Got my Nikon D70 today. I don't think there's anything else I should say. It's the coolest, quickest and best affordable digital SLR camera available today. Cool because it's black (well, duhu !). Quick because it's the only one on the market that can pipe through enough data to copy pictures from internal memory to the compact flash card, using the high speed of Ultra II CF cards. All other cameras are too slow and can't produce enough data/s to fill up the card. Unless, you start selling your car and go for the pricey high-end professional cameras (count on 2500 euro and up for the body alone). And it's still in the affordable pricerange because you can get it for around 1000 euro - if you take the time to shop around on the net. Body, 18-70 lens (which is 27-105 in analog SLR due to some x1.5 setting for the new range of digital Nikkor lenses), a 512Mb CF card, two batteries, a quickloader, a Nikon-bag and a little USB-hub ... in some countries the body alone costs that. Guess I got a lot of freebies.
And yes I know that a thousand euro is still a lot of money, but compared to what you can do with this (use almost any existing Nikkor lens you want, control all settings like whitebalance, flash, close-up, portrait ...) and the price of the professional ones ... Can't beat that right now.
On the other hand, if you're only taking pictures of the little ones running around the house and put them on your site, than by all means, stick with compact cameras like Nikon Coolpix, Canon Ixus or the like. They're cheaper and as well suited for that job as the higher range of SLR's. But do stay clear of cheap plastic things for less than 200 euro. It's usually flimsey plastic, horrendously slow, produces blurry pictures and has either too much green or blue in the color-settings ...

Editorial - 28 March 2005

Next to promising myself I'd stop posting errors seen on other sites, I promised myself to stop commenting on any random american idiot. Alas I'll have to break that vow a little because this guy really is one. And a hypocrite as well. Leading the pro-life war in the Schiavo case, while having done the same to his own father almost 17 years ago ? Funny how shit like that pops up and bites you in the ass, doesn't it ?
Anyway back to the regular programming now by stating that most americans are good, most of them are intelligent, most of them are easy to get along with. Too bad they keep electing morons and religious nutcases. A side-effect of the right to vote, not the duty to vote ?
Song of the week : "Oh Darkness" Admiral Freebee
Oldie of the week : "Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flamen Sehen ?" Rammstein
Last seen movie : "Hitch" : The past years Will Smith has been the summer blockbuster man, fighting aliens, robots ... whatever. Mr. black, cool and funny action hero. Producers seem to think it was time to give him his first romantic comedy. Playing the guy who's got women and their dating preferences figured out, he's devoted his life to give the helpless guys the necessary clues to get past the first three dates with the woman they love. He doesn't do "get 'em in the sack and leave 'em", just the pure stuff. The whole story of the movie is that he's trying to set up another hopeless guy (the funny one from the sitcom "The King Of Queens") with a rich heiress, meanwhile developing a crush on an investigative reporter ... and then the usual stuff with things, conversations and acts getting mixed up starts. One of the better in the romantic genre and often mildy funny. It could be worse ... Be sure to check out this movie with the fresh prince and the king of queens. What's next ? John "The Duke" Wayne in the sequel ?
Doing this week : I'm having a few days on my own as Elischka's gone to the health-spa in Spa (that's right, the one that gave all other's their name). Which gives me time to get my stuff together for the three days of eurodisney early next week. Not a holiday, but a reconnaissance-mission for work. Working for an online travelagency has it's perks.

Editorial - 21 March 2005

Today is the first day of spring. And my grandfather's birthday. I always found that to be a funny coincidence as I usually spent the bigger part of the summer vacations with my grandparents and parents at the seaside. Sun, sea, skating, young girls, free time a plenty ... sounds like a teenager's heaven.
Song of the week : "E-Pro" Beck
Oldie of the week : "Fun For Me" Moloko
Last seen movie : "Constantine" : comments are being written.
Doing this week : I've got two more concerts coming up, I need to finish a banner for someone, see some shows I taped from the tv and get ready for an extra day in the weekend because it's easter !

Editorial - 15 March 2005

I promised myself I would stop collecting errors on websites and post the screenshots here and I have been true to myself for quite some time now, but the error I saw this morning was just to damn funny to resist. This site is set up by a magazine in Belgium who proud themselves in being anarchistic in their "journalism" so far mostly resulting in crappy writing and unprofessional slander, but they have had some funny articles and some genuine discoveries. Now they're looking for nominees for the most annoying belgian ever (de ergste belg). So here goes, once more for old time's sake.

