Rants

I got a visit from the UPS man this afternoon. Perfect timing too, as we had just pulled into the garage minutes before.

New Digi-Cam.

It’ll take a while before I can digest the instruction manual, as it is about a half an inch thick (to be fair that is four different languages.) One nice thing is that Win2K recognized it as soon as I plugged it in, so I didn’t have to install several hundred megs of Olympus software. Smaller than expected, but this is a good thing for when we go backpacking or I decide to take it along on a bicycle ride.

For the last couple of months my wife and I have been meeting a few of our fellow Aiken Bicycle Club members for an early morning ride on Sundays. We have been riding more or less 25 miles by picking a loop from the Club’s inventory of past and present Spring Century rides. It is a small group of 4 to 6 riders of around the same abilities and inclinations so no one is dropped and forgotten about, nor is anyone riding at half speed so as not to get too far ahead. The ride is always fun and a nice work out, plus we are home early enough, around 9:30, so as to still have the whole day left for other things.

Start time is at 7:30 for a couple of reasons. One, it is summer in South Carolina and the heat and humidity make later in the day rides unpleasant at best. And two, traffic is very light at the time of day on weekends. The routes take us on a variety of roads in the lighter populated areas of the county, but in the last 1/2 hour of the ride no matter where we are, car traffic picks up. And these are usually the most rude and impatient drivers. They pass us on two lane roads when there is oncoming traffic and/or as close as possible to us.

The strange thing about these folks is they are all dressed very nicely, obviously on their way to church. I’m a non-attendee of church, so I don’t know why they would endanger our lives, their lives and those of the poor unsuspecting occupants in the other car just to ensure they get a good pew. My recollection of Christian beliefs is not so hazy that I wouldn’t have remembered that being late for church was a sin.

TBS the Superstation is showing “Terminator” this afternoon. Does this mean that they have to grant equal access time to the other 150 odd (and I do mean odd) candidates? Or did they black out California? Nick at Night will have to stop showing “Different Strokes” re-runs, Comedy Central will have to snip out the Father Guido Sarducci bits in the SNL shows and we probably won’t see the Woody Harrelson flick “The People vs. Larry Flint” for a couple of months either.

Deep Throat is scheduled tonight on X-Files at the Bogarduses.

Dang. I’m really jonesin on the Olympus D-40 Zoom camera. Dell had it early this week for $369, now today when I get the go ahead to buy the camera Dell doesn’t even show in inventory any more.

Now the only place left on the net with a semi-recognizable name is TheNerds.net (well maybe not recognizable to you, but I’ve bought stuff from them in the past and have been satisfied) and their price is $398 plus $18 for shipping. They have ten left. I hope they don’t sell them all until after I get home from shopping the local chain stores tomorrow.

The local Honda dealer bills himself as “Your Straight Talk Dealer.” Apparently the straight refers to just the talk. Tonight coming home from the Master’s Miata Club meeting we were behind a new Accord recently purchased there and the 3 x 5 inch sticker telling me where he bought the car with the words Straight Talk in bold was plastered on under the left tail light at about 5% off from level.

I’m seriously considering a new digital camera. My current Fuji is a 2 MegaPixel and I’d like to double my pixel count. The more the merrier for me, as my in camera composition skills are seriously lacking. Thank heaven for Paint Shop Pro.

I’ve got it narrowed down to two cameras, the Olympus D-40 and the Minolta S414. The Olympus is discontinued already according to their web site, but it’s pluses are it is small, uses just 2 AA batteries, uses the same smart media card that I already have and has a remote control for the shutter. The Minolta has a 4x zoom and is slightly cheaper.

Now that I’ll listed the pluses for each it seems a no-brainer, Olympus. I’m still about $100-150 short of the money I need to buy the thing though. I was all excited to find the Olympus for <$300 at several places on the web, but came crashing down to reality when I noticed that this was from marginal dealers and refurbished to boot. The Minolta is more readily available and about $50 cheaper. Come back in a month, I'll let you know.