So here I am, time distorting and traveling faster and faster and faster around me with no gifts planned for people, nor even a solid grasp of how it came to be today so quickly.  I guess I’m going to have to go out and get a whole bunch of gift cards tomorrow…or maybe I’ll just give straight cash, since that can be spent anywhere and doesn’t require a trip to the store…but that would be even more thoughtless than gift cards, at least with those you have to decide which store they’d most likely want to shop at.  Darn, decision time; gift card or cash.

I think I’m going to go with cash.  I just hope I don’t get any really really thoughtful gifts.  Then I would feel terrible.  And probably go cry in a corner.  While clutching my camera.  Now I feel bad just thinking about feeling bad.  And that’s making it worse.  Now I’m full out depressed.  Whoop.  Not anymore.  I guess when one takes all those various medicines in the medicine cabinet and swallows four bottles of scotch everything gets a little weird.  In case my grandparents read this; I’m kidding.  I’m actually just bored and writing stream-of-conciousness style.  No poiny baby!  I’m going to go to my corner now.

So perhaps I’ve finally found a way to fit the AVCHD into my workflow.  Now all I need to do is reinstall Premiere Pro and After Effects CS4 again and I’ll be good to go.  Hopefully.

I shot a basketball game today.  I used my flash (Pentax P-O-S) and my f3.5-5.6 18-55mm lens instead of the 50mm 1.8 I used last time.  It’s hard to say which I prefer…I mean, I love shooting without a flash at indoor sporting events, but at the same time I love having AF (the 50mm doesn’t AF on my camera…no internal motor on the D40x.)  So it’s really hard.  I guess the deciding factor is going to be perfect exposure or perfect focus.  With the 50mm 1.8 on aperture mode set to meter -2/3 E.V. I get nearly perfect exposure every time, especially with white balance set to “pre” and measured off of a wall.  With the 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 AF-S I get near perfect focus on every shot.  And fast focus too…so it all depends upon, as I said earlier, whether I want to slog through a bunch of OOF photos or a bunch of crappily exposed photos.  I need either a camera with an interal motor so I can use regular AF lenses or a flash.  And I mean a good flash, not some old Vivitar film flash that is way too powerful for digital applications.  Hey, wait-I just thought of something!  Next basketball game I shoot I’m going to pull out the 18-55mm and the flash, then go to aperture mode and meter so low that the flash works better!  It’ll be almost as good as having a flash that meters on its own.  Except for, of course, when the camera sets the shutter speed to above 200, because that is the fastest flash sync on the D40x.  Too bad Nikon didn’t keep the 1/500th flash sync from the D40, because that was a professional speed flash sync on a really cheap camera.  If you want some good info about the D40/x, go to www.kenrockwell.com.

Thanks, and that’s all I care to write.

Anyways, I always try to see if I can come up with something or two that I’ve gleaned, and here’s what I’ve gotten so far out of basketball-one needs a fast lens and a fast auto focus (or a good focus ring.)  Also, be sure to set your white balance manually, the lights inside of most sports arena type things don’t fit neatly into anyone standard WB category, at least, in my experience, which I will admit is quite limited.

That’s it.  I know, all three people who read this are disappointed that it isn’t longer or better.  Shutup.

A sneak attack during a declared war is fine, one should not be off guard during war-time, but sudden attacks during peace-time are, as said, despicable.  Those who died from this treachery should be remember today, so that their memories may never fade, so history may never be rewritten to put the United States as the bad guys.

I should clarify my last statement.  There are already history books that are casting the United States in a less good light than it should be represented during the Second World War.  I mean, that is the one war in the 2oth century that one can say that we did, unequivically, the right thing.  And here are textbooks that are slowly rewriting history to throw us in a bad light.  We must remember how things actually happened, we must not allow history to be revised.  We must educate our children so that they may proudly stand up and say “I’m proud to be an American, and you cannot change that!”

Hunting is a so-called sport that I have never understood. Taking pleasure in the destruction of another living being is unfathomable to me. And the claim that it is challenging is bunk. I’ve had so many deer freeze right in front of me and continue to stand and stare after I shout and clap at them to run away, an infant with a BB gun could have easily shot them.

I’ve witnessed whale hunting in Alaska by native Inuits sporting high-powered, scoped, elaborate weapons. They eat at chain restaurants and shop at chain grocery stores in Barrow, Alaska. They inhabit mobile homes with huge satellite dishes so they can watch 500 channels, and they claim the need to “harvest” whales for subsistence living. There’s not an igloo or spear in sight. It’s a sorry, sorry spectacle.

Luckily for nearby residents and for the animals, hunting is becoming a dying sport.

In the past few years, such groups as the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association representing the firearms industry, the National Rifle Association, and the National Wild Turkey Federation have all tried to bolster the “sport” with training programs designed to inure young Americans to the cruelty of hunting and to portray it as a family event and an American heritage.

The Christian Science Monitor reported three years ago:

Hunting and gun groups are active for a reason. Between the mid-1990s and 2001, the number of hunters dropped 7 percent to about 13 million, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. By 2025, that number is projected to drop 24 percent to about 9.9 million, according to a recent study conducted for pro-hunting organizations.

Time is not on the side of those who would slaughter animals for pleasure. America’s fast-growing population is spreading urbanization and suburbanization like smallpox. On the downside, it’s degrading the quality of life for many Americans. But on the upside, it is gobbling up much of the open space hunters used to traffic in search of “game.” Urban and suburban sophisticates aren’t drawn to hunting, which is mainly entertainment for rural folk. But there’s less of rural America these days and, with it, fewer rural citizens wanting to hunt.

I’m only going to refute one thing, since I’m not up to writing a full fledged diatribe tonight-”And the claim that it is challenging is bunk. I’ve had so many deer freeze right in front of me and continue to stand and stare after I shout and clap at them to run away, an infant with a BB gun could have easily shot them.”  That right that shows her ignorance.  A deer, during hunting season, will here a hunter shift his ass from 200 yards and run away.  The only deer that stand still are the only deer she sees, the deer that live on the outskirts of cities and in suburbs-tamed, almost domesticated deer.

Bonnie Erbe, you really should research what you’re going to say before you commit it to paper.