[Share-worthy] Plants vs Zombies media

If you wish to have the audio file (mp3 format) and music video (mp4 format) of the Plants vs Zombies theme, 'Zombies on your Lawn,' you may grab it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?zmmdnyjl2jt

Enjoy! Ü

Avatar

A miracle happened today. I missed all of my chances to win Avatar premiere invites from RX, but this afternoon, one of my bestest friends, the_netski, sent me an SMS that made my entire week. She'll be sending me a pair of tickets to the Avatar block screening for this Thursday (same day as the RX Monster Movie Premiere) at SM North Edsa. I nearly fainted.

I was in total disbelief when she first told me she has a pair of tickets. I then asked her how much they are. My jaw dropped when she said 'Advanced Christmas gift for me and PiNkR0b0T' and that she's been seeing my tweets about the movie so she figured to give me the tickets.

You see, I'm a very simple girl. Nothing huge ever happens to me. I'm unlucky with raffles, although I have to admit I've been quite lucky with radio promos recently. When Avatar had a 20-minute preview in August, I was ecstatic when I got invites. I cannot believe that I can ever be part of something so big. I vowed that I have to watch the full-length movie in a 3D theater when it comes out in December. Now that RX is doing a premiere, I feel very disappointed that I can't even catch the Avatar promos. So one can just understand how I was in total amazement when I received the_netski's message. Something like this almost never happens to me.

So to the_netski, thank you so much for the wonderful surprise. I wish I can do something as fantastic for you someday. You're a really great friend.

Share-worthy: 100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography

I found this today from the Digital Photography School website and thought it's a good read. It's very inspiring and very true. I'm sure all shutterbugs -- both newbies and pros -- will learn a thing or two from this list.

This article was originally written by Martin Gommel and was posted on DPS by Darren Rowse. Martin Gommel is a photographer on Flickr who has a blog called KWERFELDEIN (German) and has generously offered to translate one of his photography articles for DPS. Darren Rowse, the editor and founder of DPS also made a few edits and translations to this list. Rowse lives in Melbourne Australia and is also the editor of the ProBlogger Blog Tips and TwiTip Twitter Tips blogs.

