my first YouTube

After being mesmerized by Jill's videos of the snow in Hoosierville, Indiana; her cats; and American music playing on the car radio while driving the Autobahn, I decided to upload a few videos from my own collection to YouTube. Indeed, this was mostly uneventful since the files were already in an acceptable format (my Pentax digicam produces 640x320 AVI files .. some of my earlier videos were saved as 320x160 MOV files).

First impression: it takes a lot longer to upload the files than it does to view them (yes, I know DSL download speed is usually much higher than upload).



It'll be a bit harder to upload stuff from my [Sony CCD-TRV75] camcorder, which is (probably) one of the last analog camcorders. I bought it in 1999 and still haven't used it enough to get my money's worth! ($835)

A few months ago, I bought the Pyro A/V Link but haven't had the time to use it yet (it works on either Mac or PC - the input is a Firewire cable).

Update: I finally went to sleep around 1am, after uploading 24 videos. That should do for now; others will probably be added on an ad hoc basis.

The quest for the elusive Dilly Bar

Yesterday after work, Jill-Bob [JB] & I went in search of a simpler time: we were hunting Dilly® Bars. You know, Day-ree Queen. It wasn't as easy as you'd think.

For those of you uncivilized city-dwellers who don't know the history behind the name "Dilly Bar", it's absurdly silly.

Plan A

Since it was still technically rush hour, we took "the back road" (partially) toward Van Alsytne, TX, where JB remembered seeing a Dairy Queen. Sure, there was one in Plano, but this destination - away from The Big City - offered a spirit of adventure, and a return to Simpler Times.

Needless to say, what we found was not quite what we expected:

the abandoned Dairy Queen in Van Alstyne, Texas. Our hearts sank. We pulled into the parking lot and just stared. In disbelief.

Some of you might say we should've checked the web first .. either Dairy Queen.com or the lesser-known DQTexas, Home of Texas Dairy Queens. In hindsight, that would've been a Real Good Idea. But, we both knew that every small town has at least one Dairy Queen. How else would small towns conduct their official business? In Texas, the mayor, city council, police chiefs, and other city staff gather with the ordinary citizens at Dairy Queen for breakfast.

Plan B

After we found the DQ in Van Alstyne closed, we decided to continue north on US-75, since there'd be another DQ in the next town. Well, that didn't happen. We got as far as Sherman, then Denison, then Durant. Up ahead, we could see the Red River and the promised land that is Oklahoma. It was time to turn around, and try some of the small towns, away from the freeway. That almost worked; we found another closed Dairy Queen, this one converted to "Queen Burger" (206 W Texas St) in Denison. Okay, that was the last straw.

Plan C

The goal now was to find most anything edible. JB suggested haute cuisine, in the form of the Snuffers location in McKinney, not far from where we started. Along the freeway exit, the GAS/FOOD/LODGING sign came into view. JB gasped for breath, and pointed. I was caught offguard, and didn't immediately understand that she had spotted .. The Holy Grail. On the roadsign were the two simple words: DAIRY QUEEN. Probably 10 miles from where we started. Oy, vey.

Exiting the freeway, we spotted the arrow directing us to The Destination. Just ahead on the right. A row of pickups were queued at the Drive-Thru. It was time to park, and go inside. To experience The Joy That Is Dairy Queen. JB wanted a soft serve cone, and she plucked a Dilly Bar from the freezer. We sat down to enjoy our find, and share a moment with Every Screaming Child In McKinney, who had come there to dine. It was nothing short of Fabulous.


on the left, the paper-bag version (made in the store). on the right, the plastic-encased version (made by child labor in Malaysia, no doubt).

Epilogue

Today, I ventured onto their website and found a DQ a weeee bit closer to home: like, uh, 4.2 miles away. Throwing caution to the wind, I drove over and bought Another Dilly Bar. This one was wrapped in a paper sack of sorts. It wasn't precision cast, like the plastic-encased one last night. But oh, the smooth, creamy goodness was all there. I even spotted a machine to make a Mister Misty, although it wasn't on the menu marquee. The only thing missing were the Squealing Rugrats.

Canon score upgraded to A++

A few days ago, I blogged about my experience with Canon's customer support, where I gave them a tentative A+. Today, the nice FedEx man arrived with the boomerang in the form of a shiny new (okay, refurbished) Canon PowerShot SD450 camera, to replace the S230 that suddenly decided not to work anymore. Recall that I bought the S230 new in December 2002.

Here are the improvements from the old camera:

bigger LCD - 2.5" instead of 1.5"
more MPs - 5 instead of 3
optical zoom - 3x instead of 2x
macro focus - 3cm instead of 10cm
movies up to 640x480

The only downside to the upgrade is that I'm now saddled with two rechargeable batteries that I can't use - the new camera uses Secure Digital media and a smaller battery. And now I need to buy a new spare, for both it and the Pentax that arrived at the beginning of the month. After "doing the math" I realized this Canon SD450 is my 6th digital camera (my first was acquired in May 2000 - a 1.2 MP Sony Mavica FD-90). Heck, the Sony saved pictures to a 3.5" diskette - anyone remember those?

