Progressive

tip number 1 fro those who move to the US of A:

(not the music)

Shop around for car insurance. There are plenty of insurance companies and the price differences in car insurance quotes are significant. Most companies will give online quotes via their websites, which makes it a lot easier to contact many of them.

We were lucky with Progressive Insurance, but than again, it goes on a case by case basis. So others might have great deals for you as well.

Do your homework, it is worthwhile!

Hard drive recovery 101

It had to happen. My laptop external 160 GB USB hard drive died. With it it took numerous pictures, an entire iTunes library (crippling my iPod) a slew of video's and who knows what more files. In these situations one only get's to know what's lost when you need something, you search for it and realise that it was on the particular hard disk that crashed.
Will start to look for some hard drive recovery service. Hopefully some expert can bring my data back. Fingers crossed.

Couleur locale of Nouvelle Cuisine?

Couleur locale of Nouvelle Cuisine?, originally uploaded by _esse.

The local Los Angeles restaurant guide can be found at the reception desk of most local restaurants. It made me laugh big time when I entered the sushi place around the corner. The waitress was clueless.

Surf's Up on Wikipedia

Sony Pictures Animation's upcoming surfing pinguin movie has got it's page on Wikipedia.org:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf's_Up_(film)

Hilde's Clematis picture made it into Flickr Interestingness

Great news, Hilde's picture is doing realy well and made it into Flickr's Interestingness category of October 24!

Clematis. Beauty lies in the details.

Clematis., originally uploaded by fuxiafun.

Hilde took this beautifull picture last weekend in the garden of the Getty museum. A marvelous oasis of peace and nature in the middle of a megapolis.

Penguins. The real deal.

Today there was a press conference at Imageworks to introduce the press to Sony Pictures Animation upcomming Surf's Up animated feature.

Not the tradtional red carpet, but a better suited for the occasion blue carpet was rolled out to welcome the press.

Some extra palmtrees, a hammock and last but not least a couple of real penguins were present to establis the setting of the movie.

No picture unfortunately, that's the policy.

Laser etched Powerbook!

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/11/laser_etched_powerbook.html

CG in India : India's growing role behind Hollywood

$1.35 an hour, that's what entry level artists in the CG industry in India get paid. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/12/yourmoney/movies13.php

Darth Vader tries to clean the Black Sea with Brita Filter.

Blinded!

My camera died. Well, sort of, the least I can say is that it got seriously handicapped. The wide angle lens' USM motor is broken so I need to focus manually.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the tele-photo 28-200 started acting strange too. Lot's of autofocussing issues, plenty of over exposed pictures. No patern in the errors which makes it really hard to diagnose.

To be contiued...