bag a pair of AT-ATs. The only question remains – will I actually wear them or keep them in the packaging? Tough decision. Check the rest of the line-up out at StarWars.com.

CNN are reporting a number of people are experiencing what I have dubbed ‘AIDs’ – that is Avatar Induced Disorder. Or what they have dubbed ‘Avatar Blues’, I’ll let you decide which sounds more awesome.

So what does this actually entail? A bunch of deluded people so enamoured by the world of Pandora created in Avatar that they’re seriously down in the dumps to return to the real world.

Looking at this post’s title, I can see how it can be misconstrued. I’m not affiliating myself with these folks who are a couple mind grapes short of a bunch, but rather that I despair at their straight up craziness. I’ll leave you with a quote from the CNN article to show you just how mad this all sounds.

“Ever since I went to see ‘Avatar’ I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na’vi made me want to be one of them. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it,” Mike posted. “I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in ‘Avatar.’ “

Well now.

Source: CNN

I got round to watching Avatar in 3D over the weekend, and probably unsurprisingly, I found it rather enjoyable. I’d somehow managed to stay on media blackout in the build up to its release, so I came in with a relatively clean slate. I did manage to hear it was effectively Pocahontas/Fern Gully in space, which is true to an extent. But to surmise it in such a manner does it a disservice – it also features a some Smurfs. I jest, but in the same way that Titanic was just a version of Romeo and Juliet on a boat, and Terminator 2 was just a story about a boy who thinks his mum is a crazy but meets a robot from the future who gives him a newfound respect for a mother, (deep breath) whilst simultaneously teaching this unfeeling robot to feel – Cameron’s films are never going to have a lot of depth and layers, but that’s not what he’s famed for. Instead, in Avatar, as in much of his previous work, he puts together a well made package which is entertainment in its purest form.

The technology behind Avatar was getting a lot of mentions prior to release, with Avatar supposedly the film to finally justify 3D as an artistic medium for film. But honestly, it still falls short in conveying 3D as anything but a gimmick or a means to try and combat piracy. All in my opinion of course. The lush locales of the alien planet of Pandora makes the shortcomings of 3D tech all the more apparent, as what your brain knows should be vibrant greens is nothing more than desaturated and washed out due to the 3D image rendering. At least 3D is used sparingly and not to pointlessly throw objects through the screen at you, something that has proved too tempting for far too many other 3D films. Instead scenes have some depth of field, but everything still appears somewhat like a pop-up story book, as flat, 2D planes are layered over each other to create an illusion of depth.

I also wasn’t particularly fond of the character models and designs for the Na’vi and the other indigenous creatures. This of course is incredibly subjective, so I won’t dwell too much. It just all felt too reminiscent of the sort of bad art you’d find in a medium budget video game, not a major budget motion picture that has been anticipated and hyped to high heavens. The Na’vi also feature a unique way of ‘connecting’ to other creatures and plants of their homeplanet; the ends of their ponytails literally daisychain creating a link between the two. Why this couldn’t have been achieved just through touch or a telepathic link is beyond me. The Na’vi have to tame and break in other animals, be they alien horses (that conveniently resemble human horses) or flying beasts, so the image of the protagonist wrestling a resisting animal and then his ponytail connector thing on it has some rather disturbing connotations.

This all sounds like a lot of negatives, yet I still enjoyed the film immensely. It’s just less time consuming and easier to list the shortcomings. Cameron successfully weaves a tale allegorising colonialism and war for resources that alludes to the current climate, whilst also creating interesting characters – even the CG ones are endowed with emotion and a believability that borders on uncanny vally. The plot, whilst predictable and lacking depth, does the job, though the crux and namesake of it, the need for Avatars, felt a little tacked on just to give the film more of a Sci-Fi edge. But all in all, Avatar is definitely worth a watch this festive season.