C

innamonPirate.com was registered on June 10, 2005, but this site’s content long predates that registration. The site is my place on the Web to put up whatever I am working on, rant or post my comments on current events. The pre-2005 content is, admittedly, much inferior to the current work; still, I am not willing to remove it.

The domain registration marked my transition from college to the workforce. Since then, most of the articles have been related to my life or area of study or work.

Most of the static pages, especially those related to translation or programming, were created before the CinnamonPirate.com domain. Some even date back to the archives of JumpStation.org, this site’s direct predecessor.

Who is the author?

I am Derrick Sobodash, an Oakland University graduate with a degree in journalism and Chinese studies. Outside of this Web site I write for newspapers and magazines. The bulk of my work is published in The Oakland Press and Beijing Today: the former was my first internship out of college, and the later is my current employer. I was also published in PiQ before ADV’s lust for money killed it.

I also enjoy taking pictures, designing in QuarkXpress, collecting fairy tales and folklore and calligraphy in Latin letters. The challenge is now and always has been to find a way to combine these in a way which makes money. If you have any ideas on how to do this, please e-mail me at derrick＠cinnamonpirate.com.

From where is this site written?

My postings are filed either from my apartment on Guangqumen Wai Avenue or the Beijing Youth Daily building by Changhong Bridge, both of which are in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.

The apartment has one bed and one couch. If I know you and you feel like visiting China, the couch is your’s.

Where is it hosted?

CinnamonPirate.com is hosted by and has always been hosted by the fine people at Versus Technologies. The account is an early adopter and was one of the first on their servers. The hosting solution was found after a very dishonorable deletion by Hostik, my former host. Hostik is so incredibly evil that I will not link it, as that would bump up its Google PageRank.

What software do you use?

This Web site was initially powered by a content management system of my own design called Kung Fu. It sucked, because I spent more time working on Kung Fu than adding content. Around 2004 I switched to WordPress, which I have used ever since. The gallery section is powered by the Slickr plugin.

What kind of camera do you have?

Photographs used in this Web site are shot primarily using a Nikon D40X. I own four lenses: the Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm kit lens, a Nikkor AI-S 50mm f/1.4 lens, a Sigma 70-210mm f/4 manual lens and a Vivitar N/AI-S 17-28mm f/4. My oldest pictures are shot with a Sony Mavica CD-1000, which I passed on to my dad and brother in October 2008. Most images are retouched using Nikon’s Camera Control NX2; the watermark is applied with Adobe Photoshop.

Random facts

• This Web site is syndicated on Syndic8.com as Feed #504602.
• All times on this site are in Chinese Standard Time (CST), the time zone for all of China.
• As of my 25^th birthday, one in five days of my life was spent translating Der Langrisser; two in five were spent translating any game.
• I use MSN Messenger. You can reach me as dsobodash＠gmail.com.
• I also have a GoogleTalk account at dsobodash＠gmail.com.
• My AOL Instant messenger account is dsobodash.
• My ICQ number is once again 15584206.
• My QQ number is 249832971.