I want to be in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Most of you have probably already heard of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park at Universal Orlando. The park features three exciting rides--Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Flight of the Hippogriff, and Dragon Challenge--plus a surprisingly detailed reproduction of the Hogwarts and Hogsmeade settings of the Harry Potter movies. It would have been nice if the theme park were a bit closer to the actual geographical setting of the series, but I suppose Orlando, Florida is kind of theme park central, so it makes sense. Even if Hogsmeade is decked out in snow, something Orlando never sees.

Anyway, I totally want to go! I want to walk around Hogsmeade and drink butterbeer. I want to buy a magic wand from Ollivander's (and as I've mentioned before, I dream about having a magic wand--literally). I want to walk through the halls of Hogwarts. Oh my gosh, I just can't express how much I want to go. Reading reviews of the park and seeing galleries of the souvenirs available there just make me squeeee! I know I could order a wand online, but it's really not the same. Unless an owl delivers it, it would be infinitely better to buy it in Ollivander's wand shop.

It's a small enough park that it's probably only good for a day trip. If only I had a friend who lived near there, I could visit her and then stop by the park for a day. Or if I went to a conference there--the Ocean Sciences conference was there in 2008 (three years too early, darn). My mom, who is also a huge Harry Potter fan (everyone in my family is, but especially her), proposed semi-seriously that we do a family vacation there, and maybe spend a few days in Disney World to make the trip more worthwhile. But, um, I'm kind of past going to theme parks with my parents at the moment. I may need a little more time away from them before I'm ready to walk around Disney World with my mom again. I reeeeaaally want to go to the Harry Potter theme park...but just how desperate am I?

Speaking of Harry Potter magic wands, I came across something AMAZING on ThinkGeek: the Magic Wand - Programmable TV Remote. It is even more awesome than it sounds. Yes, it's a Harry Potter-style wand that you can use as a TV remote, but it doesn't even use buttons. It recognizes 13 different wand motions that you program, using your normal remote, to do different things. And then BOOM, you can control the TV with a flick of your wand (or a series of flicks). Watch the demonstration video on the website. I wish it gave a little more demonstration of the wand actually in use, but you get the idea. I don't even own a TV at the moment, but I WANT THIS SO MUCH. Using it to control my TV would be just pure geek fun satisfaction.

Of course, if I end up getting a Kinect, I guess I'd be able to control the TV--at least for tasks that the Kinect is connected to--with my hands (a la Minority Report). But...it's a wand! And, as we all know, I have a thing for magic wands.

EW's list of 2010's sci-fi hotties (women)

This Entertainment Weekly list of 12 Sci-Fi Hotties of 2010 only has women. Last year there was one list of women and one list of men, but I can't find this year's hot sci-fi men list. It is very upsetting. Hopefully they'll have it up soon, though; I'll keep an eye out for it, certainly. In the meanwhile, you can check out their gallery of hot women from this year's sci-fi TV shows and movies.

Vote for your favorite hottie at the end!

Here are the choices:


Personally I thought last year's list was better (and the guys may be disappointed because this year's photos of the ladies seem to have more clothing in general). We'll see how the men hold up this year (EW, I'm assuming that list is coming, and it had better be good!).

Playing with the new camera: Snorkeling HD video

I mentioned before that one of the biggest differences between the Housemate's underwater camera and my new Panasonic Lumix TS2 is that mine takes HD video. So how is this underwater HD video? Here is a collection of clips that I took snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Unfortunately there's nothing exciting like on my last trip there, and I apologize for the shakiness of the cinematography--I blame it on the waves in this part of the bay, but I'm sure I can improve. Still, it's enough to get an idea of what the camera's underwater video looks like. (You should be able to watch it at 720p.)



First, the sound is weird. Maybe little tiny flows of water around the microphone, with particles of sand hitting the camera? I expected to hear me breathing, since that's the sound that I notice most while snorkeling, in addition to background water movement sounds. It's a bit annoying, but not too bad. I am impressed by the auto focus. There's one moment in one clip where I notice it trying to focus on a field of fish as I swing it to the right, but the rest looks pretty smooth. And the HD is a noticeable improvement over the other camera's video.

