The Photoshop book I just bought is very good indeed. Mr. Evening, the distinguished author of said book, writes intensively from a photographer's stand-point (which is, of course, 100% as it should be) and makes the book worth its money several times over. Although his style of photographing and styling them is very clear-cut and non-experimental, it's what it should be; even though Jimi Hendrix has inspired my guitar-playing more than I can say in words, I'd be lost without having heard The Beatles first tracks. What I'm saying it's nice to know the basics before going full-on into something, and it's even better when somebody who's a master at something can teach you, just like Martin Evening does. I fully recommend and will shamelessly plug his book at any moment.
Frederic came by yesterday. First I was dropped off at his place by Mikaela, who went on to Bauhaus, where she picked up planks that were sawed off to match the desired length; they're going to be turned into shelves for our CD's and films. Mikaela doesn't want our apartment to look like a video store, which I can fully understand. She does, however, like to show off her books, but I claim the backs, and even more so, the fronts, of my Criterion DVD packs are extremely pleasing to the eye. I rarely get excited about the covers of anything, but Criterion really give a hoot about that, so I'm always eager to see their covers when they announce new stuff. Lo and behold, they've got a newsletter out. I'd prefer a news feed though, and I've just e-mailed them about it. Let's see what happens.
It's nice to try out the alpha version of Mozilla Firefox 1.1, called Deer Park. Don't install it unless you 1) don't care about your installed extensions - that almost certainly will stop functioning once you install the alpha and 2) are as eager as I am, when it comes to trying out new technology before it's released. The three best new functions I've come across are:
1. Quick back-and-forward movement. From the development team: "This very experimental feature allows much faster session history navigation." It does, churning out those pages lightning-fast. According to the development team, this feature isn't turned on by default - but it is at my place.
2. Image thumbnails as tab icons. "When viewing images, tab icons now display thumbnails of the displayed image."
3. "Sanitize" privacy feature. "The 'Sanitize' feature provides an easy way to quickly remove browsing history, cookies, cache, saved form information, and other personal data."
Read more about the alpha release notes here.
Speaking of Mozilla, check out these inspiring lists of extensions for Firefox: one, two and three.
I've just read this interview with Lou Barlow, who is the bass player in Dinosaur Jr. They've re-formed and are playing gigs all over the USA. Appx. two months ago I got hold of the remastered version of their epochal "You're Living All Over Me", that required a few listens before I snapped up their greatness. It's like listening to My Bloody Valentine. YLAOM is a great album. Even though J. Mascis is the only guitarist in the band, his playing sounds like what Frank Zappa's guitar-playing would sound like if it were crossed with Thurston Moore's. That album is a masterpiece, and don't wait with listening to it like I did. And make sure you get the remastered version. I'm telling you, you'll be as blown away by tracks like "Sludgefest", as Alec Empire was; he sampled that track!
I'm totally into "God of War", a very sweet PS2 game which combines brains and brawns. You kill legions of evil, while having to use your brain somewhat. Puzzle-solving and monster-slaying makes this a very attractive PS2-game, but if you're me, get a hold of this walkthrough, moaha.