Scene from a pawn shop:

INDI: ".... a fully manual option for the shutter and aperture or else I really can't do anything with it."
BLEU: "You do realize you're talking Chinese to me right now, right?"
INDI: "Ni hao, meimei. That's Chinese."
SALESMAN: *snerk*

(Thank you, Joss. )

I was at a pawn shop to complete my Birthday Quest: a new camera. My beloved Vera snuffed it when I was shooting the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice, in a completely unexpected manner. The catches that hold the battery door shut spontaneously snapped off, and since the thing relies on a lot of tension to keep the batteries in, I couldn't hold it together with tape. It worked well enough for the rest of that evening, but afterwards... not so much.

I kept saying what I needed was a Vera upgrade - since the full DSLR is out of my budget, I'm firmly in prosumer rangefinder-with-manual-options land. And what I wound up finding was exactly that. Same Fujifilm S series, but a much more recent model, with twice the megapixels (eight instead of four) and twice the amount of space on the memory card, which is XD so I can still use the older ones. The new camera is a bit smaller, and the lens doesn't lengthen when it zooms, so it's better protected. Things are basically the same - a few new features, and some of the controls are in new places, so I'll need to spend a while tuning my muscle memory up. It's been dubbed Vera II, since it's sort of a reincarnation of the original Vera. The queen is dead, long live the queen.

We also met a bunch of interesting people at that art studio that had been scalped by the tornado. Bleu picked up a fantastic Warhol-style print of four Mona Lisas and ran into an old friend, while I got to hear the story of exactly what it's like to be targeted by a tornado. Scary stuff; I'm glad they're all right.

After we found Vera II, we went to the swamp, because there's no better place for me to put a new picturebox through its paces.

0122

0090

0129

The gators were plentiful, and part of the boardwalk was still submerged after the rains last week. Full set is here.

It's funny how all feels right in my world now that I have a camera again. And just to confirm that it is in fact mine, I've already lost the sodding lens cap. But that's all right -- need to fit her with a skylight filter anyway.
[livejournal.com profile] bleukarma totally made my day by telling me that they're throwing Jeopardy auditions and I am, according to her, "smart enough to get on and win!!!!!!!!!" The problem I'd have with that show is it tends to avoid fun stuff I know like Sex Lives Of Stone Age Europeans (thanks, Simon) in favor of categories like All Things Nebraska. And there I'd be lost, except for the one answer that would go "Who is Bruce Springsteen." I would definitely be able to tell them who's responsible for the exclamation-point shortage, though.

--

[livejournal.com profile] oregoonie, meanwhile, is recovering from some form of ebola (not Seabola, they don't have those there) but, miraculously, STILL ARRIVING ON SATURDAY. I have to find out whether or not she's still contagious before I decide if I'm going to meet her at the airport. Cos, Goonie, I know you're entertained when bodies violently eject stuff (stuff that isn't babies anyway), but me? Not so much. She's also got me explaining everything I know about airplanes, because that's how I beat my fear of them. WITH SCIENCE. I figured, if I knew what all the noises were and what's normal on a plane I wouldn't be bothered by it. It worked, bafflingly enough. You can't take the sky from meeee....

--

Dave called me, very excited, to tell me he had a present for me. And then he had to tell me what it was and read from it to me RIGHT THAT MOMENT because it was funny. (Also because the Sidney Crosby Show had come to town and it was crap for us.) He has a wacko fundie co-worker, Baptist by flavor, who had brought in or left behind (har) a science magazine, for creationists and by creationists. "It's not trying to convince anybody of anything," is how he put it. "It's for the people who already believe this crap." So he turns to the page where there's a drawing of the solar system, and he explains to me that there's one thing they said about every planet that wasn't Earth. "Like here. Mercury. Boiling hot on this side, frozen solid on that side. God did not create Mercury to support life. Mars. God did not create Mars to support life. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Heh, Uranus. Neptune. God did not create Neptune to support life. IT SAYS THAT ON ALL OF THEM. And then where they describe Earth? God did create Earth to support life." So he has a nice present for me. I will scan it so we all can have a good laugh. We need one.

--

While trying to remember which storefront across from The Other Thai Place (not as good as The Thai Place, I think) had once sold porn:

Indi: "I don't understand the not breathing part."
[livejournal.com profile] grahamux: "I don't understand any of it!"
Indi: "Some people juggle geese!"

Graham, by the way, the incense they had there? Morning Star. Had to be that stuff. With the little tile!
--

Now I have to wash my dog. Yes, at three in the morning. Her fleas are trying to create organized religion and we won't have that. They call me Shiva, destroyer of worlds.
A few nights ago, at a party:

Colby: "If I go out, you're in charge here. You're in control."
Cliff: "I, um, I, what?"
Colby: "You are in charge, after me. If anyone acts out, you make them leave."
Indi: "You just ask them if they know what the chain of command is."
Cliff: "What's that?"
Indi: "It's the chain you go and get and beat them with until they understand who's in command here!"
Cliff: "Awright!"

Last night, on the phone:

Dave: "If I put the phone in my mouth it sounds like you're on a loudspeaker inside my head."
Indi: [do I want to ask why? I probably shouldn't. Never ask why. You know that.] "Psst. I'm your conscience."

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