I know, I know … I have been a little or rather not as much as I would want to, been blogging.  Work has been busy and I just do not seem to have as much time as I would like.

However, I have managed to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 and it is pretty cool.  Granted this is my first post with it.

ab initio

1. from the beginning

The Space Shuttle Endeavour lights up the early morning sky at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, lifting off at 2:28 a.m.

Endeavour’s mission, STS-123, will carry two new components to the International Space Station: the first section of the Japanese Kibo lab and Canada’s two-armed robotic system, known as Dextre.

zaibatsu

1. a powerful financial and industrial conglomerate of Japam

I like Adobe Photoshop just as much as the next guy and it is really great when you need to really work with an image, modify the contrast, levels and so on. It works great when you need layers and filters … I could go on but you get the idea.

But if all I need to do is take an image, crop it, take out the red eye (which is not as simple as it sounds in Photoshop) make the image B&W and easily save it to your local system or send it off to things like Flickr, Photobucket or Picasa then I have found the coolest thing that for just that. What is it, it is … picnik

What is Picnik?

Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

What can I do with Picnik?

Pretty much everything! We’ve got amazing Edit tools that can fix just about anything that could possibly go wrong with a photograph. Lacking photo-editing prowess? A bunch of our editing tools are one-click fixes, including auto- fix, exposure, colors, and red-eye. And the others, like rotate, crop, resize, and sharpening, can be controlled with easy-to-use sliders.

Move over to the Create tab and you’ll see our custom-made Effects (most of which have the ability to be painted into just the areas of your image where you want them), an awesome text tool with dozens of fonts, dozens of shapes, including seasonal shapes for holidays and events, and some super customizable frames. Not to mention the touch up tools and new Advanced Editing tools.

The best part is that is FREE — Yes FREE!!! They have a premium service for $24.95 a year. Not a month but for a whole year.

The water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That is what it is like in Antarctica where it has had the coldest weather in decades. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air. The temperature of the water is already some degrees below freezing.

First you take the peanuts
And you crunch ‘em,
You crunch ‘em
First you take the peanuts
And you crunch ‘em,
You crunch ‘em

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take the grapes
And you squish ‘em,
You squish ‘em
Then you take the grapes
And you squish ‘em,
You squish ‘em

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take the bread
And you spread it,
You spread it
Then you take the bread
And you spread it,
You spread it

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take your sandwich
And you eat it,
You eat it
Then you take your sandwich
And you eat it,
You eat it

‘Cause its good, peanut butter
And jelly
Good, peanut butter
And jelly

First you take the peanuts
And you crunch ‘em,
Then you take the grapes
And you squish ‘em,
Then you take the bread
And you spread it,
Then you take your sandwich
And you eat it

‘Cause its good, peanut butter
And jelly
Good, peanut butter
And jelly!

euphuism

1. artificial elegance of language

I guess Starbucks thinks it is better not to have any coffee rather than having some one elses.

Customers hoping for another shot of java at an Austin-area Starbucks Tuesday evening are in for a jolt of a different kind.

According to the company’s Web site, Seattle-based Starbucks Coffee Co. will close all 7,100 company-owned stores across the country from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. for an in-house training session for its 135,000 baristas.

The company said the educational sessions will “provide a renewed focus on espresso standards” and will “transform” the customer experience.

On the Web site, Starbucks offers several suggestions while caffeine-challenged customers count down the 12,601 seconds it takes for the training session to end — such as cooking a turkey in the oven. Surprisingly, one option not mentioned is to try out some coffee at a rivals’ establishment.

Starbucks to temporarily shut down all stores

HD DVD and Blu-Ray have been battling to become the pre-eminent format for next-generation DVDs for the last couple of years.

Toshiba had its HD DVD format approved by the DVD Forum back in 2004 and the first products hit the market in the US in April 2006. The same year Sony came out with Blu-ray.

Initially the two formats seemed to have an equal number of backers although there was general dismay in the industry that a new format war could slow down developments of a nascent market and be confusing for consumers.

So what is the big deal? Well the big deal is that is the company’s that distributes the content who will control which format wins. Studios like Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and 20th Century Fox. Together these studios represented over 70% of home video market share.

The final battle as it turns out that was the tipping point is when Warner Brothers decided to back Blu-Ray.

Around the same time HD-DVD lost several key retailers like Wal-Mart who announced that it would phase out HD DVD products and chain Best Buy also came down firmly in the Blu-Ray camp. Even Netflix said it would also focus on Blu-Ray.

What does that mean to you when you want to go by a player for your cool HDTV that you got for Christmas? Nothing really, except that it is still expensive and the format will be Blu-Ray. I bet you might be able to pick up a HD-DVD player on the cheap and some discs too. The only downside is that there will never be any new movies on HD-DVD ever again.

So when will the world have forgotten about the HD-DVD format and begin calling Blu-Ray by the same name? I bet really soon, since consumers call things whatever they want even if it is not correct. Coke, means soda weather you want a real Coke, Pepsi, or whatever.