Given the differences between the FD-90 and the T10 (the most advanced in my current arsenal), it'll be very interesting to see the digital photography technology leaps in the next six years.

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Unrelated: Night of the Living Doormen reminds me of my trip to Houston earlier this week.

Canon: tentative A+

A few days ago, I blogged about my newest digital camera (a 6 MP Pentax Optio T10). Turns out it arrived in the nick of time, because my Canon PowerShot S230 Just Up And Quit four (4) days later. I'm hoping the Canon wasn't spooked by the Pentax' mere presence.

Turns out there's a known issue with the S230 ("Service Notice: CCD Image Sensor Advisory"), which I discovered after calling Canon's Tech Support (an English speaker, no less) on Monday.

"While reports of this malfunction have been rare in the United States, we have determined that it may occur if the product is exposed to hot and humid environments."

I'm not sure about the humid part, but the camera did fail on Saturday when the bank clock said it was 102F. Although I bought the camera in December 2002, Canon offered to repair it for free .. and they paid the (UPS) shipping, even though it's out of warranty. Wow. That's above-and-beyond the customer (non)service I've grown accustomed to from other manufacturers in the last few years.

Canon, eh? Gotta remember them. Assuming my repaired camera arrives as they predicted (7-10 days) I will happily give them an A+. There are still times when the Canon will be a better choice than the Pentax (in bright sunlight, the lack of a viewfinder makes the T10 mostly useless), although I'm really starting to like the Pentax' touchscreen and all the features it offers. The interface is very different than most digital cameras; I can get used to that very clean touchscreen.

Note to Jill-Bob:
yes, I'm gushing about both cameras. Deal with it!

Aside: I really, really like DP Review's side-by-side comparison feature. Check out the difference between my Canon and Pentax cameras.

Dignification

Looks like the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat are the final 2 teams in the NBA playoffs. Does that mean one of them will win The Super Bowl? This whole Sports Thing continues to be mostly lost on me.

Mildly amusing:
The Mavericks play in the AAC [American Airlines Center] while
The Heat play in the AAA* [American Airlines Arena].

* not to be confused with the American Automobile Association

Not sure why American Airlines calls this "Center" versus "Centre" as Everybody Knows™ the latter is more dignified. Oh, wait .. this is Texas. Never mind.

I'm guessing the notoriously ham-handed American Airlines HQ will find a way to royally screw up the marketing opportunity they've been handed on a Silver Taco Platter. Maybe they'll run ads against repealing The Wright Amendment during the games? That'll certainly show their class.

Lay Wah Bob says that her allergies have all been cured, by using Olive Leaf Extract. Hey. whatever works. Rock on.

My 15-year (same employer) Door Prize arrived last week. Given about 24 items from which to pick, I decided on a shiny new digital camera, to supplant/replace the Canon PowerShot A230 I've been carrying for a couple years. So, I chose the Pentax Optio T10. It's actually not half bad, but (naturally) uses a different media format - Secure Digital [SD] - than my others, which have CompactFlash or SmartMedia. So, it's off to The Store to fetch an SD card.

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Everybody Knows is a trademark of Fox "News"; Rush Limbaugh Productions; and the Christian Fascist Republican Party.

resisting temptation

I was nosing around Geoff's blog, and spotted a posting about his new digicam (Nikon 5600). Hmmm .. am I overdue for a new digicam? I wonder how long I can resist the temptation?

The digital camera that I use most often is the Canon, and I haul out the E-10 when a good lens (and lots of settings) is more important than shirt-pocket size and "movie mode". This is my fourth digicam:

1. Sony Mavica FD-90 (acquired May 2000)
2. Olympus C-2100 UZ (May 2001)
3. Olympus E-10 (September 2002)
4. Canon PowerShot S-230 (December 2002)

Paula still has the Sony (I think) and Jill-Bob bought the C-2100.

I still like Digital Photography Review's website the best, in part because of their side-by-side comparison feature. Heck, I thought it'd be entertaining to compare all four of my digicams (sorted by acquisition).

Depending on whether you can tell the difference between a 200dpi and 300dpi image, anything with 3.2 megapixels [MP] or higher will produce a good 8x10 inch print at 200dpi, but you'll need a 7.2 MP camera if you demand 300 dpi precision. Also, if you have a less-than-spectacular zoom lens, and/or tend to crop a lot, the more megapixels the merrier.

I recently printed quite a few 8x10 images, and they all look crisp to me (except for a few where I did some serious zoom-and-cropping) so I suspect I can live with my 3.2 and 4 MP cameras a while longer.

... and a good time was had by all

Trish-Bob [T-B] and I grabbed a bite at Thai Soon then moseyed over to Deep Ellum and had a superb time at Trees last night, watching They Might Be Giants (aka The Johns, aka TMBG) along with 4 of Trish-Bob's friends. Should've known it'd be a good outing, with the line snaking down the sidewalk, through the parking lot and into the shore of White Rock Lake.

