arnoldcam

Life as I know it… plus commentary

What does it say about 80′s music?

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According to a survey from Tastebuds.fm, a dating site that connects you with people who share your musical preferences, fans of the British soft-rock band best known for hits like “Yellow” and “Viva La Vida” are least likely to have sex on the first date.

Highlights:

Least Likely to Have Sex on the First Date

1. Coldplay
2. Adele
3. Lady Gaga
4. Katy Perry
5. Kings of Leon

Most Likely

1. Nirvana
2. Metallica
3. Linkin Park
4. Kanye West
5. Gorillaz

Even more stats from other tests can be found here at the Men’s Health article.

Written by arnold

April 21, 2011 at 11:53 am

Posted in Music

The one with the awesome lion

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Apparently Frederick I of Sweden had a lion he liked.  When it died, they gave the pelt to a taxidermist…. who had never seen a lion.  Not too odd for 1731.  This was the result.  I’m still kind of perplexed why the taxidermist went a human route rather than a cat route but who am I to  judge?  I have a hard time getting the stuffing in the turkey.

Written by arnold

April 10, 2011 at 8:47 am

Posted in Humor

The one with all the edits

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I’m technically a numbers guy…  which puts my life in the hard and fast world of data entry, analysis and reporting.  So you can imagine why I like doing music and photography and other non-numerical pursuits in my free time.  Last night I spent some time working on a neglected skill set… video editing.  Boy that’s fun stuff.  It’s tedious and monotonous and if you’re like me, there’s tons of nitpicking involved.  Just for fun, I made a promo video for a friend who’d been on the second season of The Sing Off and sent it to him.  He liked it and asked to post it which I, of course, declined :)  Needed more work…. which I was willing to put in.  The added tweaks did a lot to make the video seem more interesting I thought.  If you’re interested, you can view it…

If you’re interested (and I only know of one arnoldcam reader who might be), here’s what I did.

On the first text slide, added two sound files, a bit of the chorus from  the Sing Off group number “Use Somebody” and crowd noise.  The song ends with the slide and the applause fades into the first clip.

Grabbed three clips from the show and cross faded them.  A little tricky since I had to use the small screen on the software on the capturing computer since the I was outputting the video from the first computer and was sending all video externally.  (I couldn’t look at that first computers screen at all).

Grabbed judge comments from same way.  These clips are older than the song clips… you can see the color is less saturated and there’s a little screen lag.  I did all these the same way so I’m not sure why there was a difference.  What I need is a real video editing station :D

The next text slide was initially silent.  I dropped in a stock sound from iMovie.  The result was a more dynamic 2.8 seconds than before.  Really cool what just a little sound can do to bring energy to a still slide.

The next bits are the finished song videos.  Wish I could take credit for all the multiple screens and quick cuts but they were just part of the finished products.  The editing part here is trying to find interesting parts of the songs that can stand alone and yet only be snippets.

So I’m learning a few things.  The next step is get Final Cut Pro… then the real challenges begin.

Written by arnold

March 25, 2011 at 10:53 am

Posted in Technology

Historically Hardcore

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I don’t know if these ads are legit or not but they make me want to visit the Smithsonian anyway

Written by arnold

March 21, 2011 at 10:33 am

Posted in Culture

A new trailer

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OK.  The news is kind of heavy lately.  Here’s a little grin for the end of the day… a trailer for Ferris Buehler’s Day Off more suited to today’s tastes.

Written by arnold

March 14, 2011 at 6:53 pm

Posted in Entertainment

Ten big ones

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A look at the internet wayback machines tells me my blog is ten years old!  Here’s a look 10 years back in time….

Rewind to Aug, 2001

Written by arnold

March 13, 2011 at 11:31 am

Posted in Blogroll

Shaken and not stirred

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Thought some of you might find this interesting.  First hand earthquake testimony from a friend that lives in Japan…

“It was shaking pretty hard even though the epicenter was about 240 miles away. Definitely the biggest earthquake I have been in, and I have been in quite a few. It will still be some time before I will see how it will personally affect my life, but for the moment, I lost about a thousand bucks in wine. So far, all of my family and friends are fine. The nuclear reactor may meltdown, but as long as another huge quake doesn’t hit, they should be able to take care of the situation without a major catastrophe. The infrastructure here in Tokyo one the best in the world, so almost every aspect of life is back to normal. Even during some of the major aftershocks, I was able to buy beer at the local supermarket. Coins were falling out of the cashier’s hand as she was giving me my change. I said in Japanese, “Oh, another earthquake.” and she shrugged, more focused on making sure she gave me the proper change. Only in Japan. Go figure.”

Written by arnold

March 12, 2011 at 6:35 pm

Posted in Travel

View from the side

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There’s beauty everywhere if you take the second to look. Even on a commute.

Written by arnold

March 10, 2011 at 8:43 am

Posted in Life in (near) LA

Return to Sender

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I would like to believe that I could do this but the fact is I’m not spontaneous to just fly to Europe.  (Well, once).  This is a story of a guy that found a roll of film, posted the developed pictures  on the internet, found the owners and returned the pictures in person.  In Paris.

Written by arnold

March 9, 2011 at 3:24 pm

Posted in Culture

Lucy in the Sky

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Maybe not Lucy, but the space shuttle Discovery’s last flight and the International Space Station are going to be pretty spectacular this week.

In Pasadena, look for a pair of brightly lit objects (as bright as Venus) going from NW to SE at these times:

SATELLITE LOCAL DURATION MAX ELEV APPROACH DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)
ISS Mon Mar 07/07:02 PM 2 20 11 above NNW 20 above NNE
ISS Tue Mar 08/07:28 PM 2 44 11 above NW 44 above NW
ISS Wed Mar 09/06:19 PM 5 23 10 above NNW 11 above E
ISS Wed Mar 09/07:56 PM < 1 16 16 above W 16 above W
ISS Thu Mar 10/06:46 PM 5 82 13 above NW 16 above SE

And as a favor to our Seattle friends:

SATELLITE LOCAL DURATION MAX ELEV APPROACH DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)
ISS Fri Mar 04/07:16 PM 2 66 24 above WNW 41 above E
ISS Sat Mar 05/07:43 PM 1 53 30 above W 51 above SSW
ISS Sun Mar 06/06:34 PM 4 72 31 above WNW 10 above ESE
ISS Sun Mar 06/08:09 PM 1 19 15 above WSW 19 above SW
ISS Mon Mar 07/07:01 PM 3 47 35 above WSW 12 above SE
ISS Tue Mar 08/07:27 PM 3 18 16 above WSW 10 above S
ISS Thu Mar 10/06:45 PM 2 16 16 above SW 10 above S

Or… you can just watch the International Space Station’s present position in real time HERE.

Written by arnold

March 7, 2011 at 1:50 pm

Posted in Science

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