1. Never do photography to become a rock-star.
2. Enjoy what you are shooting.
3. Prepare well for your shooting, realizing that your battery isn’t charge when you’re setting up for that sunrise shoot is too late!
4. Always take one warm garment more than you actually need with you
5. Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions while you are shooting
6. Set goals you can achieve
7. Write tips about photography, because writing is also learning
8. Never go shooting without a tripod
9. Be pleased with the little prosperities
10. Build relationships with potential photo buddies
11. Watch the place you want to shoot first with your heart then with the camera
12. Always stay calm
13. Know that you tend to overestimate yourself
14. Perspective is the killer
15. Dedicate yourself to photography, but never browbeat yourself too much
16. Take part in a photography community
17. Keep your camera clean
18. Never compare yourself to others in a better or worse context
19. Find your own style of photography
20. Try to compose more and to hit the shutter less
21. Seek out and learn to accept critique on your images
22. Do something different to recover creativity
23. Get inspiration from the work of other photographers
24. Criticize honestly but respectfully
25. Get feedback from your lady
26. Don’t copy other photographer’s style
27. Be bold
28. Take care of the golden ratio
29. 10mm rocks!
30. Take selfportraits
31. Read books about photography
32. To give a landscapephotograph the extra boost, integrate a person (maybe yourself)
33. Every shooting situation is different than you expect
34. Pay attention to s-curves and lines
35. Always shoot in RAW
36. Keep your sensor clean, so you can save some work cleaning your image in post production
37. Discover the things you think are beautiful
38. It takes time to become a good photographer
39. The best equipment is that what you have now
40. You can’t take photographs of everything
41. Break the rules of photography knowingly, but not your camera ;)
42. Pay attention to the different way that light falls on different parts of your scene
43. The eye moves to the point of contrast
44. Clouds increase the atmosphere of a landscape
45. Start a photoblog
46. Accept praise and say “thank you”
47. ‘Nice Shot’ is not a very useful comment to write
48. ‘Amazing!’ isn’t useful either. Try to describe specifically what you like or don’t like about an image.
49. You are not your camera
50. Ask a question at the end of your comment on a photo to get a ping-pong conversation with the photographer
51. Do a review of your archives on a regular basis, the longer you photograph – the more diamonds are hidden there
52. Always clarify what the eyecatcher (focal point) will be in your image
53. No image is better than a bad one
54. Everyone has to start little
55. Your opinion about photography is important!
56. Leave a funny but thoughtful comment
57. Speak about your experiences with your photo buddies
58. Limit your photograph to the substance
59. Participate in Photocontests
60. Post processing = Optimizing your image to the best result
61. Shoot exposure latitudes as often as possible
62. Use photomatix as seldom as possible, HDR’s always have a synthetic flavor
63. Always remember what brought you to photography
64. Never shoot a person who doensn’t want to be photographed
65. Always turn arround, sometimes the better image is behind you
66. It’s who’s behind the camera, not the camera
67. Mistakes are allowed! The more mistakes you make, the more you learn!
68. If you have an idea and immediately you think : No, this is not going to work – Do it anyway. When in doubt – always shoot.
69. Understand and look to your histogramm while shooting. It delivers very important information about your image
70. Know your camera, because searching the menu button in the night is time you don’t want to waste
71. Shoot as often as possible
72. Believe in yourself
73. Don’t be afraid of getting dirty
74. Pay attention to qualitiy in your image
75. Your photographs are a personal map of your psyche
76. Re-check your ISO-Settings. It’s aweful to detect the wrong settings on your screen.
77. Be thankful for long and thoughtful comments on your images
78. Never trust your LCD. Normally it is brighter and sharper as the original image.
79. Provide for enough disc space, because it’s cheap and you will need it.
80. Learn to enjoy beautful moments when you don’t have a camera with you.
81. Always arrive at least half an hour earlier before sunrise / sundown, composing in a hurry is a bad thing.
82. Try to amplify your mental and physical limits. Takes some extra shots when you think “it’s enough”
83. Pay attention to structures in the sky and wait until they fit into structures in the foreground
84. Visit the same place as often as possible. Light never shows the same mountain.
85. Print your images in big size. You will love it.
86. Calibrate your monitor. Working with a monitor that is not accurate is like being together with someone you can’t trust. It always ends badly.
87. Don’t think about what others may say about your image. If you like it, it’s worth publishing.
88. Never address reproaches to yourself. Learn from your mistakes and look forward, not backward.
89. Fight your laziness ! Creativitiy comes after discipline.
90. Ask yourself : What do you want to express in your images ?
91. Always try to think outside the box, collect new ideas about photographs you could do and ask yourself : Why not?
92. Search for a mentor.
93. Photography is never a waste of time.
94. Every community has it’s downsides. Don’t leave it out of an emotional response.
95. There will always be people who will not like what you are doing.
96. Henri Cartier-Bresson was right when he said that “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
97. A better camera doesn’t guarantee better images.
98. Always have printing in mind when you postprocess your images.
99. Photography is fair : You gain publicity with the quality of your images. Unless the images are stolen, there is no way of cheating yourself higher.
100. Write a 100 things list

Vote for URBANATION as Best Urban Band on Wave 89.1

I know this is a little overdue, but I would like to thank everyone who retweeted and reposted messages about voting Urbanation on MTV Emerge.

Guess what, with our undying support and their pure, unadulterated talent, Urbanation was among the seven winners in the competition, performing their song, 'Tick Tock' live on the MTV Emerge stage at the SM Mall of Asia on 27Nov09 and taking home the much-coveted prize of a one-year contract with Jeepney Music with no less than Apl.de.Ap as their mentor.

Once again, I would like to call on everyone to support Urbanation in becoming the Best Urban Band on Wave 89.1's first ever Urban Music Awards. To vote, just text:

WAVE 891 UMA URBANATION

and send to 2968.

