While I wasn't paying attention, it seems I posted my 1,000th piece. Today's is the 1,003rd - how'd that happen? And, when I started, I'd just gotten a Nikon Coolpix 4500. Halfway along, I picked up a D50. Now? Well, as you may have noticed, I'm getting pretty enamoured of the Canon G10. I've never owned one of their SLRs ("D" or otherwise), but this is, I have to admit, the second "point-and-shoot" from them that I've used. Years ago, I had a Canon Photura that I'd bought to replace a teeny Pentax clamshell-design autofocus camera that I'd, um, er, left out overnight in the rain. The Pentax was great - small, took good pictures - and I was sorry to lose it. Well, I went off to a local camera store where I'd worked once upon a time to look for a replacement. The Photura was definitely not a replacement. It was about 10-times the size, had a zoom lens, and was the weirdest looking camera I'd ever seen - complete with a flip-out spotlight! Between its weird design and that spotlight, well, of course, I had to buy it. Yep - just 'cause it looked so damn strange, I bought it. Picture quality? Who cared? Luckily, it was fine. Too damn big, but....

Anyhow, back at the G10... I'm getting to like it more and more. I can live with 80 ISO (heck - I lived for years with ISO 25!). And it's (reasonably) small and (reasonably) light. And, so far, I'm liking the output. I still can't believe they can get this kind of quality out of a dinky digicam sensor at 15 MP. It would be interesting to see what Canon could come up with in a 10-12 MP camera using whatever magic it is they've got going in the G10.

Yeah, and you all thought I lived in some quiet West Coast town with nothing much happening.

Meanwhile, Hillary seems to have bounced back. With, maybe, a little help (ill-intended, I'm sure) from someone else's friends. Of course, we all believe Smirkin' Steve's denials. Just like we believe he didn't try to bribe a soon-to-be-dead MP with a million dollar life insurance policy. The Smirk?!? Do something so heinous?!? Naaaaahhhhhh........

Isn't life exciting?

I think that's the wrong end of the tunnel.

Any "Zoolander" fans out there? This is the back door to a modelling school in downtown Vancouver. I wonder if it's the exit the failures are forced to take. "Pout, dammit! I said pout! You're hopeless! Out! Get out!", and the poor hopeful has to slink out this back door, into a squalid alley of failure. Oh, the shame. The shattered dreams. What could have been!

Riiiight.

By the by, I think I've mentioned this before, but the Tokina 12-24/4 is a darn fine lens. Sharp. Very, very little distortion. Try it - you'll like it! Really.

I know, I know - you're thinking, "Gees, could this guy boost the saturation any further?!?". Well, I didn't boost it at all. This is exactly how it is. Which makes me wonder - is my town just unusual? Are the crappy parts of other cities really gray and dingy? 'Cause they sure aren't around here. You want colour? Go to the downtown eastside. Want drab? Follow the money.

Maybe it's just that most people who photograph in areas like this seem to have a preference for shooting in black and white. Preferably with lots of grain. Maybe "gray" just says "poverty" better?

While our pals to the south are enjoying Thanksgiving, our mighty Refor......er, Conservative government is, once again, displaying its "Musharrafian" ("Opposition? I see no opposition) tendencies. And doing its utmost to delay any meaningful moves on the climate disaster.

And, while we're on the subject of some things never changing, there's this review from the New York Times of a recent Sly and the Family Stone concert. I went to one of their concerts in (oh, golly) 1969? and it was exactly the same. Wait, wait, wait some more, wait, here they come, they're coming, wait, wait, wait, yes!, no, yes!, 3 songs, gone. You've got to admire consistency. And the music. Of course, if you plan on admiring the music, you're probably best to admire it on CD.

On the other hand, some things do - and for the worse. Sorry, folks, but I made the grievous error of updating my template. "It's new! It's fun! It's easy!", quoth the Boneheads of Blogger. It ain't. You'll notice the layout's now completely screwed up. Now, were I at all interested in learning HTML (or whatever Blogger uses), I'm sure I could fix it all up in almost no time (depending on your notion of what constitutes "no time"), but I'm not. The old template worked the way computers are supposed to work for most of us - "Yeah, that's what I want - click." And, looking for help on Blogger's pointless, too. Can you say, "opaque"? Oh, well. We'll all adjust, won't we?

O.K., it doesn't exactly scream "Thanksgiving", but, nevertheless, Happy Thanksgiving, Yanqui pals! Enjoy the Murkey (i.e. mock turkey). And, well, if you're on call (or waiting for someone who's on call), hey, be thankful that it'll end. Eventually.

So, I'm fighting my way through Gary Sheynart's novel, "Absurdistan". Though all the cover blurbs bill it as being a brilliant piece of satire, witty, biting, etc., um, it's not. Gary's not a particularly good, or insightful, writer, unfortunately. There are, I'll grant you, attempts at humour and social commentary, but nothing the average eight-year-old couldn't have come up with. Oh, well - it's what I get for grabbing a book in a hurry to read on the bus.

I think these guys moved off-shore a looooonnnnngg time ago.

And, speaking of "Duh!"...

Though I have to admit I do like to see stupidity get what it deserves. Charlie Hilton (any relation, do you think, to Gay Paree Hilton? He seems to have the requisite low I.Q.) would be a prime case, just waiting to be hit with the Stupid Stick.

Back to the alley. What can I say? It was pretty neat. Well, not in the "tidy" sense of "neat", but...