Editorial - 14 March 2005

Forbes has released it's latest list of the wealthiest people in the world. I'm going to share this list (check the pictures) because there's a rumour constantly popping up that in reality Ingvar Kamprad, the man behind Ikea, is the wealtiest man alive. This simply is not true. Ikea has denied this from day one, but people seem to believe it. Sorry folks, but uncle Bill "Microsoft" Gates is still numero uno. Hate it or like it. Or just don't give a flying duck.
Song of the week : "Raining again" Moby
Oldie of the week : -----
Last seen movie : "The Whole Ten Yards" : Even less funny follow up for the "Nine Yards" thing that I liked the first time and got bored with halfway through the second viewing. Bruce Willis plays his mean self for laughs, Matthew Perry is clumsy as ever. Something happens with some girl, both have to work together with some other girl to get things fixed and a few sexual jokes and a few lame jokes follow. Luckily the film is really worth viewing thanks to a very funny mobster character. That guy is unrecognisable and hilarious with his accent.
Doing this week : Doing the whole backup thing again. Having my harddrive at work crash on me has made me temporarily paranoid regarding loosing data. Gotta write some cdroms with crap I collected during the last few years of surfing. Not that I ever look at that again, but the idea of loosing it ...

Editorial - 9 March 2005

For some reason I can understand the need for an "international day of women" (each year March 8th), but on the other hand I find it weird that women would demand equality by stating how different they are from men, on a day especially for them. I'd think that integrating in the current, granted too male-oriented, society and then making changes from within would be far more efficient. Not going around telling we need more of this and that, we should vote for more women in politics and hold conferences for women only. You know what would make a good start ? Get more women interested in politics ... and get elected because you're the best (wo)man for the job, not because 40% of the elected have to be female. The USA have tried things like that to get more of the weaker ethnic groups in college and as a result got lots of blacks and hispanics with bad grades going to college instead of people who deserved it due to good grades. And I'm not being racist here : it even happened that a black man or woman got cheated out of college this way because there were already 20% blacks and not enough hispanics. Same counts vice versa and so on. Ratios like this always tend to ameliorate the chances of the weaker ones to get in instead of those who have enough merit to get in. It's better to get everyone a decent education from the start, thus giving everyone the same chance of getting ahead. Not just saying "sorry we fucked up your high school schooling and have learned you nothing, but now you can go to college and fail !". That's just sarcastic and lame.
And why not try to get more women into science and computers ? Those are the jobs of the future and let's face it, geeks and gamingfreaks need more female competition around them or they will start thinking all females should look like Cortana in Halo 2. Although I wouldn't mind if they did.
And yes, obviously you should all get the same amount of money as men for the same job. That goes without saying.
On a pleasant sidenote : I found the Tony Hawk game in a store this weekend for only one euro more than via Proxis. Needless to say I pulled out the plastic and purchased it.
Song of the week : "Keine Lust" Rammstein
Oldie of the week : -----
Last seen movie : "Behind Enemy Lines" : Americans are good. Evil Bosnian Serbian Eatern European people are bad. In short that's the movie. Do good Americans are checking the skies while their fighter-plane is shot down. Evil army-dudes kill one officer, the other one (Owen Wilson) can escape and is running the rest of the movie for his life while being chased by a nut with a sniper-rifle. Patriotic as all American soldiers are, their crew-mates scramble to get him out of his misery and dispatch a rescue-team. The commander of the vessel (Gene Hackman) must overcome some administrative obstacles to get the resue-mission cleared.
Tedious and clichéd story, saved by snappy editing and camera-angles. If it's on TV, you might want to check it out, but don't spend any money on it. It's just USA propaganda.
"Monster" : comments are being written.
"Before Sunrise" : comments are being written.
Doing this week : Do some grinds, boardslides, 50/50's and lipslides on whatever Tony, Mike or Chad will ride whenever the board is close to an object and the "green X" and "yellow Y" buttoncombo works.

Editorial - 3 March 2005

Belgian postal workers are lame and lazy pieces of celestial dustvomit. A package I ordered from Proxis almost two months ago, has gone back to Proxis - I noticed that because they sent me an e-mail stating they received my return - without ever been in my hands. The lazy sod that should've delivered it to my door, never came by. I'm absolutely sure he didn't use my mailbox or doorbell because I was sick at home and would've heard the bell, I even didn't get the usual card saying "they came by, but I wasn't home and I'll have to pick it up in their office" - and seeing they write those cards beforehand and just dump 'em in your mailbox, yet another clue they never came - and Proxis never got an e-mail from me asking if I could return it ... reasons enough I think. No, the lame-oids just sent it back themselves. And as the package contained Tony Hawk Underground, an Xbox game bordering on being sold out, which I ordered with a 10% discount I'll be missing out on if I reorder it, I am slightly pissed off. I'm never doing business with them again unless it's impossible otherwise. Letters are already replaced by e-mail a long time ago, same will count for all Xmas cards from now on. Usually I choose an alternative delivery (Kiala or DHL for instance), but Proxis said the Kiala network was saturated and they advised to choose the post-delivery. Fuck no. Not anymore. Not doing that again. There's always something wrong with those losers.

darkman says sleep tight

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