tomroyal.com

Following the limited success of his winter campaign against snow (video here), Hunter today opened a new front in the war on H2O.

Yesterday, in the office:

Not bad for an afternoon's work. My proper review of the Firebox Muvi Atom camera will be online in a week or so.

By way of an introduction, here's a very incomplete list of things I like:

• Cats
• Ramen

Armed with this information, you can probably see why a cartoon series called Neko Ramen (noodle-soup-cat – often transliterated to 'neko rahmen', with an 'h', for some reason) appeals to me. And it is quite wonderful. Here's episode one, courtesy of a website that allows embedding – the subtitles are a bit crap, but you get the idea:

One of my favourite parts of my job is testing DSLR cameras. Many of the new models this year are adding HD video recording, which is interesting – and which requires me to shoot loads of test video clips to accompany all the sample photos. Here's my trip to work, shot in high-def as a test on the new Nikon D5000 – click the HD button to enable maximum pixelocity.

The Easter-themed segment I filmed for the BBC last week went out this morning and repeats over this weekend. It's not yet on iPlayer, so here's a low resolution clip:

(Video)

And while on the subject of shameless self-promotion, here's the thing I did for ITN the other week:

Helen snapped (what's the moving-picture equivalent of snapping?) this video of Hunter on a camcorder I'm reviewing, and I've found myself entranced by Hunter's CRAZY BIG EYES. For the full effect, watch it in splendiferous 1080i* High Def here on Vimeo.

Sorry about the weirdy crap cut at the end, by the way. It appears to be a side effect of the rather cheap video editing software included with the camera (and I've lost my copy of Premiere, sob).

* I know, I know. It can't do 720p for some reason.

You're welcome.

As per Si's note, the video below is very flickery so anyone with epilepsy, or who simply dislikes flickery things, should probably beware.

A test taken with the Casio EX-F1, which shoots video at 300fps or full-resolution photos at 60fps. The plan now is to film Hunter or Ralph jumping – it needs lots of light at this speed, though.

This is brilliant, in a rather shouty political discourse kind of way (with that in mind, watch this). US political pundit who compares Obama's policy to that of appeasement is shown up brilliantly as the host demands, over and over again, that he should explain what Neville Chaimberlain actually did. He has no idea. Skip to about half way through if you're short on time.