I might end up at the MFA tomorrow morning while my car’s being serviced. I was looking at their website today and discovered you can actually search their catalog online.
I’m having fun thinking again about the light machine for my dad.
I had a fine weekend in New York that included trips to Zabar’s, Stand Up New York, and B&H; where I acquired lox, laughs, and lenses, respectively. Good times.
I finally got around to cleaning the hard drive off my old iMac, so I put it up for sale on Craigslist. It’s been with me for 5 years (!), so I’m a little sad. But, the prospect of one less heavy thing to move cross-country is not sad.
I saw an atrociously bad movie the other night – don’t ever see What the #$!* Do We Know? For the first minute or so, it seemed like it could have been an interesting movie about science and philosophy, but it degraded pretty quickly into, essentially, a recruiting piece for a cult. Hard to believe it made it into countrywide (perhaps even worldwide) distribution, eh?
It’s hard to tell if it’s directly related to the cult, but JZ Knight, the woman who claims to be channeling Ramtha, also runs Elfin Magical Capes and Wizard Robes. Good times.
As I play more with the D70, I’ve been looking for a good description of how to take pictures using a flash (either built-in or external). The camera offers tons of settings, but the manual offers few explanations of when you’d want to use them or why. The best I’ve found so far is here. Got any others I should read?
So I’ve been considering a telephoto zoom lens for the new camera, and I decided to rent a 80-200mm f2.8 lens for a day to see if I liked it and if I could carry it around for a day without getting sore. It’s a heavy lens – almost 3 pounds – and I found I really couldn’t comfortably lug it around for very long. Too bad, since it’s a fine lens, but I guess it’s good to find that sort of thing out before buying. I’ll likely pick up a 70-300mm D soon.
You can see a couple of the lens-test pictures I took today at the zoo – they’re here. Growing up near the National Zoo in Washington has apparently left me with high standards for zoos. I wasn’t too impressed today…
Looking for a small MP3 player to drool over but sick of visiting Apple’s website? Check out mica. Too bad it’s over $300 bucks for the 1 GB model…
The Pi(e) Party on Friday was a great success – thanks to all who came. I didn’t take any pictures this year, but there wasn’t too much debauchery to document anyway. Something to shoot for next year, I guess.
I saw Million Dollar Baby last night and was pleasantly surprised. It’s an old-fashioned movie in a lot of ways, but well made and well directed. Clint Eastwood’s acting was bearable and Hillary Swank’s was impressive. I’d recommend it, unless you’re prone to movie-induced depression. It’s not exactly uplifting…
I went out this evening with the new camera and took some pictures. Check ’em out here. I’m enjoying the camera a lot, but one problem I have is remembering to set all the different settings before I take a picture – it’s a little too easy to forget to dial in the ISO & white balance each time I go out. I’m sure it’ll become habit in time…
I spent some time last night doing some experiments with the new camera – check out the results here. There’s plenty more to do and I’ll update the page as I go, but it’s a good start for now.
I’m looking forward to the annual Pi(e) Party tomorrow night. I like my pi and I like my pie!
With the wild weather outside (30+ mph winds and white-out snow), I enjoyed an evening in. I made some tasty quesadillas and spent most of the night thumbing through the archives of Galen Rowell’s articles for Outdoor Photographer. The articles might not be that appealing to non-photographers, but no one should pass up looking at some of the images he made. Gorgeous stuff.
Cheers to Marshall (check out his new website) for putting me on to Galen Rowell in the first place a year or so ago.
I was more than a little surprised when my registration renewal notice from the RMV had an advertisement from Ford enclosed – what gives?
I’m selling a digital camera over on Craigslist. It’s not fancy, but it’s cheap – drop me a note if you’re interested.
In other digital news, my new camera arrived at the end of the week. It’s a serious beast – a little bigger than my old Pentax and with tons more features. I haven’t had a chance to take it out for a real picture-taking session, but my initial impressions are really favorable. I’m excited!
Looks like Bush is trying to slip a provision to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve into the budget measure. Unfortunately, the budget bill can’t be fillibustered and only requires a simple majority to pass – now’s the time to write your (republican) senator.
Seen (here):
Use our
lay-a-way
program.
A way to where?
A cell phone conversation later on, overheard:
“I’m gonna work it out, but she’s going to the slammer with me…”
Good luck!