COD4MW (Revised)

"Going to get Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tonight!!!!!!!

-TB"

So I didn't actually get to go buy COD4 tonight, because I was too busy working, shooting a little presentation thing at the Newman Catholic Student Center about the levels of happiness and how they relate to human dignity how people are valued differently by other people and stuff like that. It was interesting but It took forever and I didn't get to go to gamestop before they closed at 9pm. I guess they had a big line there anyway and it would've taken me forever to get as it was.

But, I did something drastic today.

I went to Gamestop and traded in my Nintendo Wii, all games and accessories, for a Sony Playstation 3! The fancy one with the 80gb harddrive that plays Blu-Ray Discs! It came with a cool racing game, motorstorm, and I got two games: Resistance: Fall of Man and Armored Core 4. I didn't trade in any of my Gamecube games, as I plan to buy a used Gamecube eventually so I can still play phantasy star and stuff. I was looking at stuff like COD and Metal Gear Solid 4 and Armored Core 4 and Assassin's Creed and Fallout 3 and Devil May Cry 4 and I missed my PS2 games and the PS3 is completely backwards compatible so it'll play all of them, not to mention the HD Bluray movies, and I wanted a 360 or a ps3 instead of the wii and since I've always been a playstation guy and Halo's gay, there was no option. I wasn't really looking forward to anything coming out on the wii and I had beaten Zelda and Metroid, my fave nintendo lines, and thought It was time for a change.

TB

more fall

Saturday I got to shoot the Men's basketball game which was an exhibition game against King University and the Salukis slaughtered them 74-38. It was cool though, I got to be one of those guys on tv that sit down next to the hoop on one end surrounded by other photographers and cheerleaders and closed in by season ticket-holding fans. I also went to an opera recital a few hours later from which is this picture up here. The performers were Emily Pulley, lead soprano for the Metropolitan Opera, and Curt Olds, a Broadway baritone. I enjoyed the show as it was entertaining and they were amazing talented singers. I put together a slideshow with audio mixed from 30-second clips taken with my camera. Came out ok, but it won't be on the website til Monday if it gets on there.

Amber surprised me on Saturday also by showing up at my apartments! I had no idea she was coming down but I ran into her on my way in from the bball game and we went out to eat and watched the Office. She stayed til Sunday afternoon til after I was done workin at the office.
I took a bunch of fall-ish pictures saturday and did some video shots of a lot of pretty autumn scenes and might do some audio for it and make it a "video column" to go wit h the fall currents their doing this week with a bunch of fall photos.

Today Amber and I ran into a guy and a little girl walking a dog. There names were John and Johannah Cox and their dog's name was Betty. John had a Canon 10D, kinda like my 20D, that he let Johannah take pictures of Betty with. We walked with them for awhile to take feature photos of them playing with the dog and she loved this tennis ball they had and they kept throwing it into the lake for her to go after. It was amusing and I came away with some pretty cool shots. These actually havent been toned yet, just exported from Aperture, so they don't look as good as they could. Too lazy/tired to do it now.

Also, here's a little sample video from the basketball game. It was the only real time anyone was excited, there were tons of fouls and neither of the teams could seem to consistently shoot well. Turn your volume down before watching it.

SIU Basketball sample

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That's all.

TB

fri

Once again, I did not snap one frame today. This picture is of the ladies at my mom's work in Effingham, a music sales group for what was formerly known as Midco. My mom's the one in the middle holding the head thing. They won a little costume contest between the different offices and got a $25 gift certificate for a pizza party. Woot!

I went to the office early to pick up my new photo requests and honestly they were disappointing: A USG meeting, 2 speakers, a poetry reading, and some singers. I'm starting to wonder if Ryan doesn't think I can handle "good" assignments. I did get called by the sports editor Sean this evening asking if I wanted to go with them to the football game at WIU, an overnighter and guaranteed full timesheet for next week, but I turned him down because I was hoping my brother could come down and visit tomorrow and I had a speaker to shoot Saturday.

Well, Andy, my brother, has other plans so he can't come and all I have tomorrow is a speaker shoot. Plus I have a feature photo due on Sunday.

