March 2006 Thursday, March 30, 2006
The Fuss About Steroids in BaseballI don’t know what the big deal is about steroids in major league baseball. I think the thing to do is just accept that there will always be some all natural athletes and there will always be some enhanced ones. So go ahead and acknowledge it and move on. Quit wasting the federal government’s time investigating it. Then we can spend our time developing a labeling system for all players, games and teams. Just like you can get organic vegetables and hormone free milk, you can opt for an all-natural steroid free baseball team. If people want to see the ‘roidal freaks then they’ll buy those tickets and those teams will experience better sales and a larger fan base. Maybe they’d be different divisions, maybe you’d have integrated teams. The point is that it’d all be out in the open. POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:15 pm Saturday, March 25, 2006
The Camera is Dead, Long Live the CameraWell, I took a huge gamble on Wednesday. After getting through the first few stages of grief over my Sony DSC-V1 demise, I started bidding on eBay for the next version of that camera, the Sony DSC-V3. It’s not like I was adverse to buying it new, but no one seemed to have a new one and there is no “next generation” for this model. I know I should go with a DSLR, but I’m just not ready yet. So, I bid on one on eBay and didn’t win. So I bid on another one, and waited. Well, the first one I bid on had the winner back out and they have a “second chance offer” that’s good for 24 hours. Of course I was still the high bidder on #2. An hour later I was outbid on #2 so I took camera #1. Not only did I get it at the price I wanted, he threw in a 1gb memory stick and free overnight shipping. So there it was, waiting at home for me last night. I was holding my breath, because you never know on eBay if you’re actually going to get what you paid for. This was my 11th purchase on eBay (plus the dining room set which didn’t technically go through eBay because I bought the whole set, not just the table) and I have to say that I’ve never had a problem yet. The only weird thing is that the charger cable was missing, but it included an external battery charger, so that solves that problem. Not only that, but my V1 cable works just fine. It’s a different camera in many ways than my V1. It’s slightly larger, black and not silver. The controls are in different places, though the operate in pretty much the same way. What’s cool about the new one is that it’s 7 megapixels, still has the great Zeiss lens and has better auto-focus. The LCD screen is bigger than my old one, but doesn’t seem as crisp (but I can live with that). I’m still fooling around with it and trying to figure out all the different, new settings but I’ve got my little candy photo studio set up and so far things are going well. The extra megapixels will me more detailed candy goodness on candyblog! In the mean time, here’s my tribute to the wonderful camera that has brough so much photographic goodness to my blogs over the years. POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:09 am Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Requiem for Two CamerasWhen I was in high school I was planning a trip to Spain and as a gift, my father gave me a camera. It was a Canon Snappy - a fixed focus camera that took 35mm film and was bright red. It looked like a cross between a PlaySkool camera and a Tonka truck, but I loved that thing. I took, probably, about 100 rolls of film during the life of that camera. I had it from 1983 to 1991. I took it to class one day when I was in grad school and it just up and stopped working. I was so upset, it was the only camera I’d ever owned and it took such great photos. It wasn’t even that expensive and I probably could have replaced it, but I didn’t. (The Man later gave me a Canon PowerShot that was super small and took good pictures, but it was film and it was the dawn of the digital age. I still have the camera, but haven’t used it since I got my most recent digital.) My reason for this post it to relate the recent demise of my beloved Sony DSC-V1. You’ve seen the photos I’ve taken with this camera. It’s an awesome camera and I carry it with me everywhere. It takes great shots, I’ve found it easy to use and of course up until last night, extremely durable. It’s possible I just plum wore it out. It have taken over 26,000 photos with it. Probably 100 times more than I took with my Canon Snappy before it kicked the bucket. I spent a half an hour on the phone with Sony to trouble-shoot the camera and they say it’s not covered by a recall on the sensor (because it still shows me the image on the LCD screen, it just can’t record a usable image). Instead they’ll guarantee to fix it for $181.00. I don’t know quite how they arrived at the $181.00 amount, but there it is. The problem is that I can simply buy a refurbished DSC-V1 from their outlet for $299 - which would mean that the lens ring is intact (I dinged mine and can’t use my telephoto lens). Or I can just upgrade to the DSC-V3 which take 7 megapixels shots instead of 5 and uses the same memory sticks and of course is brand spankin’ new. Those of you who know me, you know that I fear change. Once I get to know people or things, I’m exceptionally comfortable. But the idea of a new camera, no matter how nice a new one might be is causing a fair bit of anxiety. But the idea of being cameraless is even more frightening. I do plan to upgrade to a DSL at some point. At the moment I’m planning on the Nikon D50 ... but I still want a camera I can throw in my bag and have at the ready. How nuts would it be to just buy a used Sony DSC-V1? I already have a huge investment in the other stuff - the memory sticks, extra batteries and the telephoto lens. POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:06 pm |
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During November it's all about me writing a novel. Sometimes it's about whalewatching. You know, and then there's other stuff.
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