never knows best...

dry as toast

Or this (shown in cognac), in black.



It does look nice, probably has very little use though because it's not made for carrying notebook computers (only normal paper notebooks). Spirit points seem to be only worthwhile on luxury goods, which makes sense seeing as how slowly they update the catalog. So, expensive things, non-electronic things are the only things that ever retain value.

We sigh when we're on the phone
But the voice in my ear
Says it wouldn't be same if you came here
But it's just miles
It's only miles
It's just miles
& miles & miles & miles & miles

From casiotone for the painfully alone's Journal

The highlight of my day yesterday almost was hearing that song, but The Killers and Tegan and Sara didn't fail to impress. I think both are probably a lot better live than they are on CD form, which I find to be very unusual, but that just makes it all the more worthwhile to go see them live.

The other almost highlight of my night (if only I had found out earlier) is that The Fillmore's coat check is welcome to provide concert go'ers with free ear plugs. Me, stupidly forgetting them in the car and then not being able to get out of the venue (what's up with not letting people come and go as they please?), spent a good while griping about the lack of earplugs to Ian. Unfortunaltey, I didn't find out about the free ear plugs until the concert was over and I was stuck near the coat check while waiting in the merchandise line. Finding that out ahead of the fact would've trumped the concert... maybe.

It's kinda weird, but a lot of the English info I find about Dotch? Cooking Show point out how biased it is towards Japanese cuisine, and is yet a further example of the Japanese culture promoting how precious it is. It makes me think of how Bobby Flay lost in Iron Chef, and how in the French castle Iron Chef episode the Japanese and French judges basically voted down country lines.

The good (maybe bad?) thing about watching Dotch is that it makes you hungry. The whole build up (various Japanese stars going 'Ahh... looks so good' or 'Ahh... me so hungry' over and over again, literally like every minutes) to the final presentation and the presence of less fru fru cuisine leads to a show that really, really makes me want to have some of what they are cooking too.

And now to go off on a different tangent, I dislike one word band names. I don't know why it never bothered me before but what is this crap like Acceptance and Gratitude? It doesn't really help that I don't really like either band. But something about these positive nouns as a band name seems very suspect to me, it's probably the Christian band vibe I get off of the name. Anyhow, yay for apropos titles.

A perk of being in the boonies: cows happily help out with weed control.

I still find it very interesting that Bonnie Pink was included in the South By Southwest lineup (download Tonight, The Night), seeing as she is pretty definitely Japanese pop, and pop and indie usually don't get along too well. It would've been interesting if she was able to get out to the Bay Area somehow for a show. But, like it was for Mayday (probably lots harder for her compared to Mayday), it would be playing before a totally different type of people, and probably in a lot smaller of a venue than what she is used to (i.e. probably a club or something like The Fillmore at best).

sadgettingsadder is hosting her Toronto show for those with time and bandwidth.

Yesterday, I picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3 camera for Amy because Fry's had it for probably the lowest price it is every going to get to. Naturally, I went to Circuit City and price matched to get that extra $5 off. I was almost afraid that they didn't sell it anymore because it doesn't turn up on their website anymore, but I grabbed the last one (maybe I should have tried to buy the display model too for cheap).

Why the FZ-3? Cause it's cool, but I thought I'd take some time to evaluate my thoughts on some digital cameras.

Canon PowerShot A510
Updated Canon A75 with a smaller body and 4x zoom. Good picture quality and all the manual features I would ever use. Only thing against it is its average performance (in terms of speed). Another plus is that it is relatively dirt cheap, there was a time when you could get it for $150 from Staples, but those days have passed and it's now going for around $170-200.

Nikon Coolpix 3700
Smaller than the Canon A510, and made out of metal. Outside of that it doesn't have as many of the manual controls as the A510 (only white balance if I remember correctly), but it is smaller and it had a better movie mode (not that I would ever use it). Was really cheap with rebate, like $120, but I think the rebate is over, so it's not much of a deal anymore.

Fuji FinePix F700
Fancy technology that apparently doesn't do much and fast performance. Plus, it is pretty compact and has all the manual controls. But, it is really more like a good 3 MP camera, so it is not worth the price premium. If it fell under $200, I would consider it, but at $250 after $50 rebate from Costco, it is still too pricey.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-V1
Sure it cost $600+ when it came out and has atrocious battery life, but it has laser based autofocus, how cool is that? Plus it's compact and has manual controls (see a recurring theme here?). Too bad it is discontinued, I should've jumped on it and got it at Sears when it was $300, now you can only find it at relatively pricey levels or refurbished. Lasers!!

Casio Exilim EX-P600
Compact 6 MP with good performance and manual controls (plus a whole mess of other settings as reviews seem to indicate). I was taking a real serious look at this, and if the price drops some more this looks like a real steal. I think Amy actually would have been happier with this camera, but the FZ-3 sale came up and I went with that instead.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3
12x zoom and image stablization, and relatively small. Plus something about it's lens being f2.8 all the way through, which I don't understand but it seems to be cool whatever it is. Only problem is that it is only 3 MP, but that's mostly good enough, unless Amy goes and wants to make a huge poster of something.

So, I guess I didn't really look at that many different cameras, but I blame the manufacturers for not making cheap cameras that have manual features (except for Canons). So, I end up looking at a lot of discontinued cameras that are now being discounted (i.e. FZ-3, V-1, F700, and somewhat the P600).

I go to sleep for 13 hours and wake up and it is April 1st, of course it doesn't register until I read a bunch of obviously fake news.