There is a basketball game tomorrow, SIU's first of the season and I was not asked about that one. I'm hoping there will be a way I can get in because I'd really like to shoot Saluki Basketball, even if my shots don't get in the paper. They're ranked no. 9 this year.

So, I'm going to take the initiative and go out and find a story or at least some damn good feature photos to prove myself tomorrow. It's gonna be a shooting day! I'm also hopefully gonna get my paycheck tomorrow, because I missed it today. Waited till after my test in history and the people that hand em out were already gone by then. It'd be nice to get my check in the bank because I have a $197 car payment due Tuesday.

Also today, I received word from the SIU Financial Aid Office that I have been given a "Saluki Bound Transfer Grant," a grant given to transfer students that reduce their tuition to what it would have been if they had come to SIU right after high school. Having looked at the tuition figures before, i was somewhat expecting the grant to be may $900-1100 and i wasn't sure I was gonna get it at all. Turns out, I received a grant today for the 2007-2008 school year for $6,300! Putting my grand total of financial aid for the year at $26,000 some when the costs of attendance are only estimated to be $18,900 tops.

If they dont automatically put all that extra money into the loans my mom and I have, I very well may receive a $6,300 check soon! That would pay off all the debt for my computer and my scooter and some of my video camera! That would relieve a ton of financial stress for me as I would no longer need to make monthly payments on my credit accounts, at least until after college. Then I could cut all my cards up and put my real money towards my car and tuition.
Wouldn't that be nice!

Not sure at the moment how it's all gonna work out, but the news of the grant was pleasant.

TB

HELLGATE:LONDON

I didn't blog yesterday because I was playing this game that came out Halloween called Hellgate:London and I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the Diablo series by Blizzard, because it's made by the same guys who split off from Blizzard and created a developing team called Flagship Studios.


Hellgate is great, the play is nearly identical to Diablo, but with really good graphics and a WoWish camera control. It's in London (hence the name) in the future and there's demons that have caused these rifts from hell and the city's in ruins and there's lots of guns and weapons and spells and abilities and it's level-based and instance-based and you have to do quests and collect things and kill special demon things just like Diablo and WoW and there's a nice party system and it doesn't cost anything to play online, unless u want to be a 'subscriber' and get all the new content and extra stuff. Even then, it's cheap.

I didn't have to shoot anything today. Early yesterday I had to go to women's BBall practice from 7-10am and then I worked up a bunch of men's and women's bball pics for the sports editor. Since I asked for last weekend off to go home to Effingham, Ryan didn't really give me a lot to shoot. Tomorrow, we'll get new photo requests though. I'm hoping I don't have any for tomorrow morning/early afternoon because I have to write an obituary for a class and study for a test at 2. Also, I get paid tomorrow. :D

Earlier Scott was cooking a sausage and asked if I wanted one so I was like sure and he started cooking me one too and we ended up getting in this heated debate over how often there's an ice age and then there was lots of smoke coming from the stove and the fan wasn't on and the smoke alarm in our room went off and it was this insanely loud annoying TSSRRZZZ noise and it was going for like a half hour when this lady from SIU came up and investigated and called these people to turn it off.

I wonder, if our room was really on fire, would they have just sent a lady about 20-30 mins later? What if we were all asleep or wasted or unconscious from smoke inhalation and we couldn't call for help? Sounds like an investigative report for the SIU-hating Daily Egyptian!

I think that's it from today. I went to all my classes and learned a thing or two. It's strange, we're learning about Ghengis Khan and Mongols in my Islam and my Asia history classes, and the two have just kinda been blurring together.

TB

webcams

It was a beautiful fall day today and the SIU campus was just right for photos. I attended all three of my classes, but found time to find feature photos, get photos of a veteran's memorial, and get pictures of student workers at the College of Business and Administration, all of which
will be in tomorrow's paper.

After making sure my news photographer responsibilities were taken care of, I made a trip to Wal-Mart! I bought some bread, SunnyD, sliced turkey, melatonin sleep aids, and a web cam! That's right, a web cam! My friend David from TX said I should get one so we can use iChat (he just bought a Macbook Pro) and I thought hey that sounds like a good idea! So I did! It's a Logitech webcam so it's made for Windows, but after installing a few free drivers and working out kinks with the microphone, it almost performs decently! We had a video conversation or two and I wish Amber had a Macbook cuz then I could see her more often.