To show more Urbanation lovin', join the band's Facebook fanpage or visit their official website, www.urbanationbaby.com.

Test Shots

A couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to purchase the much-awaited Canon Powershot D10. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to really read through the manual, though I've been able to play with the familiar settings, which I remember from my first Canon Powershot A430. Here are a few test shots that I've done last week.

Lego Matrix Trinity Help

I saw this video yesterday on 'Attack of the Show' and figured it's worth sharing. Personally, I'm not a Matrix fan, but I'm definitely part of the Lego generation. Go figure what that means... LOL Anyhoo, enjoy the vid! ü

The "First" Day

The weekend has come to an end once again. Yeah, I'm sad that it means going back to work, but with the kind of weekend we had, I'm all good.

Last Saturday, PiNkR0b0T had to do some overtime and asked me to come with her. I figured, I can use some day-long R&R in a public place. For some reason, there's something relaxing about hanging out in a mall. ( I know, right?! Of all places?!)

In recent years, I've associated 'going out' to doing errands. Yes, the wife and I would do some shopping here and there, or go out for lunch or dinner, but we haven't really done either one without having to buy something for the house or coming from/going to somewhere else. Well, I guess it's all part of being a grown-up -- multi-tasking, time management, priority management... Ulch! =S

As it turns out, Saturday became a day full of 'first-times' for PiNkR0b0T and myself. And hell, was it loads of fun! I can't help but remember that nice TV advert of Emirates, which has the tag line, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" True enough, there's something magical about being in the same place, doing the same things and being with someone familiar, yet looking at everything in a whole new light. Anyhoo, here's our list of "first times" this Saturday:

* It was Taffy's first day out (Taffy=laptop) - I've always wanted to take her somewhere, but I never had the opportunity to do so until now. Ironically, I ended up tweeting from my mobile phone since there was no free Wi-fi where I stayed, which didn't matter because I ended up writing a bit then playing Plants vs Zombies almost half the time I waited.

* It was our first time to dine in Momo Cafe - We always see it, but we never checked out their menu. We figured it's just a cafe with no 'real food.' You know, some heavy grub for volume eaters like us. LOL Guess what, we were so wrong! They have real food and large servings too! We're so going back there -- and hopefully soon! I saw their list of desserts and I'm looking forward to trying their cupcakes!

* It was my first time to hang out in Starbucks Eastwood Mall - We've only been there once or twice and it was just for a quick coffee-and-donut-to-go. I used to hang out in the Citiwalk branch a lot. I find the new location very quiet and cozy, which I liked a lot. I was fortunate enough to sit in one of the comfy couches, which was perfect for waiting.

* It was my first time to have my nails done in Dashing Diva - Another place I always see but never really checked out. I've always assumed that their prices are ridiculous. Well, I was wrong. Their prices aren't cheap, but they're definitely reasonable. I've always been a Gloss girl, but I think that's about to change. (Sorry!) It was so cute when I first dropped by to grab a flyer. There were six little girls (prolly in the ages of 8 to 10) having a Little Diva party! I felt so old! LOL

* It was our first time to watch a movie in the Eastwood Mall's Ultra 7 Cinema (with the recliner and unlimited popcorn and drinks) - Finally! PiNkR0b0T and I saw 'New Moon'! It was extra fun watching in the fancy movie house. I thought we got the lousiest seats in the corner, but as it turns out, they were prolly the best seats in the house! It felt as if we were the only ones there! That was really helpful, especially when I had my embarrassing 'cougar moment.' Yeah... when Taylor Lautner removed his shirt for the first time, I blurted out, 'Ayun o!' (There you go!) Hahahahaaa!!!

Light Painting

I know, i know... I haven't been posting on my blog again. Oh well, it's been very busy at work and yeah, Plants vs Zombies has been keeping me busy at home. So to make up for lost time, here are some cool videos on light painting, which is starting to be my new fascination. Enjoy! ü