Next time I'll try not to jiggle the camera as much. Then all I'll need is to be attacked by a fish, and it'll be golden.

I've been posting all photos for the past two weeks (yes, I'm a bit obsessed with my new camera). I'll return to a little normal geekery soon.

Playing with the new camera: Snorkeling at Hanauma

I finally got out snorkeling with my new camera in Hanauma Bay. I'd been there before with the Housemate's underwater camera, of course, but I was excited to see how my camera would hold up. Perhaps the most notable thing that my camera does that his doesn't is it takes HD video, so I was definitely interested in seeing how that would come out.

I went to Hanauma with my parents, who were both here visiting from the East Coast (my dad has since gone home, my mom is still around), and went snorkeling with my dad. My dad is the one who really loves snorkeling, though when my mom went out for a short bit after I got back, she was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. So some of the photos might have been taken by my dad, but I kind of think these ones are all mine.

We were swimming in an area of the bay that I haven't gone yet with the Housemate. In general, there were more fish in this area but they were harder to get at (faster, and over shallower reef), the waves were choppier, and the water was cloudier. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) there were no fish attacks this time.

A view of the bay

For a panoramic of the bay that shows its distinctive circular shape, see my first post on Hanauma.

This was some sort of butterflyfish (my best guess) that I hadn't seen before. It was rather elusive, but I managed to get this shot of it from above.


Convict tangs


A pretty fish with a distinctive white spot, probably also a butterflyfish of some sort. This one I stalked for a while before getting a clear shot of it, though the water itself isn't very clear.


A convict tang hanging with some sort of purple tang, I think


Say "bubbles"!


Not sure what kind of fish this is, but it has both spots and stripes. There's also a fish of interesting colors in front of it, and a humuhumunukunukuapua'a hiding in the background on the right.


A starry-eyed parrotfish. The water's a bit cloudy, but I thought the fish was pretty cool. Are those chapped lips, or does it have some nasty little teeth out there?


So no great shots like the one I got of the feisty humuhumu last time. But it wasn't a bad first snorkeling outing with the new camera. I know there will be more to come.

HD underwater video with the new camera coming up on Wednesday.

Playing with the new camera: Sunset on the beach

Happy Friday, everyone! It's the end of the week, so I thought I'd leave you with my recent sunset photos.

Haleiwa beach is a great place to watch the sun set over the water. I was worried that it might be a little too cloudy for good photos (sunset's less fun if you can't see the sun), but the clouds ended up being a nice addition.

These photos were taken with my camera's "sunset" scene setting, which seems to accentuate the bold colors of a sunset. I wish I'd taken a few photos without the sunset setting (sounds redundant?) to compare. I don't know exactly what it does to bring out the sunset colors. It seems like it may be cheating to use the setting, like it might be akin to lying about what the sunset actually looks like, but then I've taken photos of sunsets before and they never come out as orange or as pink or as red as I think they looked in real life. I'd say these photos capture a fair picture of the true scene.

First, a photo looking west (I guess it's southwest, more precisely) from Haleiwa before the sunset turned everything orange.


And now, the orange.


A little later.


Here's what that first angle down the coast looked like at this point. Note the paddle boarder to the left, and the light rain coming down in the distance over the water on the right. I love how the orange light catches the rain--and how it doesn't look like it's falling straight (must be blown about by the wind).


A portrait shot a little later


And sundown.


Do these seem a little bit grainy? I think these seem grainier than my other photos, but maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the sunset camera setting? I will definitely remember to try some without that setting next time.

Snorkeling photos on Monday!

Playing with the new camera: On the beach, little things

On the beach at Haleiwa ("hah-leh-EE-vah"), I didn't just take scenic photos. Gotta appreciate the little things, too.

A bit of coral on the beach. Testing out my camera's macro capabilities.


An underwater shot of a bunch of different types of algae, just off shore


Little snails hide out to avoid dessication in the intertidal zone.


My mom said this looked like a mini-Mordor. And she wonders how I turned out to be such a geek.


I pressed a half shell into my finger. I guess I had nothing better to do.


Again, I was sitting on the beach with nothing better to do. But that piece of coral that looks like his head was really cool. How could I not put something like this together?


