Category: Uncategorized

ANOTHER SUMMER, ANOTHER CAMERA

Last summer, I bought my very first digital camera from Ebay. My little refurbished CX 4230 served me well. I bought it way under retail and it came with a one-year warranty from Kodak.

 

About two months ago, it stopped powering on. I’d flip the switch and nothing would happen. The only way I’d get it to power on was to remove the batteries, wait eight hours, put the batteries back in, and then turn it on. Once I’d turn the camera off though, I’d have to do the same thing again. It was so frustrating for me to get it to turn on… there’s a joke about me and women in there somewhere.

 

Anyways, having it still under warranty, I sent the damn thing back to Kodak Canada to get it serviced. After a week, I got a letter in the mail, telling me that they could not repair my camera under warranty. Apparently, the power circuits had corroded and they believed something had spilled into the camera. I can say without a doubt, I never had anything spill into my camera. Nothing. They would repair it, but only if I paid $187 plus taxes. That was more than what I paid for the camera in the first place.

 

I decided to decline the repair and have them send back my camera. The only thing I can think of that would cause corrosion was the times I humidified my room in the winter. It was quite comfortably humid in my room. Though that might have done wonders for my skin, it may have adversely affected my camera.

 

No matter what was the cause, I was still out a camera. I turned to the Ebay well again and this weekend, I managed to snag a CX 6230. This camera is one model up from my last one and $25 USD cheaper as well! It’s 2 megapixels and 3x optical zoom just like my old camera. The feature I am most excited about is the movie clip with sound capability. This means video is coming to www.erwintang.com! Random clips of me eating fried chicken… clipping a large toenail… pairing up my socks… the possibilities are endless!

 

I’m not sure when I’ll be getting my camera, but stayed tuned for some exciting updates!

EXHAUSTED

Wow, I feel really, really tired right now. I haven’t felt this fatigued in a long time.

 

I got seven hours of sleep last night, which for me, is a lot. I didn’t do anything until we played hockey today. We played for an hour and a bit, and it didn’t seem especially exhausting. Maybe it was the heat. I must have sweat off a ton of water today.

 

Or maybe it was the two drinks I had with dinner. They say alcohol is a depressant. Perhaps that’s why I feel so tired right. Boy, this was a enlightening post.

GEEKFEST FRIDAY

I’ll admit, I’m comfortable being a geek. Tonight though, it was one for the books. Let me enumerate the events of the evening:

 

  1. Dinner with the Carolyn, Amber, and the guys. Food consisted of greasy KFC and Pizza Hut. Soft drinks were also consumed.
  2. While we were busy smearing grease on our face, we watched the Special Edition DVD of Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan.
  3. After the movie, we played Call of Duty over the LAN. As usual, I cleaned up on the Behind Enemy Lines maps. I suck at Search and Destroy though.

If I didn’t already live where I did all of this, I’m pretty sure one of my parents would have come to pick me up for the drive home.

WAY TO GO DICK

Yesterday in the US Senate, a measure to ammend the US constitution that effectively banned same-sex marriages was defeated. It comes as no surprise that the push for the admendment came from the Republican party and was whole-heartedly endorsed by George W. Bush. Called to comment, Bush said he was “disappointed” in the failed measure.

I couldn’t find any comment from Dick Cheney. Cheney usually has a lot to say about anything to do with presidential affairs, being involved more than any vice-president in recent history. Since Dick is so quiet, maybe I can help here. The following is a snippet from a vice-presidential debate in October 2000. The moderator is Bernard Shaw. He asks both candidates about sexual orientation.

SHAW: …sexual orientation. Should a male who loves a male and a female who loves a female have all — all — the constitutional rights enjoyed by every American citizen?

CHENEY: This is a tough one, Bernie. The fact of the matter is, we live in a free society and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don’t get to choose, and shouldn’t be able to choose, and say, “You get to live free, but you don’t.”

And I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It’s really no one else’s business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard.

The next step then, of course, is the question you asked of whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction, if you will, of the relationship or if these relationships should be treated the same way a conventional marriage is. That’s a tougher problem. That’s not a slam dunk.

I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions and that’s appropriate. I don’t think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.

I try to be open-minded about it as much as I can and tolerant of those relationships.

Whoa, I thought he wanted the matter to be decided by individual states? Didn’t you say, “I don’t think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area”? Cheney’s own wife was publicly against the ammendment, mostly likely in support of their daughter, who well, happens to be a lesbian.

Wouldn’t you feel weird if your own political party sought to limit the freedom of your own children? Interesting.

Thanks to Jon Stewart for reminding me of the debate.