I’m thinking a fuchsia shirt will be the perfect complement to my orange plaid winter jacket:

Purchased at MomocA, crafted by Nicacelly.

Warning: this post might be boring. It will not be snarky. It will not be quippy. It will probably be long. It focuses on a single topic interesting to a minority of humans. Flee, if you wish.

My camera broke some time ago. By “some time ago”, I actually mean something like a year ago. This was a real bummer, because I enjoy taking pictures. A lot. I’m not a professional photographer, and never will be, but photography makes me happy for reasons I’m not fully able to understand. The evidence is here.

When my camera broke, I was on the cusp of gainful employment, and in no position to buy a replacement. However, I’ve been carefully considering the idea for some time, and am finally checking out my options.

Considerations:

1. Point and shoot vs. DSLR. My previous model was a point and shoot. It served me very well, and I had no complaints save for one really, really annoying one: shutter speed. It sucks to be taking a photo of something happening temporarily and thinking “take the picture! take the picture! take it nownownownow!!!!!” A DSLR wouldn’t have this problem, and would also have more versatility and the capacity to take higher quality photos. Verdict: I’m going for the upgrade. DSLR it is.
2. Brand. Nikon? Canon? Do any other reputable DSLR brands exist? If so, no one I know owns one. I’m pretty comfortable shooting on a Nikon, so I’m leaning in that direction. In fact, my friend Brooke of the Lovely Photos was kind enough to take me on a test run with her Nikon D40 the other day. I was very happy with its performance, as well as the results. For an example, see above.
3. Gear. Lenses, lenses, lenses. This is largely where you get the versatility. However, look at this. It’s a pretty picture, but ack! What to buy? What to buy? Also, I think I could offer to trade my firstborn child for some of these lenses, and they’d still want a genetic screening to see if the trade was worthwhile.
4. Strategy. Brooke sagely advised me to consider just buying the camera body along with the lens of my choice, unless I’m sure I’d be happy with the basic one that usually comes with it. Yes, this is smart, but it adds another layer of confusion. Would I be happy with the standard lens? If so, that would be fortuitously cheaper. If I evaluate the question and honestly decide “no”, then which of that mountain of options do I want?

As you can see, I have an exciting purchase to make. However, I’m also vastly confused. I’m usually an impulse buyer. When shopping, I enter a store, scan the entire place in 5-10 minutes, and know whether I want anything. Having to consider a bunch of important factors is making me edgy. Someone tell me what to do. Exactly what to do. Please?

Our sister city across the bay has recently seen a crazy number of restaurant robberies. The sequence of events goes something like this: several masked individuals enter the place, pull out guns, and engage in some variation of stealing customers’ wallets, stealing employees’ wallets, and emptying the register. It’s scary as hell, and, much as I love Oakland, has me a teeny bit anxious about the idea of dining there.

What precipitated this phenomenon? My first reaction was to recall the “Pumpkin and Honeybunny” scene from Pulp Fiction. Does it suddenly have some sort of retro appeal? If so, please kill me now because nothing that came out when I was in high school should be considered “retro”.

That observation aside, what else could have caused this? Is it related to the fact that the FBI has moved in to investigate the shady dealings of one of the city’s top executives? Could it be that the economy is teetering on the brink of the r-word? Or I guess it could just be that a crew of loser punks decided that taking money at gunpoint from terrified diners and restaurant staff would be a killer (that’s not a pun, because thankfully no one has died) way to earn a living.

Regardless, these guys are losers. Losers, losers, losers. That’s what we do when we have nothing else to say and life feels scary: we call people names. Names that are childish, but nonetheless fitting. I mean, how mature is it to use violence to solve problems? Not very. Grow up, kiddos. The rest of us are just trying to have a civilized meal.

Photo by adwriter

Signs that you are in Northern California:

• Cars halt for pedestrians, even without crosswalks or stop signs.
• The restaurant at your inn serves only vegetarian food.
• Peace flags are proudly displayed outside local businesses.
• The pizza parlor has a clock permanently stopped at 4:20.
• The tie-dyed-clothing-sold-out-of-Volkswagon-vans industry is booming.
• You pass the Peace, Love, and Grilled Cheeses Hair Salon.
• Your subpar canoe skills prompt a good natured “Are you high?”

From the the AP, via the SFGate:

Federal authorities say an Indiana man robbed a Chicago bank just hours after he was released from jail for a bank robbery conviction … He was still wearing clothes issued to him from Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.

I must admit that my knee-jerk reaction was the same as SFGate commenter bakunin’s:

I sorta admire a guy who finds his calling in life and sticks to it, no matter the opposition which attempts to stand in his way.

Bark-inspired suit at Prada:

Most of the time I am disgusted by the price tags that come along with high end fashion. I’m sure a lot of thought goes into each piece, and I assume the craftsmanship is several notches above what you’d find at the Gap, but hundreds of dollars for a t-shirt? How is that justifiable?

The suit pictured above, though, won my respect and left me a bit awe-inspired. Granted, I doubt it’s worth whatever they’re charging for it, but when I saw it out of the corner of my eye, I actually thought they had placed a tree in the window display. This seemed unusual, so I took a second look and did a double take (or is that a triple take?). My amateur-at-best photography skills don’t do justice to the incredible design, so you’ll have to take my word for it that the texture and color of the fabric are palpably realistic.

Say hello to clothing as art.

I was at the pharmacy recently, in line behind about 15 other people. The setup was such that there was one clearly demarcated queue feeding into a row of approximately five cashiers. As each cashier finished a transaction, he or she would invite the next customer to that particular station (thankfully not using the questionably grammatical “Can I help who’s next?”).

As I stood in line, I noticed that the woman behind me was slowly and subtly invading my personal space in an attempt to move ahead of me in line. At first, I gave her the benefit of the doubt: maybe we arrived at the same time; maybe I didn’t notice her and inadvertently cut her off when I walked in. However, I clearly remembered looking around before getting in line so as to prevent such a faux pas. Verdict: guilty.

My knee-jerk reaction was to protect my space and prevent her from advancing. In response, she adopted a new strategy. She stood off to the side of the line, as if confused about the system, and slowly moved toward the cashiers. When the one nearest her beckoned for the next customer, she made a beeline for the counter.

Freeze-frame: what to do?

During social conflicts, my regionally diverse upbringing makes itself known via a domino effect of emotional reactions. My formative years in upstate New York meant that my intuitive response in this situation was to yell:

“HEY! What do you think you’re doing? Do you think nobody saw that? Get back in line!”

However, the 15 years I lived in the Midwest immediately canceled out the New York reaction:

“be passive aggressive. You can be mad, and think that lady is rude, but dontmakeascenedontmakeascenedontmakeascene.”

Following the Illinois voice, Georgia made an appearance. This one was passive aggressive, too, but more along the lines of:

(to the other rule-following patrons) “Oh my gosh, ya’ll. Did you see what that woman did? Some people.”

Of course, after a year and a half in San Francisco, the when-in-Rome attitude of “whatever” has taken root as well. This was the prevailing attitude amongst the line-standers at the pharmacy. Some people took note of the woman’s obviously antisocial behavior, but shrugged it off. As for me, after my internal regional conflict, I came up with this:

I had nowhere to be in the immediate future. In fact, my schedule is so very flexible at the moment, it is driving me mildly insane. The truly interesting part of this scenario is that woman’s personality. What is it that caused her to pull such an elementary school-esque move? Did she have a small child to pick up at day care? Was she double-parked? Was she missing her favorite TV show? Why is it that she was perfectly comfortable subverting the other patrons’ (unknown) needs for hers?

In short: four years of sociology classes trump geography.