I'll have some sunset-on-the-beach photos on Friday.

Playing with the new camera: On the beach, scenic

Finally, some scenic shots taken with my new camera. These were snapped on the beach at Haleiwa; I spent a couple days there with my visiting parents last week.

Point looking west


My parents walking down the beach in the morning


A small lava rock point over calm water


Beautiful Waianae Mountains


I was kind of obsessed with that mountain.


It's just such a beautiful shape.


Doesn't that small detached cloud look like a bird? See it?

Playing with the new camera: The night sky

My new camera has a "starry night" setting. It takes a long exposure--the user chooses between 15, 30, and 60 seconds--then spends the same amount of time processing the image. This may be related to the fact that heavenly bodies move during that time, and the camera has to line everything up so they look like stationary points rather than streaks. But I don't really know. What I know is that my old camera never could get anything out of the night sky, no matter how bright I thought the stars looked, so this new feature, however weak it may be, is very exciting.

Haleiwa beach at night isn't a bad place to look at stars. It's relatively dark, with a clear view of half the sky (the half that's over the ocean). Here are a few images I captured while out with my camera.

The star shots were pretty hard to set up, but I did manage to catch the Big Dipper.


The moon low in the sky with Venus as the bright body at the top. The moon casts an orange glow on the ocean below it. Venus was actually so bright that after the moon set, we could see its own light reflected on the rippling water. I couldn't get that with my camera, unfortunately.


And the moon falls behind a cloud low on the horizon.


Not great quality night sky photos, but they at least have something. Beach photos (during daylight) coming up tomorrow!

Playing with the new camera: Faces from underwater

As I announced earlier in the week, my new camera has arrived. It's a convenient point-and-shoot that also is waterproof to 10m/33ft. So far, I've been having way too much fun with it.

Since my parents are in town, I took two days off from work earlier this week to stay with them in my great aunt and uncle's condo right on the beach on the North Shore. Two whole days on the beach = plenty of time to experiment. I wasted a lot of time taking excessive, random, and unnecessary photos. I have to get to know my new camera, though, right?

Here is the first of one of my experiments. So I have a camera that can go underwater. I could use that feature to take clear photos of things underwater, but why not use it to take photos of things--like me, for instance--out of the water? You can probably get a similar effect using various softwares, but this is the real deal, beautifully distorted by none other than nature herself. Here are a few of my fun shots.

This is my favorite. Would have been better without the glare on the right, but still, the way it reshapes my head and nose is great.


This one turned out the least flattering, I think. Kind of awesome--I look like an alien.


I love what this one did to my ear.


OK, that's enough of that. More photos to come!

I won a blog giveaway!

I recently won my first giveaway on a blog from the lovely Megan Christopher's second blogiversary giveaway at Hollywood Jane. She is a writer and grad student, and a big, huge geek. Which makes her wonderful. She writes and stars in a web series on YouTube called Quest for Comic-Con, detailing the great lengths that her character Gabby will go through to meet her idol, "Josh Wheaton", at Comic-Con. It's hilarious, and a great test of your geek cred, with lots of fun geeky references. Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/questforcomiccon

Megan also has an Etsy store called uGeek. She makes the cutest jewelry with a fine assortment of geeky themes. For instance, right now she has a necklace with a Cylon head pendant. She also makes some very cool necklaces that look like just a regular, pretty necklace but serve a useful function--they are actually flash drives. Very handy. Check them out here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/hollywoodjane

So what did she give me in the giveaway I won? A Quest for Comic-Con T-shirt, and a necklace with an awesome Blue Sun pendant (I just hope River doesn't catch me wearing it).







Sweet! Thanks, Megan, you're the best!

Farewell to camera

My new camera has arrived! It's so beautiful! (Oh my God, it's so bright and vivid! So beautiful. So intense. [starts weeping])*. The shade of turquoise is even prettier than it looked in the picture online. I just can't wait to take it out for a spin--to the beach, snorkeling, hiking, wherever. It's so nice to have a camera with a screen that works; yes, we are in the 21st century now. The memory card capacity is 64 times that of the memory card in my old camera, so I won't have to worry about running out of memory nearly as fast, even considering the increase in resolution. The zoom is only a little better, but with the increased resolution there should be some more digital zoom capability. And the features have come a long way since my old camera was made five years ago (It recognizes faces? Whoa!).

