Yesterday I went and voted. You know what? Early Voting is great! I went to the grocery store nearby with my voter registration # (I had long since lost my card) and my driver’s license and cast my ballot. I only voted on three things: the presidency, the Travis County Tax Collector, and the Light Rail initiative. But it was good to vote, and vote early!

I don’t like it so much when people talk about “surfing the web”. I think “surfing” is about surfing. And I don’t like it when people say, “It rocks!” unless they are referring to a song. Hmmm… I guess I am just getting old and grumpy. I remember when I was in high school, we would say, “That’s insane!” referring to something that was great. People change I guess.

Ever since moving to Austin back in ’98, I have been writing our automobile registration fee checks to “Nelda Wells Spears” of Travis County. I actually thought that this was a fictional name which was created just to make it easier for the local government to know what the checks were for. But today while searching online to make sure I knew where my voting station was, I came across a photo of Nelda herself. Go Nelda go!!!

(by the way, I am registered, but at my old address…)

I wonder how many blogs today will be about the breaking of the curse?

Back in ’97, Mariko and I bought a Sony Cybershot DSC-F1 digital camera, for about 60,000. It was fantastic. It boasted a whopping 4MB of internal memory, a 640×480 image, and best of all, a swiveling lens. That swivel lens was so cool because you turn it around to point at yourself, and see the lcd screen at the same time. It was fun to use this self-portrait feature while out with friends at dinner or karaoke. Unfortunately, after I dropped it once, it never charged the battery fully, so we gave it away. But while we had it (for about a year), it was awesome!

A couple photos I took with the Cybershot DSC-F1:

Shinjuku in the evening
Ginza Line
Yokosuka-sen platform
Yakitori Stalls in Kichijoji (with a little Photoshop filter; that’s me walking)
Yamanote Closeup

I have been listening to sports radio here in Austin for the past year or so. One of the two local stations is ESPN Radio, and while the local segments are not that great (too much UT/college football for me), the national programs are entertaining. But, one of my major complaints with it is their coverage, or lack thereof, of the MLB playoffs. While listening to the station on my way home from work, they kept advertising their coverage of the games. “Every playoff game, live on ESPN Radio!” is what they say. The problem was, the Astros and Cards were playing at that very moment, and they were NOT broadcasting it. I had to listen to an interview of frickin’ Mack Brown (the UT football head coach) while the NLCS was going on. What a joke. “Listen to all games on ESPN Radio!”. Except the ESPN Radio that you currently are listening to. Losers.

While I wait for the Minolta Digital-7 to be released, I have been enjoying taking photos with my film cameras. In fact, I just bought this Minolta Himatic-F rangefinder camera (circa 1972) on Ebay for $4.98. It was designed to use the 640-type 1.35v mercury battery, which is outlawed here in the States, but people have been using either SR-44 or LR-44 batteries. They are 1.55v, but are supposed to work ok, as long as you cut the ISO setting on the camera by half. We’ll see how the pictures turn out.