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Reality television had its origins in Japan. Strange
game shows are where it all started, but as the years
go by it keeps evolving and changing and this keeps
it very interesting.
Right now I am watching a show about a group of famous
Japanese people who take a trip to Hawaii with the only
goal being to see who can stay awake the longest.
There are caeras around them all the time and if a
person gets caught with their eyes closed for more than
three seconds they loose and are immediatly rushed to
a plane and flown back home to Japan. The eventual winner
gets one million yen. (About $10,000)
A simple concept, and definitly low budget compared
to American sitcoms but also very funny and entertaining.
Pretty brilliant.
There is another long running show where two famous
people get together and each of them eats four different
types of food. The trick is that of the four dishes,
one of them is repugnant to the person eating it yet
they have to pretend they like it. If the other person
can guess which one the other person doesn't like, while
at the same time not allowing their competitor to guess
which one they hate, they win.
Once again, simple, low budget, but eternally entertaining.
Another one is where they get heavy equipment operators
and have a competetion to see who can complete a list
of extremely delicate and complicate tasks using nothing
but a backhoe. One example I saw was having the entrants
stack up champagne glasses into a pyramid or something
similarly difficult.
And the really great thing about it is that you don't
have to know the language to enjoy the show.
--
I am absolutely loving my
new 1D Mark II.
The speed at which it writes the files to the memory
card and the huge buffer means no more waiting for the
memory buffer to clear before I can catch more shots.
And it is not just for action sequences that the faster
buffer makes a difference.
Situations where the light is quickly changing, or my
creative juices are flowing and everywhere I look I
see a photograph ready to be created, those are the
times that I really enjoy the ability to shoot with
no regard to how many pictures I am taking, or how fast
I am taking them.
The only bad part is that because I shoot RAW with
a large JPEG embedded, each click of the shutter means
14 MB of space is sued up on my memory card. Good thing
I have two 4 GB micro drives...
--
Note: my 10D is still available and the price has dropped
to $895 for the set:(Shipping included)
EOS 10D
BG-ED3 Battery Grip
4 Batteries
EPEX15 Eyepiece Extender
All original manuals, charger, software, cables, etc.
Everything comes in the original boxes. I'll even throw
in a 256 MB CF card.
I'll be out of touch for the next few days though so
please don't get miffed at me if I don't reply to e-mail
or comments before Sunday night. (local time)
Tomorrow I am taking the afternoon off so I can drive
to Yokota Air Base and get set up for a bazaar that
I will be selling framed prints at this coming weekend.
This will be my first time to do it at Yokota so I hope
I do OK.
I'll be coming back home on Sunday evening.
--
While I was on vacation to Michigan I was contacted
by a German publishing company with a request to buy
one of my photos for use on the cover of a book their
company will be producing next fall. (2005)
Needles to say I was excited. Excited and a little
bit amazed at just how many such requests I have received
even though I don't specifically market my photos. This
makes me start to realize that it is about time I got
off my "Oshiri" (ass) and finally
develop a Stock Photo selling website specializing in
images from Japan.
I don't have any illusions that I can quite my day
job and do the photography thing full time (mostly because
I really do enjoy my job) but who knows what will happen.
I guess the only way I will find out is if I just set
my mind to it and do it.
The only problem I have is not knowing what would sell
as Stock. So far, the reguests I have had have been
pretty wide ranging. So maybe the best tack to take
is to just post as many as possible (but making sure
that they are good images nonetheless) without regard
to the need for me to feel they are particulalrly noteworthy
or not.
Just as an experiment I would like to know which of
the ten photos from today each of you out there thinks
is the best. I have my personal favorite but I won't
reveal it until I get back home on Sunday night.
--
This months Sushicam
Prints Raffle is off to a great start. When I get
back home from selling photos I will update the entrants
list with those that enter over the next few days.
Thanks to everyone who has entered so far. As of now
my hosting/bandwidth fees for November are more than
covered so all the extra entires from now mean more
prints to all the winners.
--
I'd love to write more but I have to get my suitecase
and car packed. I'll be leaving for Yokota right after
lunch tomorrow. This way I will avoid as much of the
Friday afternoon traffic as possible
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