But before I cast my out-dated camera into the dust, I must remember that I did love my old camera. The first camera that I got to use as my own was a clunky cast-off from my parents, a 1 megapixel digital camera (looked grainy as the wallpaper on my 14 inch laptop) with no zoom (save for stepping forwards/backwards) and no memory card (I might have been able to purchase one, but somehow I made do with the ~24 photo internal memory). Luckily, for my next birthday, my dad went with me to buy a good camera. 4 megapixels, video (albeit low quality), and 3x optical zoom! It was so cute and perfect.

I got it in the early days of video capability for normal point-and-shoot cameras. I remember surprising friends who, seeing me holding up the camera without clicking, figured I was just setting up still photos. The "secret" video camera got some pretty amusing candid clips.

My first real outing with the camera was for the Alaska cruise my family got to go on. I was astonished how quickly I filled up my memory card on that week-long cruise; when I'd bought it, I couldn't imagine needing more than 256 MB (I mean, that's well over a hundred photos!). But I made do, and anyway, it was nice to force myself to delete bad or boring photos as I went along, so the task of sorting through hundreds of photos later would be reduced. Though being inexperienced with the camera, I unfortunately saved a few bad shots because I couldn't tell from the small screen that they were blurry (afterwards, I learned I had to zoom in to make sure my shot wasn't blurry). Still, despite these small issues, I was extremely pleased with my camera. It was everything I needed at the time.

So let me remember it for those good times, the days of my Alaska photos, and raise a glass to its glory days. Here it is, the old girl:

The old camera, taken with the new camera. So cute.

And here's the new one.

The new camera, taken with the old camera. (Lighting is pretty bad; it looked way too dark without the flash, even though the first photo, taken under the same ambient light as the second, looks fine without flash. We'll blame it on some undesirable setting that I can't change because the screen doesn't work.)

Ain't she a beauty? To summarize what I've mentioned before, it's a Panasonic Lumix TS2, 14.1 megapixels, 720p HD video (which allows zoom during recording, something the old camera didn't do), 4.6x optical zoom, 28 mm wide angle, all in a bold turquoise shell with a sort of brushed steel texture, 10m/33ft waterproof, 2m/6.6ft shockproof, -10C/14F freezeproof, and dustproof. I can't wait to build up a collection of lovely photos and exciting adventures with my new camera.


* To understand, you'll need to have seen this. Well, I'm not sure any of us can truly understand that.

Second Blogiversary!

Today marks my blog's second anniversary! It also marks the release of the first episode of The Guild Season 4 (yay!), so make sure you go check that out...after you finish reading my blog post, of course.

Last year, for my first blogiversary, I listed ten facts about me that hadn't come up before on my blog. I am not very well planned out this year, since my parents are in town visiting right now. Still, I managed to put a little something together. I figured I'd give visual (and audio) proof of some of the things I mentioned in last year's blogiversary post.

There are two pieces of jewelry I always wear. A silver ring and a gold necklace (no, silver + gold don't match, but I like them both!). Here they are.

That gold ball is actually the moon. Look up James Thurber's children's book Many Moons, and you'll understand.


Kind of abstract-viney. By Harriet Forman Barrett.

I had really long hair from 7th grade to halfway through my sophomore year in college. About hip length, but never long enough that I'd sit on it when I sat down (though I could sit on it if I tipped my head back a bit). Here's a picture (not perfect because you still can't see the bottom of it).


OK, this didn't come up in last year's post, but it was mentioned in a recent post, so I thought I'd demonstrate how I move my baby toe onto the toe next to it (you can also see in the video that I can move it underneath the other toe, but I think that may be a little more common):


And, at long last, I demonstrate my infamous "ear snap":



I can't believe I've been doing this for two years now. I love the friends I've made blogging, and the conversations we have online. I like how I can share some things with you, under the veil of relative anonymity, that I can't share with most other people I know in real life. Thanks to everyone for reading my blog. You still always make my day.

