project 365: week 2

day eight

day nine

day ten

day eleven

day twelve

day thirteen

day fourteen

project 365: week 1

instead of posting my daily pictures for my 365 day project, i’ve decided to cut back and updates on a weekly basis which will include all the shots from that week.

and without further ado, here are the pictures from week 1.

day one

day two

day three

day four

day five

day six

day seven

the perfect blend

 
coffee. my elixir of life.

as i’ve gotten older and slightly wiser (this is still out for debate), my taste for coffee has changed. i first started drinking coffee during my freshman year at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. back then i didn’t really appreciate the taste of coffee and i would always order the café mocha and a blueberry square, and then i would head off to my physics class hoping that the caffeine would keep me awake. i have to admit that what i really liked about the mocha wasn’t so much the taste the coffee, but rather the combination of the chocolate syrup and whipped cream. then as the years went by, i graduated from mochas to hazelnut or vanilla lattes and i drank those for years. but something else happened to me as i got older. like a lot of asian men, i became slightly lactose intolerant and all the milk in the lattés weren’t helping. and to make matters worse, i was unemployed and living in NYC so i was looking at ways to cut my spending habits and going from a $3 latté to a $1 cup of coffee made alot of sense. overtime, i really began to enjoy the taste that an ordinary cup of coffee had to offer.

but not all coffees are created equally. i used to think that any kind of fresh coffee was good coffee, but that’s obviously not true. one day while i was grocery shopping at Balducci’s, i thought it would be a good idea to get some ground coffee so that i could make some coffee at home. i never ever bought freshly grounded coffee before so i didn’t really know what i wanted, and when the guy behind the counter asked me what i wanted i had no idea what to say. but he took some time to help me along and asked me what flavours and characteristics i like in my coffee; ie. roast, acidity, sweetness, etc. during the entire time i was answering questions, he was adding all sorts of different bean roasts to the little brown paper bag. and before he went to grind up the coffee, he asked me how i was planning on brewing the coffee, which i said through a french press, and almost before i was done saying it, he handed me the bag of freshly ground coffee.

the aroma of the freshly ground beans was delicious!

i went home right away and brewed myself a cup of coffee immediately. my cup of coffee tasted even better than it had smelled. unfortunately for me i never wrote down the mix of beans that went into my specially prepared blend.

i’ve tried to recreate that blend ever since with fairly good success. the local grocery store in town sells coffee beans from Paramount Coffee, a local coffee beanery. from their selection of beans, here’s my recipe that tries to recreate that awesome blend from Balducci’s:

equal parts of:

• Breakfast Blend
• Colombian Supreme
• Kona
• Mocha Java
• New York Roast

and a splash of Vanilla Nut Cream Roast

meet kenny the cat

review: Ultimate Ears MetroFi 220vi

recently i found myself in the need of a new pair of earphones after my old Sony MDR-EX71SLW earphones that i had been using for the last 4 years had fateful encounter with the wheels of my office chair. i had bought these earphones to go along with my brand new (at the time) 5th generation iPod. these headphones were fantastic! they sounded a hundred times better than the stock white Apple earbuds, had decent noise isolation and fit comfortably in my ear. so i started shopping for set of near earphones and narrowed my sight on the new MetroFi 170′s and 220′s from Ultimate Ears.

iLounge had originally previewed both of these headphones when they were announced at Macworld this year and awarded them as finalists in Best in the Show, but hasn’t followed through with a more comprehensive, in-depth review. last week i took the plunge and ordered the MetroFi 220vi from Sound Earphones for $79.

my original plan was to get the MetroFi 170s with or without the microphone and button to control my iPhone. personally i find people who talk to people on their iPhone using mics wired into their earbuds annoying and rude. i definitely do not want to be like them, but i do appreciate having the button to control music playback so that i don’t have to fumble in my pockets for my iPhone. and then at the last second i chose the the MetroFi 220vi (after deciding i wanted the mic) only for one reason…money. i had a gift card that brought the price down to $54 which was cheaper than the MetroFi 170vi that i was ready to buy.

Design:
at first when i saw these earphones on the Ultimate Ears website, i thought they were a little too shiny and flashy and preferred the colour (yes, i’m Canadian) of the 170s. but after opening up the 220s i have to say that i love how they look! the small details like the paint on “L” and “R” look great, but the red casing for the right earbud looks sharp!

Craftmanship:
for as much as i paid for these earphones i can’t really complain much. if i had paid the MRSP of $99.99, it would be a different story. as nice as the casing looks, it’s made of plastic and probably wouldn’t survive an encounter with my office chair. some people may dislike the cord, but i like it. the plastic is much thicker and stiffer than the cord on the Sony MDR-EX71SLW and are less likely to get all tangled up. it would have nicer to have a fiber cord like on the v-moda vibe ii. also the plastic of the cord is smooth unlike the sticky and rubbery feeling of the original v-moda vibes.