Dave was moving in this screenshot, so you can't see him, but it's still exciting. That's about it for today. I need to start focusing more on my classwork than I have been and not play around with webcams as much. Probably won't happen though.

TB

/win

The Editor-In-Chief of the Daily Egyptian Jordan Wilson announced today at the 4 o'clock meeting that The DE's issue breaking the story on SIU President Glenn Poshard's plagiarism had won Best of Show at the ACP conference last weekend in Washington, D.C. It was judged by a group of people on a variety of criteria including reporting, layout, and photography. I think it's wonderful that those who worked through the night on that story and the rest of the issue have been acknowledged for their hard work, accuracy, and production of collegiate journalism at its best. The Daily Egyptian was followed by Duke University's The Chronicle and the entire list of winners for the category can be seen at

http://www.studentpress.org/acp/winners/f07bs.html

From the page:

"ACP Best of Show Winners
National College Media Convention
Oct. 24-28, 2007
Washington, D.C.

...

4-year daily tabloid

1. Daily Egyptian
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Ill.
Eric Fidler, adviser

2. The Chronicle
Duke University
Durham, N.C.
Jonathan Angier, adviser"

I believe this award is proof that the Daily Egyptian's reporting on the case is fair, accurate, and expertly executed. It is not, nor has it ever been, one-sided, biased, or disrespectful, as some SIU students/alumni/employees have claimed.

TB

Leopard! Portal! Boston!

Look at my exciting new OSX Leopard desktop! I got back from Effingham tonight and got it all installed and set up the way I want. It's amazing! It's clean and smooth and sexy and I reorganized my dock and put all my extra tools in a little stack by my wastebasket called "Tools" It's great! And spaces are cool too because you have up to 16 desktops, a 4x4 grid. I updated my Windows Boot Camp as well with the Leopard DVD and hopefully it will run things a little smoother and not have so many things crash all the time! I love it! Had to pay my roommate $90 for him to install it on my mac.

So I went to Effingham this weekend and spent quite a bit of time with Mom and Andy and of course Amber. Mom bought me lots of clothes and stuffs at Wal-Mart and we had a big dinner today and I installed Portal on my Dell at home and showed it to Andy, he seemed amused. Portal's awesome, here's a sweet video on YouTube of the end where you kill the giant machine girl that badmouthes you a lot and she sings a funny song during the credits. It's long but you can skip through it to hear the song. It's worth listening to:



Friday I visited Amber at work at the bagel place and ate a sandwich. I don't remember what I told her before I took this picture, but it was something to make her make her sad face.

I also took a picture or two of Pete. He's my favorite boss. He ran over his dog last week with his truck and killed it and claimed that it was already dead.


I love the Canon 16-35 2.8 L. Wish I owned one. Also today, me and Amber walked down to the Halloween parade in Effingham and saw parade stuff and I ran into Eric Williams of the Effingham Daily News who I had not spoken to since before I came to college and we talked about new happenings and news photographer stuff and things. Also, the EHS band was playing by the courthouse downtown and I was in the band one year and the director's my friend's brother so I talked to him and took some pictures of the members. They sound good.


And most importantly, BOSTON RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beat the Rockies 4-3 in the fourth game, a slam-bam sweep! I drank two beers instantly when they won to celebrate! Mike Lowell got the World Series MVP which is great because he did a lot of good shit in the postseason and his contract with Boston is up this year, so he may not play with the team ever again. I was happy. I wouldn't be into baseball at all if it weren't for the Red Sox and my childhood dream of going to school in Boston.



TB

"staph"

Took this picture at the rec center today of a guy hitting a punching bag for a story about methicillin resistant staphylocccus aureus, also known as "staph" infections. I was really just supposed to go find pictures of people working out and being sweaty because MRSA is a skin bacteria that grows when people get sweaty all the time and don't always clean themselves. Turns out this guy, who's name I can't say, has had a staph infection on his leg before, and therefore he made main art on the front page tomorrow.