A Quarter of a Century Old

Today is my 25th birthday. This afternoon (barring some tragic disaster), the minute will pass after which I will have been alive for one quarter of a century. A quarter of a century. It feels like a significant milestone. I suppose it only seems special because of the base of the number system we happen to use (though if we used base five, I'd be 100!), which is based on the number of fingers we have, so really my 25th birthday is only special because of primate hand anatomy. But that's how we primates are, so 25 is a notable number of years to have behind me.

The only material thing I gain at age 25 is the ability to rent a car without incurring an extra insurance charge. I guess it beats the nothing I got when I turned 22, 23, and 24. But I also now have to deal with the fact that I can no longer claim to be in my "early twenties". Oh dear... I am now closer to 30 than I am to 20. Ack! When did that happen? Oh, right: Today.

My last birthday I posted some baby pictures of myself, and I thought I'd do the same this year, so you can see how far I've come. These three photos are from my personal collection, which means that they were the three baby photos of me that my parents were willing to part with. Probably because they had multiple copies.

I love the expression on my face in this one. Something about it makes me look a lot like my dad. Maybe he as the photographer was making the same face at me, and I was mimicking him.


Looks like corn on the cob for the toothless baby. Mmm.


In this one I'm a bit older. A happy toddler on a very exciting slide.


Today I will hopefully be receiving my big birthday present in the mail, bought with birthday money from my grandparents and parents, plus a nice credit card rewards check (yay for free money!). I will finally have a new camera! After over two years of whiny if legitimate excuses for poor photos ("My camera screen doesn't work so I can't see what the photo looks like or change the settings, waaah!"), at last I will be able to improve my photography. The camera that I await is the Panasonic Lumix TS2 in lovely turquoise blue. 14.1 megapixels, 4.6x optical zoom, 720p HD video, plus it's waterproof to 33 feet, shockproof to 6 feet, freezeproof to 14 F, and dustproof (which generally comes with it being waterproof). I can't wait for it to arrive so I can start to fall in love with it (makes it sound a little like a mail-order husband or something...).

I'm not sure what I have planned for the day other than going out to dinner with my parents, grandparents, and the Housemate. As of writing this post, the parents (and grandparents) still don't know that the Housemate is also the Boyfriend. Oh, Eleni, for all your 25 years you are still many years away from wisdom. Fun times will be had by all.

Superhero casting and more Hobbit trouble

Things are a little busy with my parents visiting, but I have time to share a few news items, some of which are getting a little old. Most of these are about superhero movie casting, actually.

First, Tommy Lee Jones has joined the cast of Captain America: The First Avenger (Variety). He will be playing U.S. Army Colonel Chester Philips. He joins Chris Evans as Captain America, Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine, as well as Hayley Atwell and Sebastian Stan.

This news is old by now, but Andrew Garfield has been cast as the new Spider-Man (IMDb). He is a relative unknown, though he had roles in Lions for Lambs, The Other Boleyn Girl, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and will soon be seen in The Social Network. Hopefully he'll do well in the role, and the revival of the not long gone franchise will be good.

I'm not freaking out yet, but it looks like The Hobbit might lose Ian McKellen (Studio Briefing). He's an actor with other things to do, particularly some stage shows, and he can't wait around forever for the stalled movie to get moving. The delays in production (tied to MGM's troubles) have already forced planned director Guillermo del Toro to step down. I really hope we don't lose more people.

Lastly, this is a bit of new news. Apparently, Ed Norton will not be joining the cast of The Avengers as the Hulk (Hitflix). The studio said that the decision was not based on money, but it sounded like they weren't satisfied with Norton's willingness to act as a team player. I like Edward Norton, but I can imagine that it can be difficult with so many big names on a team in one movie, especially if many of them had their own starring movies first. We'll have to wait and see who will be replacing him to join the Avengers along with Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Dragon Age 2 announced!

Dragon Age 2 was just announced this past week. The website is here:

http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/

Eeeee! OK, I can't get really excited when there's not even a trailer to see (apparently one will be coming the 17th of August). Actually, it's a little sad that they can make it available for pre-order when all we've seen is the cover of the case plus two images of concept art. But still, I loved the first game, so I am excited to think that next year we might have a sequel. I just loved playing a mage in Dragon Age: Origins, and I look forward to doing it again in DA2.

