Sunday, March 27, 2005

Do I really have to work tomorrow?


IMG_0267
Originally uploaded by MattG42C.

Took plenty of pictures with the new camera today... for better or worse, about 75% of them were of my parents' cat "Mittens."

Maybe I'll try to do the Office Space thing and just not show up.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Dilbert Awards

This is going to be a short post... I'm going to be intentionally vague. My company at some point in the past few weeks had an awards ceremony for my department. It was straight out of a Dilbert cartoon. The managers patted themselves on their collective backs, congratulating themselves on doing a good job of raising employee morale, the huddled masses dying a little more inside.

I need to come up with an idea, or money, or better yet, both.

A few CD recommendations - inspired by 89.3 The Current.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Abbatoir Blues
The Bad Plus, Give
Lanterna, Highways

Only 2 weeks until Long Beach! And I just signed up for the free Digital SLR class that came with my camera, here's hoping it's worth something. The price is right. Apologies to any English teachers who may be reading for starting a sentence with "And".

Monday, March 21, 2005

Long Beach Tickets


Long Beach Tickets
Originally uploaded by MattG42C.
Not much to say here, can't wait.

Very happy with the new camera thus far... I've already printed a few shots and they turned out great. I suppose eventually I will have to decide if a photo printer is worth the extra cost.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Fun With Macro Mode


IMG_0053
Originally uploaded by MattG42C.

One of the first shots with my new camera... being that it's dark out, I have to scrounge for things to shoot. The nice thing about digital is I don't have to wait and pay even more money to see the results!

I'm hoping to do a decent comparison shot between my old P&S digital and the new Rebel XT. Problem is that, as I've already noticed, when you size the XT pics down to web-size, some quality is noticeably lost... though I still think it blows away the S110.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

No Will Power


New Toy
Originally uploaded by MattG42C.

I was planning on starting this with, "just call me a materialistic American"... but I actually feel zero buyer's remorse and am looking forward to all the fun this camera will offer. More to come...

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Dilemma

I'm facing a moral problem of immense magnitude.

Okay, not really... I'm going back to Los Angeles next month for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. This is the event that helped revitalize downtown Long Beach, starting in 1975. The first year it was run with Formula 5000 cars as a test, and from 1976 until 1983 it was the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix West. Following Formula 1's departure in 1984, CART (now Champ Car) has run each race since. Without going into the various politics involved (see CART-IRL split,) it is possible that this may be the last Long Beach GP run with Champ Cars.

My problem is that I want to bring a decent camera to shoot with. I currently own a Canon Rebel 2000 film SLR camera, and have a couple decent telephoto lenses. My digital camera is a rather old 2.1 MP PowerShot 110 that is just a point-and-shoot. I don't like either of those options - the digital doesn't take very good pictures and only has a 2.5X zoom. The film camera takes nice pictures, but they obviously need to be developed ($$$) and I hate hassling with film when going through the airport, and then the pictures usually just collect dust in a box afterwards.

Also wrapped up in this decision is a) the need to reduce debt by not spending money [especially on frivolous toys] and b) delusions that maybe I should explore photography as either a more serious hobby or something to make money with on the side.

Bottom line, I am used to the quality of image that an SLR gives, and even newer P&S digitals just look sub-par to me. I also have two Canon EF telephoto lenses that would be wasted if I got anything besides a Canon Digital SLR.

My choices are basically:
1. Buy nothing, bring the digital camera. Least encumbering and I wouldn't have to worry about keeping track of it when doing other things as part of the race weekend.
2. Buy the new Canon Digital Rebel XT when it comes out next week. ~$1000.
3. Buy the Canon EOS 20D that I mentioned earlier. A nicer user interface (wheel instead of buttons,) faster shooting, heavier duty. ~$1400.

Plus, you know if I bought one of the cameras, I'd be helping the country's economy... and we all have to do our part. :P

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Kenny & Mr. Hanky


From Road America 2002.

Since Kenny is always dying, it's appropriate that he's in the runoff area for a 190 mph straight that slows to about 40 before the next corner.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Argh

Okay, I am forcing myself to write something... anything... before Lara beats me up again. I barely survived the last lashing.

This week at work has been one of the most stressful I've had since arriving at my current company. We have an on-call rotation for application developers which at the best of times is a minor inconvenience... this week it has been a royal pain-in-the-ass. Details don't really matter at this point, but suffice to say I am really looking forward to tomorrow evening and possibly some severely-alcoholic beverages. A pan-galactic-gargle-blaster sounds good.

I'm a big Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, and I have high hopes for the new movie that arrives sometime late April. The trailer up is on the movie's website. Everyone should watch it.

I need to try come up with a topic to write about next time... I doubt I'll get around to more complaining about LA. :)