There was also a picture of a guy on an elliptical machine who happened to be reading today's copy of the DE while he was working out.

And this totally generic shot of the track with a guy running on it, but I didn't get his name or information so essentially the image was useless. He had an ipod on and I didn't really want to bother him.
Other than that, the only pictures I really took today were these extreme pretty macro shots of rain drops on flowers, but they're still on my card which is in my camera which is out in my car so I don't think I'm going to have them up tonight.

I'll be going home Friday evening and staying with Amber until Sunday probably, so I won't have a blog post tomorrow either, unless I can do it from her computer. I need to get more cold-weather clothes from home because I don't have a whole lot here in Carbondale and it's been like -40 degrees and raining outside and I dont even have a coat.

TB

none

No blog today. Too much work to do for my paper i have to turn in and the presentation i have to do in the morning. This is a picture I took in Nebraska one time.

TB

Corn

So I took this stupid photo of a corn field in Murphysboro today and somehow it ended up on the front page for tomorrow. That's how bad we need images these days. It was for a story about ethanol production causing corn prices to increase. I actually stopped to take a picture of this huge heron bird monster thing that was sitting in this little pond just off the road, but all i had with me was a 70-200 and when I got out of the car, it flew off. I cursed.

Sadly enough, that was all the pictures I took today. I did have a request from some Saudi United soccer players for pictures from their match the other day, so I uploaded a bunch to my site. It's password protected though.

I decided today that I was sick of not having an umbrella so I went to walmart to find an umbrella and the only ones they had were little girly pink and flowery ones next to all the purses. I asked the walmart lady where all the big manly umbrellas were and she said to try sporting goods and I did but all I found were ponchos and rain jackets and that kind of crap.

So I went to Dick's Sporting Goods and voila, right as I entered the store, there was a stylish display of big golf umbrellas that were black and I got one and it's big and durable and it withstands winds up to 50 mph and it's like a super high-tech batmobile umbrella and it only cost $15. There were also some Callaway Golf umbrellas, but they were $30 and i didn't feel the need for that.

So I took a picture of a corn field and bought an umbrella... Then tonight, I tried to read my 'The Crusades Through Arab Eyes' book for this paper I'm supposed to write by Thursday, and I fell asleep about 25 pages in. I can't seem to read anything without falling asleep. It's pathetic.

I also wrote up another cover letter and resume for another internship at the Northwest Herald, in Crystal Lake, IL. A little closer than Kansas, but it competes with the Chicago metro papers, so it may be a little rough. Also, it goes from January through June, so it's a month longer than the Hutchinson, Kansas one. I'll mail it tomorrow.

TB

"Talking With..."

Today I slept til like noon. And it was raining. And it was cold. And I didn't want to go anywhere. But I had to go to our 4 oclock meeting, so I went to that and that was pretty entertaining for about an hour and then I had to go shoot a rehearsal for a play that's opening Thursday called "Talking With..." and tonight was their last dress rehearsal before showing I guess. It was more a series of monologues than it was a play, I dunno if a play is what you'd call it. It was pretty entertaining though, and between each of the monologues, these three women (one of whom is pictured above) came out and sang something a capella.


This character was pretty entertaining and she was obsessed with her "Oz" books and had costumes she made of all the characters, this one being Scraps, that she put on while her husband was away at work all day. She talked about how much better life in her books was than her real life and how she'd like to stay in Oz forever.

This one was probably my favorite because she kept threatening to hit her cat Tat over the head with a hammer. It was a real cat. On stage. And it walked around for a bit, cept she staked it to the floor. She was doing some kind of audition monologue. It was funny.

This was a picture I took of glass marbles on the stage. Kinda abstract and geometric. One of the actresses dumped them all over as part of her monologue about her mom dying.

Here's a picture James Durbin took of me with my A1U mounted on my 1D. Genius.


TB

football, soccer, baseball

SIU vs. MSU

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This is an extremly low-quality version of the video put up on siude.com today, the one I shot with my video camera mounted on top of my 300. Myspace isn't very large-file-friendly, so I couldn't get a better looking one on there without it taking a week. But, there's one on he DE website, so check it out.