I wonder what changes they'll make. What we seem to know so far is that DA2 will be slightly more...Mass Effect-like...than DAO. The player character will have a name (Hawke) who will be fully voiced. It's nice to have a voiced character, but it's also nice to be able to choose a line of dialogue rather than a one- or two-word description of a dialogue choice from the dialogue wheel (as in Mass Effect). Hawke, it seems, will have only one generic origin--a big change from the choice of six different extensive origin stories playable in DAO. I hope they don't change it to be too much like Mass Effect. I loved Mass Effect, obviously, but I don't want all my games to be the same. I liked the tons and tons of skills to choose from in Dragon Age. I liked the many, many conversations one could have with one's companions, and the variety of conversations the party members would have with each other. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see just what things they'll be changing from Dragon Age: Origins. I'm hoping for the best.

I'm still more excited about Star Wars: The Old Republic, but really, it would be nice to take breaks from the MMO with a single-player game like DA2. And one can never have too much BioWare.

I'm a Motorcycle Chick!

*Painstakingly screenshot by the amazing, brilliant, handsome, and talented Sebastian.*

Even though I've been living here for almost a year, I only just got my Hawaii driver's license this week. Shame on me. I guess as a student I can say I'm still legally living with my parents. Well anyway, my old license was about to expire, so I went through the delightful process of Hawaii's out-of-state license transfer. This involved filling out an application, waiting in line six or seven times (they kept pointing, "OK, now wait in that line there," "Now wait in that line," "Now go back to that line"), and passing a written test: 30 pretty easy multiple choice questions, 6 or fewer wrong counting as a pass--actually harder than the test I took in my home state which allowed 6 wrong out of a total of 20 (!) questions. Two hours later, I emerged from the Driver License Location with my hard-earned prize.

I was disappointed to find that they've changed the appearance of the Hawaii license since the days of Superbad, so it doesn't look like McLovin's license. Still, it's nice to have the Hawaii license. I feel more like a local, even though my student ID already qualified me for kama'aina rates. And my old license was still a sideways "Under 21 License", so people would have to search for the "under 21 until" date before letting me into clubs or allowing me to buy a drink (you know, the four times that has happened).

Today, I was looking at my license more closely. My picture on the license isn't great (the flash caught me a really bad way somehow), but then again, it could have been worse. After frowning at my photo for a while, I noticed something rather curious. On the back of the license, under "CLASS", it says "MOTOR SCOOTERS & MOTORCYCLES".



That's weird. I've never ridden a motorcycle in my life. I don't think I've ever so much as touched the handlebars of a moped. Why would my license say "motorcycles" on it? Hmm, let's look at the front (heavily censored to protect the guilty; the birthday can stay because anyone who can subtract can already figure it out from this blog).



See that "9. Cl: 2"? It's funny, because I vaguely remember the guy I turned the application form into putting a "3" in the "Class" box on the application. What do these numbers mean, anyway? This is what the different classes qualify the driver to drive, according to a State of Hawaii Driver License Requirements document:
1 - Motor scooters 5 HP or less.
2 - Motorcycles over 5 HP and motor scooters.
3 - Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 15,000 pounds or less and vehicles designed to transport 15 or fewer passengers, including the driver.

Huh. That last one sounds more like what I would have expected. But my license shows that I am instead qualified to drive motorcycles over 5 HP as well as motor scooters! Harley-Davidson, here I come! Wheeee!

Looks like someone oopsied. I don't know if they couldn't read the writing on the application or just hit the wrong key on the keyboard, but I just got a license for something that I am wholly unqualified to drive. And the times I've been driving my car in the past three days? Technically not legal. Not that a police officer who happened to ask to see my license wouldn't understand the mix up, right? Right?

Anyway, I will be calling the driver license people next week (they're not open on the weekend) and will have to go in for a new one. Hopefully they have the proper records so I don't need to go through the whole process again. But in the meantime... maybe I should take this opportunity to go out for a fun ride while I'm arguably legal? It's a nice weekend... My parents even are in town visiting. I'm sure they'd love a nice motorcycle ride along the coast.

Photo at the top, for those who don't recognize it, is from Dollhouse. I even have the socks already. It's just meant to be!