eNough

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or over on rashbre snapped because its sort of about photography. But I think it's more about eBay, and a little bit daft, so here is probably okay.

The story was that a few days ago I dug out my old film camera, with a view to taking some film pictures. I discovered it was somewhat broken. The mirror had jammed and the viewfinder had some sort of black gunk in it. A Google later and I realized it was going to be expensive to fix. I also noticed in the Google search a few eBay cameras roughly the same, for relatively small money.

It got me thinking that perhaps I could replace the broken camera and even acquire a small number of lenses to augment the two that I already owned.

My criteria was that this had to be an inexpensive project, so I set myself a very low budget. I decided on Olympus because (a) its what I had before (b) its beautiful, well designed precision machinery, (c) its not Nikon or Canon where there are lots of buyers trying to acquire old lenses for their digital equipment and pushing the price up. I regard it as a kind of SLR version of a Leica.

The plan all worked rather well. A few days later, I have everything I could possibly need. A camera with a fine lens was my first acquisition and then a couple of other wide angle lenses. All good. Then a pair of zoom lenses, which happened to have another Olympus camera attached.

Altogether, it was somewhat less than the cost of a modest new digital compact, and I now have a rather fine film kit. In some ways its sad that this type of equipment is viewed by many as obsolete, yet the modern camera makers are only just geting to the same resolution as film and only in their top range £2,000+ cameras.

One thing I can't get over is how small it all looks next to today's DSLRs. Yet, although it has manual focus is mainly mechanical and doesn't need 150 computerised menus, it seems to take some nice snaps already.

Wheatstalk 2008

I'll be listening to one of my old favourite radio stations from Talkeetna, Alaska during this weekend, where the nice people from Whole Wheat Radio are running live music webcasts, house concert style.

(They are just playing some Michelle Shocked) "well she may blow your mind like some old transistor..."

You'll have to cook your own chili and cornbread to get the full experience.

a streamed link via iTunes here

soft

Another busy week and I think I've earned some cushion time at the weekend. Way back at Wednesday there was someone on the radio saying "Hooray, it's over half way through the week towards the weekend!"...and I was thinking,"Noooo, I still need as much time as possible to get my stuff done". Others cast doubts upon my sanity when I revealed this thought openly.

Anyway, the weekend is finally here and I can tick off most things, but there's still overhang into Saturday as well as a quietly accumulating collection of domestic items too.

So tonight as we ate my hastily improvised 'Grolsch potatoes' and watched a movie, the cushions seemed like just the right option.

World Trade Center

I guess there's millions of regular pictures of the World Trade Center in peoples' photo archives. I just found a few whilst I was riffling through some snaps to test my scanner. The pictures either side help me place the occasion.

We'd been on a cross US visit and were meeting someone in New York at the Marquis. We'd been with one person and were meeting someone else, who didn't show up.

We decided to convert ourselves into tourists and although some of us had 'done' New York before, there was one of us for whom it was a new experience, so we decided to do a tourist route. Times Square, Empire State, the Village, Canal Street, Wall Street, WTC, the Seaport piers, Staten Island Ferry both ways and then back up to Broadway for some beers.

So part way through I took these snaps, where we'd gone to the tourist entrance to the World Trade, taken the elevator to the top and then walked around to look at the view. My pix include the look back towards the Empire State, across to the statue of Liberty, down to the ground and across to the other Tower.

Simpler days?

The Ka gets another mention

We drove around half of London without the front part of the radio in this Ka called Harvey earlier today, before stealthily parking to buy some milk, a loaf of bread and to post a postcard.

Then, whilst paused, I found the radio fascia in the side pocket and clipped it in. It lasted for about ten minutes of me driving before I accidentally pressed the eject button, which made it flip across to the unreachable part of the footwell.

When I retrieved it later, I noticed the radio was called a Sony Xplode. Very appropriate.

no Swiss quarky xplode either (britney vs muse)

dubya palin

Sometimes I just scare myself.

I wondered how long it would be before the Palin/Bush similarities would start to become noticed.

A modest reconstruction is all it takes. It had to be done.

The voting percentage swing seems to be all but modest, however.

Sometimes I just scare myself.

dark materials

Smashing time ahead when the scientists switch on the £20bn wibble beam in CERN, Geneva. It can send parallel particles in circles and then hit them up with bendy magnets to see how they ding into one another and generally bounce around.

Or it could create a black hole that eventually consumes the earth.

