revjim.net

cameras

these things

Jun 16th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
11 comments

Fixing Things

My camera is back from Nikon Repair. In case you’re wondering how long it takes, it took 10 days from when I approved the cost to the camera arriving on my doorstep. It took about 4 days from the time I shipped it to their estimate. So, all-in-all, about 2 weeks. Not bad, really.

My media center PC is currently at the Acer repair center. We’ll see how well that goes. I mailed it on June 11th. I got notification that they received it on June 13th. I’m pretty sure it’s just a bad power supply. It’s sad thought that it took 15 email exchanges for them to agree to repair it and only after they suggested I charge the battery which, being a desktop and not a notebook, it doesn’t have. Whatever.

Buying Things

I still want a new bag. A “murse”, if you will. Something that’ll hold diapers and wipes, a sippy cup, a water bottle, a dSLR and a lens, some important papers, a changes of clothes, a book to read, a handful of personal items, and a laptop. Rarely will it need to hold all of that at once. But, it should be able to once in a while. It should be interesting to look at, have lots of pockets, have a durable base, and come in a color other than black. Ideally it would be made out of a more natural material that could then be waterproofed. Ideally it’d also cost less than $100. If you know where to find such an item, please leave a comment. I’ve looked everywhere.

I’ve spent enough time at the pool so far this year that I’m thinking an underwater point-and-shoot digital camera would be a good idea. I have a waterproof bag that I can stuff my dSLR in to. But, all told, it doesn’t work very well. It keeps the camera quite dry, which is the most important part. But the lens port constantly gets in the way of the shot making it very difficult to use and often resulting in bad images. I wish I could attach the lens port to the front of the lens in use. Then it would take care of itself. You hear that, DiCAPac?!

If I get a underwater point-and-shoot I’ll actually just buy a regular, pocket sized camera and then a hard-case underwater housing for it. That way I’ll have one of each for only a little more than what I’d pay for just an underwater camera. See, I’m smart that way. I’m considering the Canon SD1200 because it’s small, inexpensive, and the underwater housing for it is less than $200. But I’d really prefer to have manual exposure available, just in case. Any ideas/suggestions?

To round up the list of things I want to buy, I’m also considering an iPod Touch and a Mac Mini. The original iPhone and Touch could not do what I wanted them to do because they couldn’t do more than one thing at a time. The new iPhone OS 3.0 makes this possible with the Notification API. So, there are quite a few apps I’d like to write and see how well they do. With these two things I should be able to get started.

I’d get an iPhone 3Gs, but AT&T offers bad service, is slow to implement new features, and regularly indicates that they don’t put their customers first. I’d really rather not tie myself to paying them $100/mo for the next two years. That’s just silly. So, iPod Touch it is.

Plans

This weekend is Celeste’s birthday party. There will be roughly 15 kids and 15 adults there. I’m actually a little scared at how it’s all going to turn out but I’m trying to let someone else (my mom in this case) handle something for once and just not worry about it. With my personality, that’s a lot harder than it should be.

Other than that, this week is pretty low key. I’ll probably take Celeste swimming on Wednesday night and again on Friday night because why not? She loves it and so do I. I hope to spend Tuesday catching up on housework and chores and such and maybe spend some time out with friends or at a coffee house reading and writing on Thursday.

An Important Message

According to recent messages that somehow made it into my Inbox, not only is “Enlarging my male tool the best revenge for my ex” but also “my life will be worthwhile if my penis grows a little”. It’s good to know. Such thoughtful strangers to provide me with such valuable information.

it always breaks

Jul 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

I think I’m a target for broken things — broken anything. From techology, to things bought in various stores, to that too-emo-for-my-age feeling that even most of my relationships are broken in some way.

I go into a Starbucks with a simple purpose: get some Caffiene before going back to work so I don’t fall asleep on the job and, while I’m at it, update my website. 15 minutes later and I’m finally online. I had to wait for Vista to “Switch Users”. Then I had to wait for it to log me in. Then I had to wait for it to get all booted up. Then I had to kill a few processes because it wasn’t coming up. Then I had to wait longer. When it finally came up I had to wait an eternity for the AT&T login page on the Starbucks wireless network to appear. It never did. I eventually gave up and slapped in my Mobile Data card. 15 minutes! So, here I am, finally. I’m so frustrated I don’t even remember what I intended to write about.

Our house has one room that’s about 10 degrees hotter than the rest. I guess it’s built wrong. I have no idea. Of course, we never really started using that room until our new home warranty was up. Even better, I’ve now selected it as my office. So, instead of trying to figure out what wrong with the ducts, I just decided to buy a window A/C. Of course, my windows (seemingly the same windows as everyone else in the world) don’t quite cooperate with the type of window mounts provided. So, my office is still 10 degrees hotter. But now, I’m $150 poorer and there’s an air conditioner taking up the floor in the corner.

I bought a water proof camera bag in order to take photos underwater while at the lake. Of course, the only sizes available are too-small for $20 and way-too-big for $120. So, I opt for way-too-big since the description says the the bag has some srt of bellows to accomodate lenses as small at 3cm. That’s a lie. A big lie. So, I have a bunch of photos that have the corners cut out of them thanks to the bag getting in the way of the shot. Didn’t really matter anyway since none of the photos came out. I have no idea why.

I upgraded the LiveJournal Crossposting script that I use on this site and on my photo blog. Of course, something changed and now, my other plugin that formats my photo posts all pretty like doesn’t work leaving the Crossposted LJ entries looking more than worthless. I’m sure I can figure out what’s wrong, but I really just don’t want to.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist. Nothing works for me. If there’s a way something can go wrong or a point that should never fail can fail, it’s happened to me in some way and, most likely, at the time when I was relying on it most.

And, of course, I’m sure this griping all seems trivial. But it’s just one more straw on an already overloaded mind burdened by what seems to be a heavier and heavier heart. I need a break.