I had to go shoot a soccer tournament kind of thing today, that had lots of issues. It was an international soccer tournament with only a Latino team, a Saudi team and an African team left. The African team had lost to the "Latino Alliance" but complained that they had been playing with players not registered on their original roster, so the Alliance got disqualified, leaving just the African and Saudi teams, but then the Saudi team forfeited the final match because they wanted to play the real winners, not a team that had complained their way to the top. So, the African team received the trophy by default, as illustrated in today's main art:Then the Saudi United and Latino Alliance teams decided to have their own unofficial match to settle who the 'real' winner was. So, after I had returned from the trophy thing and I was trying to work on photos, they sent me out again to get shots of the Saudi-Latino game. The Saudis were kicking A and beat the Alliance 3-1. They didn't run a photo from the game though. Sad, too, cuz I was tellin this guy Husam that I was gonna get him a copy of the paper...

The Sports page today was all mine. It was a good day for football photos, and Sean the sports editor wants me to shoot next weekend's game the same way I shot this one, still and video. Next time, we'll get some real audio commentary next time, though.
Also had a scanner call today that a girl had been hit by a car while she was crossing 51 on her bike. Luckily, the car was only turning and wasn't driving full-speed or anything. She made it through the ordeal with only a few scrapes and was more upset to have made a scene than to have been run over. She refused to talk to our reporter and refused to go to the hospital with the ambulance, but I still took pictures. None of them ran in the paper.

I did a portrait this week of a guy named Christian Spears who works at the Compliance Office of SIU Athletics. We did a few shots like this with various signs and banners and things in the background, but this one came out the best. He's a cool guy and he introduced me to some of the SIU basketball players. I also ran into him at the football game and had a quick chat.
And, THE RED SOX ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! Boston destroyed the Indians 11-2 at home at Fenway, bringing the series totals of runs to 30 and 5. It's amazing Cleveland won the 3 games that they did. Everyone on the team kicked ass and the Indians had tons of errors and totally couldn't control the ball. Now, all we have to worry about is 4 games against the Colorado Rockies, and I'm hoping it won't be as bad as playing Cleveland.


TB

emotions and journalism

This is the portrait I set up of SIU Volleyball's Chandra Roberson (<) and Marina Medic (>). I brought the pocketwizards and the lights, but I was just helping out James, so he's the one who took the pictures. I would've done it a little more wide angle, and showing a little more of the salukis sign, but that's my style I guess.

It seems everyday more people have bad things to say about the Daily Egyptian, that it exists only to destroy the school's image and report the negative things on campus. It seems people take the Voices (a.k.a. Opinions) page and insult the paper and its staff based on what they read on those two pages. Yes, the Voices page has been somewhat brutal towards SIU President Glenn Poshard, but that is an opinion. It may be a college newspaper, but the Daily Egyptian is a stand-alone publication and it is >>> a newspaper. Negative events bring negative news.

I think what people who read the Voices page and complain need to realize is that opinions don't mean anything in journalism. Feelings don't mean anything in journalism. The fact that someone hasn't slept the last two nights while grieving over a lost son doesn't mean anything in journalism. Journalism is truth. Emotion is not truth, but an endlessly varied reaction. It is completely rational, when relevant, to report on an emotion, but never to report with an emotion.

You might think that is a heartless thing to say or that I am emotionless, but really I am the opposite. I'm controlled by emotion every day, just like everyone else. I don't take pictures because of it. I don't talk to people because of it. Sometimes I don't go to class because of it. I want to write letters to people because of it. I write on this blog because of it. Conflictingly, I am a better person because of it, but a less talented photojournalist because of it as well.

Does that mean I should be without emotion to be the best journalist I can be? No. It means I need control over my emotions. I need to suppress them, yet retain them. I need to overcome the feelings that stop me from being a journalist and embrace the feelings that make me feel more alive as a person. Sorrow? Regret? Anger? Anxiety? Life is too short to ruin now with then or to ruin now with what could be. Life is too short to make a problem out of an issue. Happiness, passion and love bring me to my work, my subjects and my fruits. They bring me to find new life in everyday. They are what drive me to succeed and what will carry me through the end of my days on this wonderful mess of a planet.

