Hmm…I wonder if Bill will be my friend. Apparently, he’s decided to join LinkedIn. He has a relatively simple profile, but it’s there nonetheless. The article on Yahoo! mentions that he was on Facebook, but reportedly quit using it because too many people were trying to be his friend. haha.
Looks like Visa is planning to go public. I have no idea when, though. I must say, it would be really nice for Visa to start in the 40s like MasterCard did, and then take a nice 2 year zoom to $200. I doubt that will happen, though. It seems that Visa is likely to be oversubscribed due to MasterCard’s success, meaning opening prices are likely to be ridiculously high. I guess we’ll see.
When Dan and I went out to take pictures, he brought a long his new Manfrotto tripod. It’s a 190XPROB with the 322R Ball Head. I must admit I’m kinda jealous. He got it for Christmas, and my my it’s a very nice tripod. But it’s not cheap either. It seems that B&H has it for the nice price of $264.90. Seems like a lot of money, but that’s about the going rate. And I guess you have to spend a lot to get a nice tripod. It’s definitely a rock solid one. Put it down, and it doesn’t move. It’s got some nice features too, like an articulated center column that swings out. Good stuff. Now I want one.
Dan B. and I went out to Crystal Springs Reservoir and Half Moon Bay on Saturday to take pictures. We had a blast! I still haven’t had a chance to go through all the pictures I took. It looks like I took 287 pictures that day. Mostly, I shot in RAW, so I’m going to have to do some serious processing before they get posted. But when they do, I’m pretty sure they’ll be lovely.
Apparently, a middle school in Camden, Maine has banned flatulence because it has been deemed “disruptive”. Never thought I’d see the day when bodily functions were disallowed. I always thought it was really embarrassing when this stuff happened to me in school. I guess those 8th grade boys think it’s a sport. haha.
Toshiba has to be hurting after this news. I guess Wal-Mart has decided not to carry HD DVDs any more. Seems to me like HD DVD is a losing proposition. My guess is that Sony will win out on this one.
If you haven’t had a chance to buy your Canon camera gear with a nice rebate, be sure to check out the ones that expire on Sunday. (The PDF is here, but it’s 9.71 MB, so hopefully you’ve got broadband.) Then go buy some gear! They have a pretty nice selection of lenses available with a rebate, though frankly, the rebates aren’t as good as they have been in the past. Historically, they’ve had rebates where the more gear you buy the more you save, so if you bought two lenses, you’d save a lot more.
But Canon is pretty good about offering rebates on a periodic basis, so if these don’t suit your fancy, feel free to wait a while until the next rebate period. Just don’t buy your gear on Monday after the rebate expires.
So I didn’t post about it a while back because my blog was in transition, but on January 24, nearly a month ago, Canon introduced the world to the new Rebel XSi. Personally, I think it’s a dumb model name, and it’s kinda hard to say. Sounds like “excess eye” to me. In any case, it’s got some pretty cool features. DPReview has a nice copy of the press release, as well as an article detailing What’s Changed since my beloved XTi was introduced in late August 2006.
I must say that it certainly has some nice features to it. But when asked by my friends if I’ll be upgrading, my typical response right now is that I will not. I think my next camera will likely be a full-frame camera such as the 5D but that would cost me an arm and a leg, so that won’t be happening any time soon. I suppose the XSi would make a nice backup body if my XTi died and I needed a replacement ASAP. But in the meantime, I’m very content with the body I have, and I will likely wait a number of years before buying again.
Happy Valentines Day to everyone. And for those of you who prefer, Happy Singles Awareness day. I know I talked to Andy tonight, and that’s what he’ll be celebrating. In any case, call someone you love and tell them. And yes, it’s OK to call your parents and your siblings.
By the way, I know that no one on the outside can see it, but I think it’s rather apropos that this post has ID number 14, don’t you?
Just a shout out to some new, awesome friends! Charlene and I had dinner with Joe and Kim tonight. Suffice it to say we had a number of good laughs and can probably discuss just about anything with them now. It would be fair to say the conversation wasn’t exactly Rated G the entire time, but according to Andy, that’s the way it is when Joe’s around. Turtle, dude.