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Three, no four, but not five

Once again, I fail at “5 things make a post”.

Coraline was fantastic – go see it. The stop motion was incredible. I want to watch it in slow motion to try to figure out what they did. The story was short for the length of the movie: there were a lot of gee-whiz scenes that didn’t advance the plot. They were so gorgeous you hardly noticed, though. I would like to see it in 3D, but not sure I’m going to be able to drive two towns south to the closest theater playing that version. I will definitely be owning it on DVD though.

I finished the first round of revisions on a long story/novelette and sent it to a few friends for comments. This is the first substantial piece of fiction I’ve finished in ages. I’ve written several hundred thousand words in the past few years, but never finished anything longer than flash fiction. It’s a bit intimidating, actually, because if it’s done then people get to read it. Oh my. I celebrated its completion by going out for sushi for lunch, and by starting the next story. I write plenty of non-fiction, and some of it is widely read, but stories are more personal. Still, I was persistent, and finished it, and brave, and shared it, and if anyone comments I will revise it some more. And until then I’ll work on the next one.

Circuit City’s going out of business sale has been pretty disappointing. Their discounts on most of the items I’m interested in buying aren’t great enough to overcome their lousy original prices. I bought a camera from them today, though. The 30% discount beat the online prices for that model, though just barely. I took the Sony alpha 300, and the guy behind me took the 200. Looks like waiting for better discounts wouldn’t have worked. The camera in its CC bag is sitting in front of me as I type. I haven’t take a single photo yet, or looked at the manual, but I will report back.

I used to do a fair amount of film photography, and have a small collection of Minolta lenses. I got that camera body at a going out of business sale too, actually. I just don’t take film photos any more, and have gone through a succession of moderately well-equipped digital point-and-shoots. I take a lot of photos for work and pleasure, but the DSLRs have been out of my price range. They’ve come down a lot as the technology improves, and every so often I think that I should look into finding a digital body that will take my lenses. I finally did, and found that the Minolta D7 would work great. But Minolta was bought out by Sony, and the D7 is no longer made. I looked at some used bodies, but they were expensive and hard to find.

Eventually I discovered that the Sony alpha series would also take my lenses. The reviews are pretty good, and it looks like pretty much what I want. I’m not a good enough photographer to need a higher-end DSLR, but I’d like more control than I get with my little Canon. It’s been great, but has let me down on some specific tasks. I’m looking forward to trying the new toy camera out.

Apparently the new rule is, “3 things make a post”, because I’m out of ideas.

No wait, I have a fourth! I was asked recently what the appeal of twitter was. Here’s one answer.

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