I’ve been meaning to do this for a few days now, but things have been hectic and now is my first chance.

I mentioned that I bought a camera app for my iPhone called Camera Bag. The app takes images taken by your camera and simulates other types of cameras with them. I took some shots driving home in the rain Friday. Here are two, I don’t remember which options I used when I took them. (that came later)

After those two random images (which were taken directly in the app) I decided to get scientific about things. I took one image through the windshield and then used each camerabag option on the same image so I could compare and contrast. Here are the results…

First, the original image.

This option is called Mono.

I like this one, it’s called Lolo.

Now for an Instant. A poloroid simulater.

This one is kinda cool, but I can’t see myself ever really wanting to use it. It’s Infrared.

Now for Helga.

Fisheye. Again, can’t see myself ever wanting to use this one.

I like this one too, Cinema.

Welcome to 1974.

And finally 1962.

What do you think?

We saw three houses yesterday. Two of them were HUGE and wonderful and fantastic and perfect and just a tiny bit out of our price range. The third one was a lot smaller and a lot cheaper and just about as perfect.

Which do we go for? We’re going to try to talk the sellers asking price down regardless of which house we decide to offer for, but we just don’t know which one to offer on. We’re so confused: In a very good way.

RPM 2009 (extended) is now 70% mixed. I did all the set up and EQing yesterday and mixed three songs onto Audacity. Today I continued and got through four more. That’s seven out of 10. I hope to get out of bed early tomorrow and crank out the last three. Then I need to do a little editing in Audacity (just clip off the count ins and take care of fade outs and endings and such. Then I’ll post it to alonetone, and maybe virb, and maybe myspace.

Did I mention the Bruins clinched 1st place in the Eastern Conference yesterday?

They sure did!

I got up at 7:00am today and spent an hour and a half mixing RPM songs in the cellar. I have three songs in the can. I am 35 days late but who's counting, right?

I am trying to decide what name to give the finished album. Basement
tapes is fitting but too generic. I thought about using the name of
our street, but that was prior to the increase in privacy awareness. Another possibility that will probably be rejected is House Centipede. I'll think of something.

Jen and I are now getting ready to meet with last week's realter again to view a few more houses. This is very fun and quite exciting.

We'll let you know.

Lots of cool stuff happening in the last 24 hours.

We now have received nine RSVPs. People actually want to go to our wedding. We’ve also had one partial decline (a three person family where two won’t be able to make it) but the reason for the decline is so good that no one (including the declinee) has any business being upset about it.

Major RPM (extended) news. All 10 songs have been recorded. All of the tracking is complete. Now on to mixing, which is the part I enjoy the least. The optimist in me says two songs a morning each day next week and I have the music posted to alonetone.com by the weekend. The realist in me says some time before the wedding. That’s 57 days from now.

Reminder: All 10 songs suck. The music sucks, the lyrics suck, and each individual instrumental performance (including voices) suck. Just so you know.

Good hockey news. My free yahoo how-big-of-a-geek-can-you-be fantasy hockey team now leads the final series 6-3. I’m nervous that my opponent has yet to have a goalie play. He has both Florida Panthers goalies in his line up tonight. If one of them should play stellar he could steal a few points from me. Let’s hope Atlanta kicks the crap out of the Panthers tonight… sadly though that’s a lot to ask of the lowly Thrashers.

Speaking of goalies who play on my fantasy team, the Boston Bruins are expected to announce a contract extension for Tim Thomas today. Well deserved. Tim, as I have often said in these pages, is the Man and I am very glad to see the Bruins management agrees.

The B’s won their 50th game of the year last night by beating Ottawa. It seems my hockey prognostication skills (see the old myspace blog over the last two playoff years) are still in fine form. I won a twitter contest put on by Hub Hockey to guess which Bruin would score first and when it would happen. I picked Lucic in the third minute of the second period. I win a t-shirt. I need to figure out where to have them send it. I pretty much rule, I guess.

I added a couple of camera apps to my iPhone yesterday and had a few minutes to play with them. Camerabag simulates different types of cameras. It seems cool. I haven’t played with it enough to really find a favorite setting though.

The other app is Pano and that one has been tested a little. I got a free panoramic picture app the other day called PanOlab. It was tough to use and the results were a little crappy. Pano seems a lot better. You don’t have to do the stitching yourself, and it gives you the right corner of the previous image to let you line it up on the fly. Also it seems to do a little software work cleaning up the seams. I need to play with it more to know for sure, but I think I like it.

I mobile posted one shot from each app yesterday, but here are two more tests of Pano. Click on the image to see the full size file. Whaddaya think?

This is the intersection between route 2 and route 126 in Concord, MA:

This is the Border Cafe’s parking lot. (sorry ’bout that weight watchers)

I can’t see any obvious seams. I think this app might just be a winner.

Tonight is a special night for Jen and me. Tonight we are going out to celebrate our second date-iversary. Our first date was Thursday April 5, 2007. We have the kids on Sunday so we can’t celebrate it just the two of us then. The kids are going to meet their future step mother on Saturday (and they are wicked excited) so we’ll have them Saturday night after the big meet up is over. That means their dad is taking them for us tonight and we are going to go to dinner and a movie. Just a simple night out together to celebrate our first date. I love Jennifer and I can’t wait to marry her so we can start celebrating that anniversary too.

There was something else… I forget what it was… so you’ll probably be getting more later.

Until then…….

My free yahoo fantasy hockey team is in the league finals. After three days of stats I have a 6-4 lead.

I need the following NHL players to suck out load tonight:

Peter Mueller(Pho – C,RW)
Ryan Getzlaf(Anh – C)
Pavol Demitra(Van – C,LW)
Shane Doan(Pho – LW,RW)
Jarome Iginla(Cgy – RW)
Matt Niskanen(Dal – D)
Sami Salo(Van – D)
Kyle Quincey(LA – D)
Jean-Sebastien Giguere(Anh – G)

I likewise need the following NHL players to kick royal ass tonight:

Mike Ribeiro(Dal – C)
Chris Drury(NYR – C)
Milan Lucic(Bos – LW)
Corey Perry(Anh – RW)
Tomas Holmstrom(Det – RW)
Mark Streit(NYI – D)
Joni Pitkanen(Car – D)
Tim Thomas(Bos – G)
Cam Ward(Car – G)

(note: as a Bruins fan we especially need Lucic and Thomas to have great games)

Root for me as I attempt to win a pointless competition that has no basis in anything worthwhile! WOOHOO!

Wow… all of a sudden this blog is just a youtube repository.

Are you a turtle or a pigeon?

I can’t do anything else until this is out of my head.

100 best? That’s debatable.