Fit:
the MetroFi 220 come with 3 different sizes of ear cushions for the earbuds. personally, i prefer the cushions on my Sony MDR-EX71SLW much more because the rubber is softer and can conform to the shape of my ear canal better. plus small cushions that came with the 220s are too small for me and earbuds fall out easily, and the medium sized cushions are too big and feel a little uncomfortable after prolonged use. i hope that after i break them in, the cushions will get a little softer and more pliable.

Sound:
i’m not an audiophile, but i can appreciate a decent set of earphones when i hear them and the MetroFi 220s are decent. these are WAY BETTER than either the stock Apple earbuds and the sony Sony MDR-EX71SLW. at first when i compared the 220s to the Sonys i thought something was wrong because the volume wasn’t as loud and i thought that the sounds of the 220s were muffled. but after comparing the two some more i realized that it wasn’t a problem with the 220s, but really the Sony MDR-EX71SLW were loud and the music was all distorted.

Microphone:
i tested out the mic using the Voice Memo recorder on the iPhone and don’t have any complaints. my voice sounded crystal clear and without any echo so i would assume that any phone conversations would sound about the same.

Accessories:
the earphones came with a compact little plastic carrying case. it’s plastic and it looks cheap, but it’ll get the job done. besides, the real issue is the earphones and not the storage case.

Conclusion:
the MetroFi 220vi are a decent set of headphones that will make the music on your iPhone or iPod sound amazing when compared to the stock Apple earbuds. people with smaller ear canals will probably find that the supplied ear cushions are too big and should probably look elsewhere for earphones. but for everyone else, $69 (without mic) or $79 (with mic) for these earphones from Sound Earphones buys you a great pair earphones without having to spend alot.

evil in typography

loves this typography video featuring Evil by Interpol.

wedding season

the sun is shining and summer is just around the corner, but wedding season is already here. i recently went out to a wedding and brought my trusty old Nikon D40 with me. for the weekend i decided to leave my Nikon AF-S18-55mmƒ/3.5-5.6G kit lens in the bag only use my Nikon AF-S 50mm ƒ/1.4G along with my Nikon SB-600 flash. during the course of the weekend i really wish i had my kit lens for those wider angle shots, but forcing myself to use only the 50mm showed me the limitations of this lens, but i think it really also taught me more positioning and composition.

during the first night, things started off rough because i tried to limit my flash use and opened up aperture completely to get as much light in as possible. this was fine when people weren’t moving, but once they did, my shots become a blurry mess. for the night of the reception, i really wanted to be able to catch the crazy moments on the dance floor so i equipped myself with the flash and set the camera to shutter-priority. the beauty of the Nikon D40 is that the flash-sync speed goes down to 1/500 and i was able to get some amazing dance shots. however, my first few shots with the flash were completely overexposed. i had no idea what was going and i figured that since i was using a TTL flash, the metering would be done correctly. eventually i was able to dial into the right flash exposure compensation setting. eventually, i’ll need to revisit using my flash with this lens and learn how to use this combination.

i really do love this Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens, but one thing that i am starting to experience (and what other reviewers have said), is that autofocus speed is slow, especially in low light conditions. i took alot of pictures that night and when i reviewed them on the LCD screen they looked good. but once i downloaded them to my computer that was a whole different story! ALOT of the shots were slightly out of focus which was largely because the poor lighting and the need to shoot completely wide open.

and for the record, i am by no means a professional wedding photographer nor do i plan to give up my day job of being a Ph.D student to become one…at least not in the near future!

Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G lens samples

i just spent the weekend out in Chicago and had a chance to really test out my new Nikon AF-S 50mm ƒ/1.4G lens, and so far i love it! before i bought the lens, i read many reviews on this lens and the Sigma 50mm ƒ/1.4 EX DG HSM lens, but i obviously decided on the Nikon. i figured that you could never go wrong with Nikon glass. from other people’s experiences with both of these lens, many have said that the Sigma focuses faster than the Nikon. i really can’t comment on this since i was previously manual focussing with my old Nikon 50mm ƒ/1.8D Series E lens on my Nikon D40 camera, so any kind of autofocusing is going to be faster than my hand!

here are a couple sample shots that i took with my lens over the weekend.

more pictures using my Nikon AF-S 50mm ƒ/1.4G lens can be seen on my Flickr page.

aperture: ƒ/1.4, speed: 1/20, ISO 800

aperture: ƒ/1.4, speed: 1/30, ISO 800

aperture: ƒ/2.8, speed: 1/4000, ISO 200

i spy with my little eye

taken while driving down to Louisville to watch the Kentucky Derby.

happy (early) birthday to me!

Just ordered myself the Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G lens as an early birthday present to myself!  I’ve had my eye on this lens ever since it was announced but I couldn’t stomach the price tag.  I decided to go with this lens instead of the new and $300 cheaper Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8 DX.  There were 2 main reasons for this:

1. I like the slightly wider aperture of 50mm f/1.4
2. If and when I upgrade from my Nikon D40 DX camera to a FX camera, I don’t want to have to buy another 50mm is a FX lens.

I’m really excited to get my hands on this lens and to start playing around with it.  I’ll have it just in time for my getaways to Chicago and Toronto next week.  I’ll post some pictures soon!