the unsympathetic sea of life

while we all tread furiously to keep our head above water, we sometimes meet new challenges that seem to overwhelm us. when experiencing a new challenge for the first time, it definitely can seem like an insurmountable task. the pains that we go through the very first time can cut deeper than we’ve ever felt.

life is not kind. it is not mean or cruel, it just is. but when we encouter that rough spot for the first time, this flood of despair and pain overwhelms us in a way we’ve never felt before. it’s easy to become immediately cynical, bitter, and resentful of the world. it’s easy to be lost in the overwhelming sea of emotion.

we all come across these difficult times. i guess the only salvation one can have is knowing that regardless of how dark times may look now, others have tread in the same waters and have survived to find happiness themselves. if they have found their way, so shall you.

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photography poll

[url=http://www.photographyblog.com]photographyblog.com[/url] has a poll asking people if the canon eos 300d was the most important product of 2003. are you kidding me? ok, so sure, canon has released a more affordable digital SLR camera. that is the most important product of 2003? no way! perhaps it is the most affordable, but does it really break any new barriers?

aside from the price barrier, canon has done nothing but reinvent the canon 10D for cheap. big deal.

if i had to choose what the most important photography-related product of 2003 had to be, i would nominate canon’s DiGiC chip. that chip coupled with the 10D delivered some of the most impressive pictures from a digital camera i’ve seen since the D30 came out.

maybe i’m just biased because i love my 10D.

but really…the 300D? just because it’s cheap, it’s the most important? i would have to disagree.

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confrontation

all of us have a set of morals. these morals are derived from various experiences that we’ve had while growing up. our parents, our peers, our own experiences all make up the sum of our moral and value system.

i believe that some people have a predisposition towards some types of personalities. some people are big hams while others are inherently shy. this doesn’t mean that it always has to stay like that. our morals may change as we grow.

i believe that my mom contributed to a rather significant part of the person who i am today. she is a strongly moral pacifist. increasingly more and more i’m getting into situations where either i have to deal with confrontation or i am a direct witness of confrontation. let me just say that this is troubling for me.

i think that my mom has taught me, by example, that it is better to bite one’s tongue than to speak your mind. it is better to avoid confrontation instead of fighting it head on. it is better to take personal loss than to inconvenience others and it is better to avoid confrontation instead of getting yourself into potentially harmful confrontations.

the problem is that there is only a limit to which one can do this before you just have to say or do something. sometimes i wonder what other people do when they are faced with similar situations. do you just let it go?

confrontation. i think it is the natural tendency for people to avoid it. it’s easier to not deal with if you ignore it. weird how that kind of mentality could just lead to even more significant consequences than dealing with it from the beginning.

oy.

today is the worst day i’ve had so far this year.

in fact, it’s probably the worst day i’ve had in a long while. you know, when things go wrong, they seem to go wrong all at once. i’ve been particularly stressed out lately and i think that it’s finally having its lasting effects on me.

i just feel exhausted and it’s all i can do to get through the day. it seems that there’s a dark cloud hovering over me. it’s been like this for a while and i guess it’s about time that i start doing something about it.

britney married!

there are bunch of [url=http://people.aol.com/people/news/now/0,10958,570224,00.html]reports[/url] claiming that britney got married last night. crazy as that sounds, it seems to be true. she married her childhood friend at vegas wearing jeans and a baseball cap. not exactly the glamourous wedding one would think a pop icon like britney would have, eh?

it also turns out that they are getting the marriage annulled and have signed the papers for it already. go figure.

what a bizarre world.

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new joy

my new video card came in the mail the other day. this by itself is not is not unusual nor newsworthy. but what this enables me to do, however, is newsworthy…if you have the incurable techie bug.

i got the [url=http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9600-xt.asp]sapphire 9600xt video card[/url]. this card enables dual head display. that coupled with what i’ve already got enables me to do…well, the unthinkable: a three monitor desktop!

[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0102/IMG_0206.jpg&title=triple+header][/url]

my desktop:

just the sight of it brings previously unimaginable joy to my life. i still have overlapping windows, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. 2 – 1600×1200 desktops plus an addition 1280×1024 desktop. oh dear. it’s just so overwhelming!

the one thing that is a little annoying is that my head has to move now to see the monitors end to end. i guess i have to work on my peripheral vision a little. i guess if i were to have a problem, this would be the ideal problem to have. =P

i was doing some work over the holidays and it’s really nice to be able to keep all my work stuff on one desktop while the rest of my stuff is somewhere else.

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oh my…

[url=http://www.solmetra.com/en/disp.php/en_products/en_spaw/en_spaw_about]SPAW[/url]

this will only really interest geeky PHP or ASP.NET developers, but this appears to be a very nice WYSIWYG HTML editor control. this is primarily a note to myself to remember this when i need it.

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happy new year!

happy new year!

it’s the start of a new year. in past years i’ve made resolutions that i didn’t keep and i think that this year i’m not even going to try. instead, i think that i will try to follow the one basic pursuit that i’ve been after for a while: the pursuit of happiness.

when it comes down to it, i think that finding that balance in happiness is what makes things worth it.

i hope all of you have a safe and happy new year.