Professor Otto thinks its weird science without Kelly le Brock and is trying to get it stopped via a legal action at the moment, but another Professor Cox says that everything is dreamy. So if a lot of people in Switzerland have headaches tomorrow, its probably a few runaway Higgs-Boson particles. They're the ones that get called the God particle.

west

Ba daa daa dah doo...
Ba da da da da dee dee...

Sadler's Wells version of West Side Story. We've all seen the film, and probably a stage version, so how did this stack up?

Um.

Good set, some good movement, but mis-casting. I opened the programme and there was a single still from an old Broadway show, which ooozed era, action, smoulder.

This version some how didn't.

Whether taking the ensemble view or some of the main parts, there just wasn't the right zing.

I don't think it was me; it came across as 'by the numbers' rather than with the energy and verve one would expect.

There were some standout re-staged effects, but overall I thought they could have driven more from the story, but probably played it all a bit safe.

When the rather tall and somewhat operatic Tony (who looked a bit like Maria's dad) met his demise in the last scene, there was a combination of tears but also stifled laughter from the rather respectable looking audience. Something hadn't quite worked.

pictures from the past

If anyone has been tracking my other recent blog rashbre snapped then you'll have noticed I hit eBay a few days to pick up an old film SLR to go alongside my digital snappery. I'd hoped to use my original camera, but something seems to have stopped working and I realised (sadly) that it was more economical to acquire an inexpensive eBay replacement than to have it repaired.

So the gleaming newbie arrived and I decided to look around rashbre central for some 35mm film (probably past its use by date but - hey), and in the hunt found 21 used 35mm cartridges. I'm wondering whether I should get them processed to CD, to see whats on them. One's coded Greece, a couple seem to be German. Hmm, possible flashbacks in time, I suspect.

Here's my original OM2 and the newbie replacement.

fzzt

I gather the weather has been pretty wet today, but because I've been locked away working, I'd hardly noticed the great outdoors.

When I finally decided to power down and maybe watch some evening television, I flipped it on and after a few pixellated moments of a soap, it ground to a freeze frame halt. There was a fair amount of thunder rolling around, so I'm guessing ikkle Sky is trying to deal with bolts of lightning.

Find the other hand set, flip over to Freeview. "no Service".

Hmm, the entire digital domain seems to have been reduced to pixel dust.

So now I'm on the remnants of analogue. Four channels with slow scrolling bands of interference and gentle snow permeating the scene. Its reduced my choices back to old school 1-2-3-4 and for the last few minutes I've been watching the finale of Big Brother and wondering how Davina manages to deflect rain around her whilst all the heavily anoraked supporters look drenched. The trouble is, I don't know who any of them are so I've had to generate instant dislikes in order to feel engaged with the process.

And no pause, advert skip, red button, plus one or 'whats on next' guide.

I'm feeling very retro at the moment.

Alaskan Independence Party?

The US election commentary bubbles along on UK media. I listened to a few snippets whilst driving and heard George Bush endorsing McCain along the lines that offensive tactics are needed to ensure peace. I was in heavy traffic at the time and didn't have time to properly process what appeared to be an endorsement of further military action.

But the strident one that's caught my ear is the unfolding Sarah Palin, who is a kind of Dubya in disguise. The emotive crowd rousing is clever enough although I assume she is now being powered by at least ten of the 'operatives' who were dispatched to Alaska to manage the plotline. Despite normally hardened journalists cooing at some her speeches, it just seems odd to me that the person selected as running mate to McCain would have so many easy political points to pick at by the media. I hand it to her spinners though that she can dance a mean fandango around the critiques.

Some reports suggested that McCain favoured Joe Lieberman but whoever went through the selection process to advise McCain on the final choice of his running mate must have been looking the other way for part of the time. I get the idea about creating a 'Hilary factor' in the other party and that message delivery may still triumph over content.

I'm also interested in her selection as an early sign of McCain's decision making performance. If Palin's the person, fix up the back-story first. Or perhaps choose someone needing less profile management. Maybe some of it is the inevitable digging of journalists looking for a story, but it all seems a long way from the simple hockey mum description that Palin is portraying whilst she advances the George Bush agenda.

There's a caption competition here somewhere...Just what is McCain thinking??

don't ask alice

The doors are finally in place from the recent wardrobe project and the shelves are now full of clothes.

There's something satisfying about being able to walk through the glass and into the hidden en-suite room.

And back the other way through the looking glass.

No sign of the white rabbit at the moment, but I'll keep taking the tablets.