Houston Roller Derby – Jun 17

This past Sunday I was back at Verizon Wireless Theater, camera in hand, to shoot some roller derby.

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to try out the 28-75mm 2.8 to see what results I could get. I had quite a bit of luck, as it turns out. I am still processing the images, so it’ll be a bit before I get those posted.

To slow down the already time cosuming process of going through a brazillion shots, I have interrupted my typical image processing workflow to single out some pictures for a bit of stylizing. I have started working some images in Photoshop with some good effect. Desaturate to take the pic to black and white and adding a bit of grain and then tweaking the contrast to come up with some trading card-like pictures.

This is Dementia 13 of the Psych Ward Sirens.

Dementia 13

This is The Prosecutor of The Machete Betties

The Prosecutor

I love the candid shots, more so than the action shots.
I think that will be more of my focus.
We’ll see what the net results are when I am through working this batch.

Step aside Spinal Tap

Something many people may not know about the title track from my band’s CD “Loch Ness Monster” is that it was originally written and recorded as a heavy metal song.

Consider the review from the Houston Press that said:

The album opens with the wonderfully dark ode to the creature lurking beneath the murky waters of Loch Ness. Here the beast is less the benign and almost dopey plesiosaur used to sell trinkets to tourists and much more the accursed beast with “Huge red eye, long sharp tooth / slicing knives, ragged spines” which will drag you from the banks and tear you to pieces despite your screams and struggles. Nessie, indeed.

And that’s in reference to the acoustic folk version! The heavy metal version of Loch Ness Monster is a bonus hidden track at the end of the CD.

The origins of this song go back to when Greg Henkel came up with a band called Rocrament and wrote about 10-12 heavy metal songs and his brother, Jim Henkel, recorded them. Jim laid down all the tracks and mixed it in his home studio.

Recently, Greg has been working hard with a hand-picked group of musicians to bring Rocrament to the stage and his evil brilliant plan comes to fruition this Thursday night, June 21st at the Houston Continental Club.

Show time is around 10:30 and follows the regular Thursday night performance of Jim Henkel’s Beatles tribute band “Beetle.”

Only Greg knows for sure what this performance will entail, but early reports are of elaborate stage props and costumes. Greg let me know that Rocrament has about 45 minutes of live material so you won’t be out all night on a weeknight.

This is going to be a rock show for the ages!

Check out Rocrament’s Myspace page for more information.

Click here to hear the song “Rocrament” from the original CD.

Cat Cam

I’m not a huge cat fan nor am I cat cam fan but I am a technology fan and a fan of novel ideas. That’s why I find Mr. Lee’s CatCam quite fascinating.

Ever wonder what a cat who spends most of his time outdoors is up to?
Apparently J. Perthold in Germany did and came up with an idea…

So the idea was born and split into these parts:

1. find small, lightweight, inexpensive digital camera
2. develop a controller for the camera
3. protect the camera from cat attack
4. mount equipment to cat

For anyone who has lived with a feline, the mystery of a cat’s mind is an all-too-familiar quandary. This site does not venture any answers to that dilemma. But it does attempt to record what one cat.the illustrious Mr. Lee.does and where he goes when left to his own devices. Mr. Lee’s human companion, a clever man who lives in Germany, rigged a small digital camera to take a photo at regular intervals. He affixed the device to his cat’s collar and let Mr. Lee do his thing. What came back is an amusing, sometimes fascinating peek into Mr. Lee’s daily activities.

Out of the day of a cat – Trip 1
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 2
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 3
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 4

TV Time

Got a call from Jeff Ehling over at the local ABC affiliate (Channel 13). He was putting together a story to tie in to the recent FBI press release regarding botnet cyber crime and needed a geek talking head.

Lord knows there’s no talking head geekier than yours truly and despite my fear of being in front of the camera, I agreed to do it. I try not to pass up any opportunity to promote the radio show. Plus I think I must secretly enjoy being scared out of my wits.

Much like the previous times, it went smoothly enough and I was not horrified with the results. Jeff did a great job on the story and used sound bites from me in the piece that worked well and I was very pleased to hear him use talking points that came from our more candid off camera conversation.

You can see the news story video here.

Xshot promotional offer

So pleased was the Xshot corporation with my blathering the benefits of the Xshot that they have offered the readers of baldheretic.com and the Technology Bytes blog an opportunity to pick one up at a discount.

From now until July 15th you can go to xshotpix.com and order the Xshot and use the promo code GEEKRADIO at the time of checkout for a $5.50 discount. Just type GEEKRADIO into the box that says Coupon when you are checking out.

Look at me! I’m a shill! 🙂 Just kidding, I love my Xshot!

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