Merry Christmas, bums. Who’s awake, eh? =)

I have a feeling I’ll be up for a while…

Been lazy recent years, but here’re some past Oliver Christmas productions:

I think this was 1999?
2000
…and I suppose I’ll link to what happened last Christmas.

Alien Bees are in. =) See the set. And another.

So apparently I had my comment spam filter a bit too strict and it was “junking” everything. I was unaware of this fact for a few days/weeks, so sorry about that. =)

[geek]
Apple “news” sites are going crazy predicting all kinds of crazy things (or not) for January given the smallest tiny bit of info from their “sources.” Anyways, here’s what I see as the possibilities:

iBook (maybe Mac Mini too) released in January with Yonah chips. Either Apple is going to be okay with the iBooks performing better than the PowerBooks (which will be a strange situation and especially not ideal from a marketing stance) or they are going to cripple the iBook’s Yonah chip (disable one core and/or clock it down a few hundred Hz). If the iBooks are crippled, the rest of the PC industry is leaving them in the dust again performance wise because they won’t cripple their batch of Yonahs in their laptops.

iBook and PowerBook lines released in January with Yonah chips. Somewhat trivial distribution of the different versions of the chips to the iBook/PowerBooks (slower two or three to the iBook, faster two or three to the PowerBook). This seems somewhat rushed, but I don’t think it’d be impossible. It wouldn’t be too hard to take essentially Intel’s reference design and slap Apple casing around it. Doesn’t coincide with many of the rumors going around as well…

No Intel parts this January. Apple is left in the dust as far as Yonah laptops go. I think there was a press release or something from either Apple or Intel indicating that Apple wanted to be one of the first to use Yonah, but I’m not entirely confident on the validity of it. If Apple wants to use Yonah, I don’t doubt that Intel promised them a good quantity of the initial batch in order to “win them over.” Though, I might take that back because I’m not entirely sure how much Intel really cares about Apple business (they’re insanely small compared to the rest of the PC industry that buys from Intel). Perhaps they care more about not letting Apple go with AMD than with the actual money Apple would bring them… shrug

Just PowerBook? This would be nice I suppose, but again… there’s not much indicating this is going to happen… most of the buzz has been around the iBook switching to Intel first.

If Apple were to wait for Merom, they’d be able to go entirely 64-bit x86, which would be nice and I think coincide with their mid-year switch to Intel. I’m sure Apple would put a nice spin to that as well as the rest of the PC industry would still be hunkered down with 32-bit x64. Since Apple is making the transition from PPC to x86, a directly transition to 64-bit x86 would be one of those “might as well” type of things. If Yonah laptops were released, it is somewhat silly to have to support 32-bit x86 just because of the first gen of either the iBook or PowerBook (and if Yonah laptops are released, perhaps this is a good reason to NOT buy first gen). If Apple waits for Merom, that means that first half of next year, expect not much from the Apple portables as they will become very very stale…

I forsee the desktop Macs (except for maybe the Mini, especially with Intel’s Viiv stuff) making the Intel transition the last. And, I expect the new Mac Mini (NEW new, not a little revision) to be aimed at the entertainment hub crowd. Maybe the Mini will make the transition first?…

That’s it for now. =) [/geek]

Umm… I might write more about this later, but I gotta go to lunch. lol.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra was awesome though!

So Chronicles of Narnia was pretty good, pretty happy with that. =)

Andrew is back! And apparently is no longer single. O_o Haha… congrats, buddy. I, in the mean time, will continue waiting around I suppose… lol.

Went to do community service at the Salvation Army “today” (Friday), and we helped sort a whole ton of toys. There was one HUGE remote control Hummer that I’m sure is going to make some little kid very happy. I hope he doesn’t have a baby sibling or it might get run over.

Watching the Superman Returns treaser trailer has become a daily ritual. Still makes me smile each time I watch it…

I hear it’s finals time around UT. Hehe, gluck to all you kiddos taking tests. =)

A day or so ago before I went upstairs, I paused for a few minutes and just stared at the dark room lined with our computers. Ahhh… fun times we’ve had here, will be sad to move out next semester (but necessary, I think =).

More later… maybe, haha.

So last week I discovered myself on the Freescale website as an employee testimony in their students section. Somehow I managed to write the most out of all the people on there… and I thought I was on the short side. shrug =) That bit about culture is, honestly, a lot of BS, cause I really don’t know how to describe the “culture of a company” whatever that is. Oh yeah, the “say hi to people in the halls” part is an allusion to something from my first week at Freescale (as an ERP)… but I tire and don’t feel like explaining the whole thing. =)

In other news, Chronicles of Narnia comes out later this week. I found out Oriana has sneak preview tickets for Thursday. I think I will run her over with my car and take them. Watch your back! >=]

And this is for Andrew:

I WUV DA WITTLE WABBITS WHEN DEY EAT WITTLE WUFFINS!!!

Edit:

So if scheming to murder my own blood does not clearly depict how excited I am about the Chronicles of Narnia movie, I will also let it be known that when I went home this weekend, I picked up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and read it in one sitting. Not that that is much of an accomplishment itself (it’s a fairly short and easy read), but I, like Brook would put it, don’t read. So, if you can think about how someone who doesn’t read reads a book in one sitting, then maybe you can grasp how excited I am about this movie.

For Aslan!!

Oye! It’s December already! Other than rent being due, this means you will hear the Christmas tunes everytime you enter a retail store (actually, that started after Thanksgiving, but oh well). This month also marks some birthdays and the return of Andrew.

I need to figure out when to spend my PTO (paid time off). When are we doing stuff, dudes? =)

I don’t think I really need to say anything… another set uploaded.

Well, I used the “studio” Olivia and I setup to take more pics of our Thanksgiving guests and family. In many of these pictures, I know what I wanted to do, but I was limited by the lighting and maneauvering room. I really really wanted to narrow my aperture in many of these pics to get a larger depth of view and to get it sharper, but the lighting just wasn’t there and I think I was already maxing the output on my flash. An addition flash or two for more lighting and balance would really help a lot. Oh yeah, and if I could walk and take pictures through walls.

Edit: Oh yeah, the set is here.