I want a new digital camera. We are going to Cephalonia (Kefalonia) in May and I want it by then, so I dropped in on Jessops camera shop today.

Photography is plagued with the same problem that Hifi is:  Marketing by numbers. I want a lens that is equivalent to 28mm to about 180mm, so the shopkeeper shows me all these cameras with 10x zoom! But none of them go wider than 35mm equiv. so what’s the point. I don’t care that they sport a massive zoom range if they don’t cover the one I want. The zoom at the long range is wasted because you can’t take a picture more than about 150mm zoom without a tripod. All that fuss made over a wide zoom range is a waste. The other problem is "megapixels".4 megapixels is enough to print out onto A4 paper, there is therefore no need to get any higher resolution CCD than that. In practice, if the CCD is small but high res then there are going to be noise problems and colour distortion. Small cameras have small CCDs.

I want a good quality camera, all the numbers used in marketing the different models are no guide to the potential quality of the pictures it creates. Buying a camera has to be made from a bewildering range of choices, the marketing people are making it more confusing than ever.

These are on my list:

Fuji finepix 9500

Sony E500

2°C,+ice

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She said" so you have ‘man-flu’"

"Yeah" I replied, " but at least it’s not bird-flu".

Her reply: "so you had no trouble parking the car then".

 

That was gooood! What a quick witted reply! Cheered me up no end.

32°C ;impending thunder;very humid;steady SSE winds getting excited.

Still a bit de-hydrated after today’s cycle ride. I drank 3 litres of water while I was out and another 3 since getting home. My troublesome elbow has been no-problem today, but I must be careful. Nice elbow.

Returning to cycling is often problematic after a spate of illness, & I wasn’t sure in the first hour, but then I never am. Second hour onwards was all clear. The sunblock was very sticky – or at least it was if you are a fly, they just couldn’t get free.
http://www.bosworthwatertrust.co.uk/cms/index.asp?area=Home
this place provide sachets of sunblock to customers, which is such an excellent idea, it meant I could wash and not then get burnt.

Why can’t we have the ful set of emoticons from messenger here?

Health & unwellness

remember that cold I referred to last week, it’s still here. It’s got to the point of annoyingness, so I will try another tack, sleep really early- tonight try 22:30!

Theory:pre-illness

I have this theory, or is it a hypothesis, it goes like this:
This morning I woke up feeling mildly conscious that I may or may not have a cold coming on. Yesterday I had bags of energy, I chopped down a tree at 7 in the morning & thought the Lumberjack song. So is there a link?
Not with the song but having loads of energy before getting a cold. There are a few times that this has been noticable pre-illness in the past.

I rode 56 miles today, the route outwards was fine, but the return was tortuously slow. Now my tiredness matches a 70 mile ride so that nervous feeling of pre-cold has cost me 20 miles.

Later:Shopping

Remember my rant about Trust computer peripherals?: Well I found an online supplier that deals in Nisis replacement pens, they are identical apart from the colour. Ordered one replacement pen.

• Computer Advice Centre

The skies are full of drama today.
Sky:Deep blue, storms and crispy cauliflower clouds. The sun is warm and the rain cold, but not as cold as the damned hailstones. They really earned their name today, the stoney part anyway.

Saw something good today:
Just picture this
Imagine ghosts in the road against fresh black tarmac you only get them on days like this, and only from a certain angle just after the squall as the sun lights them up, catching them off-guard,they drift in panic.  Shaped like women in ballgowns, you know the ones with hoops underneath, they rush to the south east bending forward then curling their heads over as they maintian their elegant movement without footsteps. As they frantically drift over for cover, they are raked to death by blades of grass and barbed wire fences.

Such a short life. That reminds me of the events of two weeks ago but that’s another story.