 

There were two warmup groups: Common Rotation (excellent) and Corn Mo (belongs in an institition). My dainty digicam did a credible job capturing videos of the performances (including an infamous accordion duet when Corn Mo and TMBG collaborated) .. I just wish the audio was as good (the volume must have overwhelmed its little microphone). Bonus: Common Rotation sang a very funny (well, to some people) diddy about WMDs.

T-B posted several JPEGs and WMVs (not to be confused with WMDs) to the web for your downloading pleasure. T-B was busy dancing and signing singing, but I'm sworn to secrecy about that. They're playing again there tonight but I'd expect a smaller crowd; I mean, who goes to a concert on a Sunday night?

SMS grows up .. to be a Pink Dot?

My shiny new Kyocera phone includes a GPS [Global Positioning System] feature; I wasn't aware that the phones themselves had to change, for things like E911 to work. Does this mean that older phones can't play in the E911 world? There's a setting where I can disable GPS from my provider's eyes, but not the nice folks at Emergency Services. Hmm. We could have used a GPS to get out of Deep Ellum last night (more on that later).

In the I Didn't Get The Memo category: I'm happy to see that Text Messaging (aka TM, aka SMS - Short Message Service) on cellphones has grown up. In the Old Days (2 years ago?) I had to know which carrier my friend was on, before I could send a TM, and it had to be formatted as number@some-specific-domain.com ... now, I just enter [Send Text] and their cellphone number ... and Magic Happens to route the call to the right network. This may only be on my sophisticated phone; Your Mileage May Vary.

One downside to the Virgin Mobile service is that my two Yahoo! Alerts (weather forecast, and a stock quote) don't work. What's so hard about sending a TM to an email address that I provide? In my case, Virgin Mobile has a well known format: number@vmobl.com .. but Yahoo! Alerts work only under AT&T Wireless; Cingular; Nextel; Sprint; T-Mobile or Verizon. I temporarily disabled those alerts, while Yahoo! gets their act together. This could take years.

The Quest Continues
While at the grocery, I picked up a package of Sun-Maid Sliced Cantaloupe. This is part of my quest to Try Something New every time I grocery shop.

Cosmic Editing
Trish-Bob learned quickly how to instruct others in the use of her shiny new digicam, during our Night On The Town with Jill-Bob:

Savvy blog readers might note the similarity between this photo, and one on Trish-Bob's blog. It's as if Gene-Bob never existed! The photo was taken by one of the roving staffmembers at the Gypsy Tea Room, where the Legendary Pink Dots performed to a stoned out sold out diverse audience. We had a good time, and really enjoyed the ERET [Extended Real Estate Tour] after the concert. Thanks, TB!

Also, before I forget ... the (admittedly low-tech) flashlight built into my new cellphone came in handy last night, as I tried to find the keyslot for my front door. Guffaw if you must, but I predict that future that all future mobile phones will include GPS chips, flashlights and perhaps even (hold onto your hats) digital cameras. Yeah, I know .. I'm quite the futurist.

GoogL'ost: GenCorp

you can't buy these in stores!

Okay, I think I understand. You slide your (not yet available!) Chameleon Card into one of Chameleon Network's Pocket Vault™'s and push a button to program the card to appear as one of your many credit cards. This is supposed to make your wallet thinner, since you only carry one credit card. But, the size of the Pocket Vault looks to be about 20 credit cards thick. Hmmm. I suppose if it were integrated into my cellphone or PDA, but I'm not thrilled about carrying yet another device.

Yesterday, I bought a new flatbed scanner. Years ago, I would have pored over the specs, read everything and after a few agonizing weeks, have chosen a model. Now, I just pick up PC World or PC Magazine, flip to the back and see which ones they liked best (it takes much less time, and the writers presumably know more about this stuff than I). The Joy Of Specs is long gone.

From experience, I know that specific models (as listed in the magazines) are seldom found (perhaps it's because of the long lead times needed to put something in print). So, when I go to my local retailer (MicroCenter or Fry's), I know to look for similar models. If it was a big-ticket item, I might use a webbot, but this is for a $50 scanner, and not a $1000 digicam. So, that's how I ended up with my Canon CanoScan LiDE 30; the store didn't stock the LiDE 50, and this one had similar specs (along with a $30 rebate). So, I bought it, took it home and plugged it in, and began scanning.

.. and then there's the story (WAIST CASE) out of New Orleans, where they're considering a law against low-riding jeans. Word is that the Louisiana Plumbers Union will sue. One place where you won't see low-riders (ha!) is in Plano today, at the Blackland Prairie Festival. They say "rain or shine" and the rain ended just before the festival started.

Gene Bob's First-Ever Boring Website of the Year Award goes to: Tabatchnick Soups. At least one of their suppliers -- Winningfoods.com -- has photos of a few of their products.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't provide a link to the coffin photos from Dover Air Force Base. The site is very, very busy and you may have to revisit. Also, don't miss Russ Kick's blog.