Weapons of Choice

I’ve recently gone back to something I like doing a lot, which is taking pictures. I got my first camera, a Konex 35mm film compact camera when I was in 4th Grade back in the late 80s. It was fixed-focus but it took decent pictures and had a powerful built-in flash. Many a Kodak/Fuji film roll were used up using it.

Throughout the years I’ve had a compact film camera of some sort (usually a Minolta or a Pentax) and as of late had used my brother’s film Canon EOS 66 SLR camera. I arrived late into the digital age 3 years ago with a 3.2MP Olympus Stylus [mju:300] Digital.

 

There’s not much in terms of manual controls, shutter response is quite slow, weak built-in flash, and uses the XD-Card. Given these flaws, I end up with a lot of images that IQ (image quality) sensitive people would find a lot of room for improvement in. Nevertheless, the dark underexposed and blown-out overexposed images did capture those important moments; nothing a little post-processing couldn’t fix. To be fair, there’s really a lot of shots that turned out well. Plus, it’s a very well-built weatherproof digicam that has served me in light rain showers and has survived several trips to the floor.  You can see a review here.

A couple of months back, I had an opportunity to go watch a live Formula One race. I’ve been lusting for a nice upgrade to my Olympus, and I took this opportunity to finally get something more substantial like a DSLR I could use in that event. I had looked at several worthy options such as the Canon 350D/400D and the Nikon D40/D80. After testing those units I found them to be a bit plasticky and a bit lightweight for my taste; I know these are very good cameras that can take excellent pics, but they just didn’t feel right or just didn’t meet my expectations of heft.

That’s just me, and I decided to get a mid-range camera as they had that feel I was looking for. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the budget to get a brand new Canon 30D or a Nikon D200 so I had to looked for a used one. Fortunately there was a local photography forum that had people selling used stuff and just a few days before I had to fly out for Malaysia I found a reasonably-priced preowned Canon 20D.

The owner was switching brands and was disposing the 20D to fund his upgrade, and after checking the unit out, got it along with the 18-55mm kit lens, three batteries, and the usual accessories. My 20D had a few cosmetic scratches, and the rubberized grip was loosening on one side, but nothing that would get in the way of doing the job. In fact, I’m very happy about how it performs. I’ll write more about it next time.

The Rude Awakening of Optimus Prime

When I was in gradeschool, every boy in school had Transformers.

Except me.

Meeeeeeeeee.

I was stuck with dinky Gobots, or MachineRobos as they were known in Japan. I had a few Takara toys that Hasbro had used as the basis for some Transformers characters, but they just weren’t the same without those heat-sensitive Autobot/Decepticon stickers. So back then, I really felt like an outcast. I even successfully traded five MachineRobos in immaculate condition for a really beat up Wheeljack figurine (he who transforms into a Lancia Stratos with Alitalia sponsorship), only to have the embarrassment of my life when my mom went to the other guy and demand my MachineRobos back. The mental scars are still there.

Disclaimer: Okay, I know that Transformers were quite expensive then. But I still pined for them. If it makes you any happier, I never got one back in school. Happier now?

Anyhoo, a lot has happened then. My last significant memory of the Transformers has been the animated cartoon movie where my favorite Autobot Optimus Prime died (and I cried), some big planet robot thing with Orson Welles’ voice chomped at Cybertron, and an emo Autobot named Hot Rod became the new Prime (he sucked at being Prime). I never saw anything after that, but looking at Wikipedia apparently a lot of Transforming has been happening since then. The story’s gotten quite long, with offshoots like Beastwars, Armada, and now we have a live-action/CGI movie coming in a few weeks.

Along the way they brought Optimus back to life, and I’m sure he was returned in a prim-and-proper way. I would still prefer it they did it below (be forewarned that this might mutilate your childhood memories):

My Jinternet Idol

I admit it. One of the reasons I decided to inflict my particular flavor of insipid writing on the web is because of one person who calls himself Pimplepopper.

He used to be an IT guy who quit IT to become a showbiz writer. I’d read the articles in a local showbiz magazine where he would invite himself to the bedrooms of popular actresses and take nice pictures. In the interests of gender equality, I’m sure Pimplepopper goes into the bedrooms of popular actors as well, but I don’t think those articles ever saw the light of day.

