Digital photography

My mom bought a new Panasonic Lumix digital camera, so she gave me her other one, a Fujifilm FinePix A205 digital camera. Now, this isn't loaded with lots of bells and whistles, but it's still a sight better than my old Vivitar 35 mm rangefinder, which I will still keep. It's nice to know that from now on, I don't need to worry about whether or not I have film in my camera or somewhere around the house if I want to take a picture. This camera has in it a 64MB memory card, allowing me to take at least 100 pictures and even shoot a little movie if I want to, then download it all to my computer via a USB port. This is so very cool and I am over the moon about having this little camera. I have a large learning curve on what all I can do with it and I am still learning the fine art of using it and taking different kinds of pictures (I'm debating whether to buy one of those "Dummies" books on digital photography, but they probably have more info than I really need and are probably not worth spending the money on anyway), but I have already messed with editing photographs on my computer that I have taken. I don't have anything fancy like Photoshop on my computer but it did come with something called PictureIt! Express, which is an photo editor that I guess came with Windows 98SE. I took two photographs that I took of my brother's cat that were too dark and managed to lighten them up using PictureIt and they look great. I've taken a couple of bad pictures of myself, but then, I never did photograph very well to begin with. So anyway, what I look forward to being able to do is to upload pictures to this blog and maybe something like Flickr or some other web site that allows you to store pictures on line. So from now on, when I travel, this little camera is coming with me. I'll just learn to do different things with it for now by trial and error and see what I come up with. Sure, this camera's obsolete compared to today's high tech models, but I still plan on having a lot of fun with it as I learn this new way of taking pictures!

AND IT GOES ON...AND ON...AND ON.....

Will this campaign season never end? The next primary isn't until April 22nd in Pennsylvania and the two Democrats continue to snipe at each other and try to tear one another down. If you ask me, this is very bad for the prospects for capturing the White House in November if the Democrats can't come together soon and form a united front against the Republicans, who are stumbling and wounded due to Dubya's bumbling and ineptitude. Already, Republican candidates are distancing themselves from him, and rightfully so. McCain may be a war hero, but he proposes to stay in Iraq for 100 years or more, and that's just a continuation of the Bush doctrine of Middle East domination and bowing to the will of Israel, who wanted this war and probably helped push the US into it in the first place. Anyway, so on this primary season goes and no real unity among Democrats is harming our chances for not only a larger Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress, but being able to capture the White House as well. God forbid that McCain wins in November - that would be disastrous. He's a loose cannon if ever there was one and not to be trusted. Oh, sure, he's been regarded as a maverick and a straight talker, but....I don't know, I just don't relish the idea of him being President for the next four years. I hate that he's been cozying up to the Religious Right, who he's always been critical of, just to win votes. He should stay critical of them and keep distancing himself from these crazy loons that seek to create nothing short of a Christian theocracy in this country. I know that they're in the distinct minority, but they're vocal, they're powerful and they're well heeled, as in, they've got bucks, and lots of them. Heck, I don't like this injection of religion into politics, period. It has no place in our government. I won't stand for being told what to think and what to believe and who to worship or what church to attend. And neither should anyone else have to do that, either, just to win public office. That candidates have to openly declare their Christian faith these days just to be elected is a bunch of bunk. OK, so I will step down off of my soapbox now and allow you all to have your say.