Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi)

We ordered a new camera a couple of weeks ago. Chrissy has been collecting AirMiles reward points for about 15 years, and we decided to finally redeem some of them.

Our old camera, a Sony DSC-V1, takes great photos, but lately we've been having some issues with it. When we were at the Grand Canyon it ran out of batteries. And the last couple of batches of photos have all been out of focus in the top left corner. We got that camera in 2004 when Laela was 7 months old just before we took her to Mexico for the first time, and just before my sister Brooklyn's wedding.

So we were trying to decide which camera was best and we pretty much settled on either the Nikon D60 or the Canon EOS 450D. Both are great cameras, but the kind folks over at dpreview.com convinced me that the Canon would yield superior picture quality across more diverse conditions. So that's the one we settled on.

For some reason this camera has three different names depending on where you buy it. In Japan it's called the Kiss X2,



in the USA and Canada it's called the Digital Rebel XSi,




and in the rest of the world it's called the EOS 450D.




note - it's interesting how the layout turned out nothing like it was supposed to!

From TIME:

"At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks."

"He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one."

Binary

8-bit:

64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
=64+32+16+8+4+2+1
=127

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
=64+1
=65

0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
=4+2+1
=7

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
=1

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Why is NBC TV show online viewing so difficult?

I was trying to watch Heroes today with Chrissy, whose birthday is was. For some reason watching shows on NBC.com works well only about 60% of the time. Why can youtube have millions of perfectly-functioning videos, but NBC not? iTunes always works too for that matter.


The question then becomes: is NBC inherently defective, or does the problem simply lie with the people that work at NBC? Regardless of your political affiliation I'm sure you agree with me that it has to be both, because that would also explain the awful coverage of the Olympics and the company's apparent refusal to replace the peacock with a dancing bear -which would be way more hilarious.

From now on I may be forced to watch TV on the TV. No, I'm just kidding.

Happy 450th Anniversary Queen Elizabeth!

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth has been queen for 450 years? She was crowned on November 17, 1558.

Oh, someone just told me that wasn't the same Queen Elizabeth.

Never mind, I guess.

Living on the Beach

Our family has spent the past four days staying in a condo overlooking the Sea of Cortez in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.

Every time I come to Mexico I can't help but try to figure out a way to not have to leave. Even Laela and Ivy have been asking if we can stay here.

Living in AZ has made it a lot easier (and cheaper) to come down here, but the 4.5 hour drive, combined with the less-than-flexible MBA schedule, is just enough to prevent us from coming more than about once a year.

We were lucky enough this time to be here at the same time as the annual Rocky Point Biker Rally (or whatever it's called). I don't understand how it's pleasant to spend time on the beach in boots, black jeans, and black long-sleeve Harley t-shirts, but to each their own I suppose.

I'll maybe post pictures sometime, either here or elsewhere.

Cheers

Election Day

Happy election day everyone.
Hopefully this president won't be both evil AND a complete moron.
Then again, we didn't necessarily know that about GWB in 2000 did we?

Missing Canoe

Having something stolen is one of the most aggravating things that can happen.

I had a cop over this evening. He pretty much said that there's nothing we could have done. Even if it was locked up someone would've taken it if they wanted to.

Right now there's an ad on craigslist that matches the description pretty closely. He's selling a red Coleman canoe for $100 ($200 less than any other ads I've seen recently). He also says he's had it for years but he's not sure how long it is. Sounds suspicious to me.

The cop told me that IF we had the canoe registered or something (canoes don't have to be registered in AZ) then they could act on an ad like that, but that in this case we'd have to carry-out a sting operation ourselves. There is a registration number on the canoe from 1997, but it's not linked to us in any way via any sort of paperwork.

The worst part is that this is my week off from school. I would have been using the canoe a lot more this week than usual.

Someone stole our canoe right out of the back yard! It was tied up to the dock and everything. Who does that? I'm so mad that I don't even know what to say.