Anyway, he quit that too and has diverted his acerbic wit and literary prowess to the web for the past couple of years. His writing and choice of topics is, shall we say, interesting, to say the least. If you met him in person, you’d think that he was this lovable teddy-bear kinda guy and not capable of writing about the stuff he writes about.

He got married recently, and has written about his nuptials on his blog. When my wife saw the wedding and vacation pictures, she thought Pimplepopper and Missus Pimplepopper live such a blissful and beautiful life. I decided to show her otherwise with one of Pimplepopper’s recent blog entry on marital bliss.

That sure convinced her. Now I have Pimplepopper requesting me to tell my wife that he is not a worshipper of underworld denizens.

Oops, too late.

Pimplepopper, you’re my idol. I want to learn how to write like you. I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

If they had a Jinternet-Idol reality game show/contest about blogging with Ryan Seacrest in it, you’d have my vote via SMS in a heartbeat.

Formula One USGP 2007

The US Grand Prix at Indianapolis was always the one that I’d miss watching, primarily because it’s broadcast live in the wee hours of the morning in my timezone. Not that I’d really missed it these past few years, the races weren’t that exciting given the forced track layout (an infield section squeezed into the big oval), plus that one year when all the Michelin-shod teams didn’t race, leaving the Bridgestoners to duke it out (basically the Ferraris and the backmarkers). 

That said, I’m freaking glad I didn’t miss the 2007 edition of the Formula One USGP.

The qualifying itself was nailbiting with the two Mclarens fighting it out for the pole. Alonso was strong all the way during the weekend’s practice section and was the strong favorite. And yes he was on the way to get the coveted first slot on the grid.

But we’ve got one Lewis Hamilton, aged 22, British. Rookie. With podium finishes since the start of the season. And a victory over Alonso in last week’s Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal. Someone I didn’t really take notice of when his announcement as Mclaren’s second driver, I even thought his 3rd place in Melbourne was due to a very superior MP4/22.

I did sit up and notice him when I watched my first-ever Formula One race in person at Sepang Malaysia earlier this year when he got the second podium step. Here he is:

On a track he’s never been to, Lewis just went ahead and pipped Alonso for P1. Just like that. And to make a long story short, also led from the start of the race to the chequered flag, beating his double World Champion teammate. Okay, they actually raced wheel-to-wheel when Alonso tried to overtake him at one point, but Lewis just kept his cool while Alonso backed off.

In other news:

Ferrari was more muted this time around, but we saw signs of Kimi regaining his old form and made a late charge at teammate Massa. Not that it mattered much from a team perspective, they were both far from the front-running McLarens.

We also had a great race in the midfield. We’ve got an overacheiving Adrian Sutil in a Spyker, that by conventional wisdom shouldn’t have been anywhere in the middle of the pack, but there he was. We’ve got Davidson in a Super Aguri (read: Honda B-Team) overtaking Jenson Button in a Honda works car, 19-year old Vettel in the points for BMW-Sauber (first teenager and youngest to win an F1 point).

 My personal favorite Takuma Sato of Super Aguri unfortunately had a bad day. He spun out into a gravel trap while trying to overtake from the outside and his race ended there. To top off his DNF, he is going to be penalized 10 grid slots in the next race because the stewards judged that he had overtaken on double-waved yellow flags. Tsk.

We also had first-lap drama. Ralf Schumacher ended the race for Coulthard, Barrichelo and himself when he braked too hard and made a mess for the two others. This track has never been kind to him, as he had a serious accident here before. However, that was an accident and this was something that could’ve been avoided.

The Indy track’s a lot better than quite a few out there in the race calendar because there are lots of overtaking chances (Monaco, anyone?). I hope Bernie Ecclestone and the Indianapolis Speedway people sign off on another few years of F1 in the US, as their contract expires this year.

And oh yeah, they tested out the lighting system on this track as part of their evaluation of night races for F1. Read somewhere else that the test satisfied their requirements.

And finally… we got to hear Ron Dennis saying “I love you, too, Lewis.” This from a guy who’s better known for introducing the word “package” into the F1 vocabulary.