I first mentioned my participation in the 365 project back in May.  Ever since then I’ve gone back and forth between filler photos and some of my best creative work.  I’ve been trying as much as possible to explore different techniques and try to be as creative as possible.  Here are my best shots since May.

[caption id=“attachment_2634” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“I guess it’s in Beta because they haven’t removed the Jesus module yet”] [/caption]

While looking up driving directions on Google Maps from Barcelona, Spain to Madrid, Spain, I clicked the option for “walking” directions out of curiosity’s sake.  This is the quickest route they gave me for walking.  I don’t think that’s the most efficient way to go.  First of all, I can’t walk on water.  Second, why not go straight over land.  That appears to be a shorter route.  What makes this hilarious is the statement in yellow:  “Walking directions are in beta.  Use caution - This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.”  Missing is, “We may send you walking over water.”

I don’t even remember what I was going to search for in Google, but here’s what came up when I typed “why”.

This is becoming a huge “sport” on the net - to see what Google gives you when you type something into the search.  It’s the first time I got something fun.

A few weeks ago I did an update to Fedora 11 using preupgrade.  Nothing really broke other than iPods.  My shuffle doesn’t work as well, but I’m working on fixing that.  I also think that the updates are less annoying-looking and are more informative.

[caption id=“attachment_2622” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Fedora 11 software update”] [/caption]

I finally finished Final Fantasy IX.  Took me a little over 30 hours.  I didn’t do all the side quests, but that’s more of Dan’s thing.  The characters I played with the most ended up at about level 52 - if that tells you anything.  Except for a little bit when I was trying to learn some skills, I didn’t do any grinding.  That’s the big difference from when I played Final Fantasy VI as a kid.  I don’t have quite as much time.  Whenever I got to a complicated dungeon, I consulted an FAQ.  So what are my final thoughts?  Here’s a rambling, stream-of-conciousness review of the game after finishing it up.

Just like Dina, Daniel has a great smile.  This is pretty easy to capture because he’s almost always laughing.  He has a great attitude towards life and you can’t help but smile when you’re around Daniel.

While finishing up my photographic bio, I was copying and adapting my introduction from my flickr Top 40 book.  So I decided to see how the top ten photos in my flickr Top 40 have changed in the past three years.

2006

Original Rank: 1 Current Rank: 5 Original Views:  455 Current Views:  1881 Camera: Kodak DX3600

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“These eyes, specifically”] [/caption]

I think it’s pretty interesting that my eyes can see without seeing.  For example, when I’m walking through the hallways at work, my eyes often end up in collision-avoidance mode.  That is, I don’t see through my eyes because I’m busy seeing something else in my mind’s eye.  So my eyes become visible-spectrum sonar and keep me from bumping into people and things.  It’s often while in this mode that friends and coworkers will go out of their way to snap me out of my trance to bring to my attention the fact that I didn’t acknowledge their presence in the hallway.  They never believe me that I didn’t see them because they were the only person in the hallway.  In extreme cases I have literally manoeuvred around a person to get into a door or otherwise not crash, and still did not see the person.  I mean, my brain knows I went around a human, but it doesn’t bother to decode the face so I have no idea who I narrowly missed.  This makes them even more incredulous when I deny having seen them.  Sorry, but it’s true.  My brain decided that whatever it was picturing was more important than dedicating some neurons for facial recognition.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“372” caption=“Perhaps taking the introspection a bit too literally”] [/caption]

My blog has always contained some degree of introspection.  It has varied based on my interests at the time.  While it’s not impossible to include some self-examination in a Linux review, it’s certainly not par for the course.  But, recently, reading Min and Kailyn’s blogs recently has inspired me to try and include some more of my thought process when blogging.  I think I’ll definitely try to give it a shot on my next photo essay, but also on other posts, such as those dealing with my photography or politics.

After playing Final Fantasy 9 for a few days, here are my first impressions.

• the graphics are a little distracting - it’s kinda like an uncanny valley thing.  It’s not quite as nice as the new stuff, but better than the SNES graphics.  But there are a lot of closeups because it was state of the art when it first came out.
• There appears to be a lot of slapstick with Steiner.  But then again, there’s always some slapstick in Final Fantasy games.
• Like pretty much any Final Fantasy game, after the first disc, I’m still not sure what the plot is.  Just like anime/manga, the plot is usually not evident in the first few hours.  After playing for just about eight hours I still didn’t know what was going on.
• At first I thought I had acquired an airship VERY early for a Final Fantasy game, but then quickly lost it.