Don’t know if it’s all true, but even if a fraction is … wow.
Add comment February 24th, 2009
Nikon N50
Thanks to Freecycle and a very nice person who had no use for it, I just acquired a Nikon N50. It’s a very nice SLR film camera, and I’ve already walked all over the house taking dumb pictures of everything (Nora’s wishing she hadn’t stayed home sick today — she didn’t bank on being pestered by me and my lil’ flash). Anyhow, I’m getting the film developed today while Nora has her doctor appointment, and then we’ll know if this thing works. Boy, if it does, this is going to be fun.
Of course, the film I found was a few years old, so it could be that this round won’t be definitive proof of its abilities one way or the other. So we’ll see — but it’s sure nice goofing around with an SLR again, particularly one that does a little bit of the thinking for you.
Doug — where do you buy lenses? Are there any sites/stores with good, used lenses at good prices? I need to scratch this itch without appearing on Lizzie’s TomSpending radar, you know? 
2 comments February 9th, 2009
Talk about getting Googled …
This one’s a little sad, but kind of funny in its dark way. Apparently the Google Maps car ran over a deer in upstate New York and captured the whole thing on video.
What I find interesting is that the car was going fast enough to hit a deer and kill it. I always assumed it kind of crept along with its hazards on, but apparently it moves at speed.
Add comment January 30th, 2009
Amazing story on Huffington Post
This is a funny but telling story about a shoe-throwing event at the White House yesterday. The amazing part, in my opinion, is the reported reaction of the Secret Service agents. Is there anyone who’s sorry to see Bush go?
Add comment January 20th, 2009
Windows 7
I grabbed the Windows 7 Beta yesterday and installed it on the partition I was saving for a good Vista version (which never really materialized). So far, so good — it seems to run faster and more smoothly than Vista (certainly), and even seems to outpace XP on some stuff (mail via Thunderbird, web browing via Firefox, and so on). One problem, though, and a biggie — it doesn’t like to shut down. I waited over a half hour last night and finally manually shut down. But as far as actual use goes, I’m somewhat impressed. I had one crash last night, but Windows 7 successfully isolated the problem and restarted Explorer without borking everything else.
There are a few fun interface additions, too — I’ll write more about those after more experimentation. But in general, my limited experience has been that they kept the good UI streamlining (what there was, anyway) from Vista and threw out much of the nonsense. And the fact that this beta COMES with the option to load a beta version of Norton free of charge is nice, as well. Norton may or may not be the best option, but Vista came out with dire warnings about security and no immediate option under which to test safely.
Gotta say, I’m kind of impressed so far. It’d be nice to be able to shut down cleanly, but it IS a beta, after all.
Add comment January 20th, 2009
Random thoughts on the eve of change
I’m still trying to figure out what to do with this blog — I’ve been too grumpy and scattered for too long, and it’s time to split things into logical groups. I may break out into a couple different blogs soon, but I’m still thinking about how best to handle that. In the meantime, I’ve had some random thoughts that I think I’ll share here (some timely, some not so much).
- I am able to fly my American flag two days in a row — one day for Martin Luther King, one day for Barack Obama and a new vision.
- If Barack Obama does half (hell, a quarter) of what he says he will in the first week of his administration, I will cry with joy.
- George Bush doesn’t seem to realize that he’s lucky to leave Washington without shackles on.
- True conservative Americans are, ironically enough, going to be better heard after tomorrow than they have been for eight years.
- What I’ve heard recently about the recruitment practices of the armed forces (assisted by the current economic situation) is alarming.
- The Hindi accent may well be the best accent in the world in which to say, “polyglot.”
- Thanks to living in a city with ample opportunities for fun learning, my daughter was thrilled to go to the Field Museum as a reward today AND was proud to learn (and share) that based on their DNA fingerprints, flamingos and grebes are very closely related.
- As for me and the Field Museum, I got to visit my local mummy (who I’ve been visiting, I realized today, for over 30 years) and touch the sarcophagus that has given me chills for that long as well.
- There is nothing like three-part harmony, two guitars, and a bass when we all hit our notes.
- I didn’t know you could be too fat to comfortably play guitar. Pudgy fingers and Short Arm Syndrome are a wake up call.
- I am still a profoundly bad violin player. And I have never before enjoyed something so completely that I’m so completely bad at.
- Related to the previous point, I’m on the lookout for a free or cheap accordion.
So that’s that. In no rigid order, those are some of the things that have been kicking around in my head for the past few days. I guess that’s what a blog is supposed to be — I may try to divide into a couple of different focuses (and therefore better conquer each) in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, it was time to post something that wasn’t entirely derived from rage, you know?
Add comment January 19th, 2009
Back to an old theme
I think I’ll go back to this Blix theme for a while. It needs a little punching up (as it did before), but I like how clean it is and how it doesn’t bork the comments. Let me know if you have any problems with it, of course.
Add comment January 12th, 2009
A test of video embedding
Here’s hoping this works — a fun tune from Jonathan Coulton.
1 comment January 12th, 2009
WordPress 2.7
Okay, so this wasn’t the smoothest transition, but it was pretty good. I’m now up to speed with WordPress 2.7 — it may not appear different to you, but this dashboard is totally different. It’s something like going to sleep on the bridge of the original Enterprise from Star Trek and waking up on the Next Generation bridge.
Ah, jeez, is that as nerdy as it sounded? Sigh.
Anyhow, It’s pretty slick — I’m going to post something next to test its improved ability to embed video.
Add comment January 12th, 2009
Upgrading the blog
Hi, all — I’m trying to upgrade WordPress to the latest version (for several reasons). There will be some changes around here, and I’m thinking of breaking out into a second, less personal blog for geeky stuff. More about that later. But you may see some errors and some things may bonk on you if you come by at the wrong time for the next day or two. Wish me luck — see you on the other side.
Add comment January 12th, 2009