Also:




TB

SIU 45, MSU 10

Southern Illinois destroyed the Missouri State Bears today. I had a lot of fun shooting it, because I mounted my Sony A1U video camera on top of my regular camera with a flash bracket. It was genius, I could shoot both video and stills at the same time, with the video camera pointing exactly where my big Canon 300 2.8 was pointing. I shot the whole first half and got some good shots like these, and then ditched the still and shot just video the rest of the game. We ought to have a 'Top 10 Plays' or something like that video at siude.com tomorrow. Maybe just a video recapping the game, depends on how well the video turns out.

I tried to update my Sportsshooter.com page earlier with new pictures from the game and some other things, but it locked up and all my captions disappeared, so I gave up and left it with the old pictures. Took me like a half hour to fill out. :(

James took a few shots of me with my big ultra multimedia shooting device today, so hopefully I'll be able to put a shot of it on here and maybe on Sportsshooter's Fun Pix page.

I also took pictures of Indian students playing cricket today. It's relevant that they're Indian because the DE is doing another profile thing about international students, like we did about the Colombian students, about students from India this week, and I thought I'd go to their cricket tournament to get some shots of them doing something other than sitting there and talking to the DE reporters.

Also, RED SOX BEAT THE INDIANS AGAIN!!! 12-2! Tying the series at 3-3, leaving just game 7 tomorrow at Fenway Park where Cleveland's gonna get destroyed once and for all, sending the Red Sox to the world series!! Against the Rockies! Boston's taking it all! Me and Scott were at Lone Star watching the game and I had like 6 beers and some tortilla soup and chicken fried steak and we shared a Texas rose. It was a good time, cept we each spent like $35.

That's all for today.

TB

1018

So, a kid died on campus today. I didn't take this photo. Ryan Rendleman the photo editor did. I was out shooting rugby practice with my video camera when this happened. Apparently, it's unknown how he died and they won't know until they do an autopsy. His name was Alex Booth and he was a sophomore from Quincy. For some reason, one of our reporters called Booth's mother and she hadn't even heard yet. His death was confirmed at 8:30 and he had left his dorm in an ambulance at about 5:30 when they were already attempting CPR.

I went to my classes today and got a test back from my Islam class and I got a C on it! Which was good, since I thought when I took it that I was surely going to fail it. Also, the paper I wasn't sure about isn't due til next Thursday, so I have a week to work on it.

A big storm was rolling in during practice so I ended up gettin some pretty neat shots involving players being silhouetted by a big fantastic sky. I did both still and video. The shots are for a recap Monday of the game theyre going to have against UofI Saturday, their biggest game of the year, but I was hopin' I could get a feature video of them together for the web maybe before they play at UofI. Don't know if that'll happen though, since no one works on Friday nights or Saturdays and Sunday it'll be sorta outdated. Oh well.


I was looking at Sportsshooter today and realized that most of the Winter/Spring internships listed on there have application deadlines within the next 5 days, so I thought I would throw together a resume, coverletter, portfolio, and some clips to mail off to some places. I got my hopes up for an internship in Hutchinson, Kansas, but I'm not holding my breath or anything. It'd be really nice to get that one because it's not big-city news and it would be my first internship. Plus, i'd be out of school for a semester and I'd get to work 40 hours a week paid! :D

I got Wendy the writing coach at the DE to help me with what should be in my resume and stuff, so I'm hoping I've got a chance. Other than that, I didn't do a whole lot today. On my way out of the Rugby fields, I saw some deer sitting near the road so I took some pictures of them.

Also, the other day I ordered some new business cards for $7.99 and they look like this. I designed them myself with a Daily Egyptian image and a lens image and some text. Fancy.That's it for today. I'm actually tired for once, so I think I'm going to go to sleep. Probably going to Cairo tomorrow, unless I have to work. I will be mailing off a couple internship applications tomorrow as well. OH and I almost totally forgot! BOSTON beat the INDIANS 7-1 in GAME 5 of the ALCS so now its 2-3 and they're going home to FENWAY! Die, Cleveland!
GO, RED SOX!

TB