Category: arts and letters

My path to the Nikon D70

Olympus C2500LMy last real camera was an Olympus C-2500L digital camera purchased in late 1999. It was my first digital camera and the merging of two dreams: digital images and SLR cameras.

I’ve been obsessed with digital images ever since 1984 when I first played with MacPaint. When I got my Macintosh in late 1985, I got a video digitizer and a ThunderScan (a line-by-line scanner that would hook up to an Apple ImageWriter). I thought about digital photography ever since the Apple QuickTake came out. By 1999 quality digital cameras were finally becoming affordable and I was ready to purchase one.

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Posted on by tychay 13

The (online) state of comics

screenshot of ffviewI used to love comic books.

When I was in middle school, one of the only two disciplinary reports I received was from reading a comic book. The headmaster ripped up a issue of Groo right in front of me. I remember receiving a tap on my shoulder, him yanking it out of my hands, and me yelling, “No! Don’t…” *riiiiiiippppp*,“…It’s somebody else’s.” The fact that I finished all my homework did not matter to me; knowing that a replacement issue was going to cost me a pretty penny did.

If you couldn’t guess already, most of my comic-book-reading friends didn’t survive prep school.1 Neither did I for I stopped reading them.

Then I went to college.
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Holiday Cards

The company I work for started offering printed holiday cards. I really like the holiday list maker we built, but I’m not using them. The selection is poor. (Luckily, that is offset by allowing you to upload your own photo, which I recommend you do.) I’m uncertain they got the color calibration correct on their dye-sublimated printers. (That is a problem I’ve found with even photo printing services, so it is unfair to blame our partner.)

But really, it’s just not me.

three holiday cardsEven though I almost never send holiday cards, I am always on the lookout for great Christmas cards and buy them when I find just the right one. Potion Brand is a wonderful example of cards done right, in a way you just can’t get through a service: square cards, vellum envelopes, sparkle! I bought a couple boxes and I’m sending them to the people at work this year just to remind everyone at work what a real holiday card looks like. Perhaps I’ll get a few boxes for next year for everyone else.

Update: The cards didn’t arrive in time. I guess it goes out next year.

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The Rambaldi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HDa Vinci Code

book coverI picked up an illustrated version of Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code.

The publishers have come out with this edition to exploit the holiday season. Like Harry Potter before, I’m curious what all the hype is about. Knowing my ability to absorb “genre fiction,” I guess I might as well write this day off.

When it came out last year, it was sitting on my room mate’s coffee table, and I probably should have read it then. From the back cover, the book is about someone who finds a hidden code inside Leonardo Da Vinci’s works. A secret society called the Priory of Sion exists to protect the secret revealed by the code and the Indiana Jones-alike and a love interest go off to unveil the astonishing truth.

I know this is genre fiction, but… C’mon! Where have I heard this one before?

Wasn’t it just the other day, waiting for my $1 double cheeseburger, I noticed a huge advert for National Treasure? I can picture Eisner’s yes-men at Disney saying, “Okay, we’ll do The Da Vinci Code, but instead of that a lame Italian, we’ll have the founding fathers to make it more American; instead of the Priory of Sion which nobody has ever heard of, we’ll use the Illuminati. Heck, we have every dollar bill in the United States advertising for us! And what’s more brilliant is no royalties to Dan Brown.” The last part probably sat well with ol’ Mike: Disney is still trying to convince the world they own Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan. Yeah, and the Lion King and Atlantis weren’t ripped off either. Disney, you sure know how to tell them…I have newfound respect for your originality: I await Toy Story 3 with bated breath—that’ll show Pixar who wears the pants in the family.

No, that wasn’t where I heard it before…
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Posted on by tychay 3