Searching For My Lost Shaker Of Salt

The year is 2025.

I am laying on my couch typing this post on a Lenovo something or other PC. I have the screen flipped almost all the way over and am using the touch screen keyboard to type this.

As I do this thing, I am thinking of an article written by the late Douglas Adams, and published in The Salmon of Doubt wherein he is expressing his feelings about using a palmtop (or something similar) pc while in the bath and can't help but wonder what he would think of writing on something like an iPad (quite the Apple fanboy, he was), something like nine years later.

I vaguely recall writing a blog post on my phone on the side of the road in something like 2009/2010, but I cannot recall when. 

Nope, here it is: https://galeharpring.blogspot.com/2009/11/there-nothing-to-it.html 

That was a dumb smart phone. After that, things got real with the phones and many things were taken for granted.

But that isn't what I came to write about today. I was going to write about how I am currently reading Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72 and about how much more sense his writing style makes to me now.

Which is odd, because as I've perused the entries on this old thing, there are quite a few pieces I would almost call Gonzo Blogging.

Much of which predates me reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 2010.

Sweet Home Alabama

 Back in something like 2019, I decided to move this to WordPress for reasons that I'm currently unaware of.  I've become somewhat annoyed and disillusioned with WP over the last year or so. Again, for reasons that I'm currently unaware of.  It probably has something to do with the fact that they want me to give them an annoyingly large amount of cashey-money to be able to post whatever I want to on a blog that I've maintained for twenty-five years, across four (I'm pretty sure) platforms.

 All but one of those blogs I have access to and have considered writing in again in the last year or so, but since I would like to post pictures, I suspect this is the one to start leaning into again.

I would like to migrate everything from WP back over to here by the first of the year, but who knows how difficult it will be.  Easy if I can do an import/export, but more difficult if I have to copy paste.

I'm going to choose to be optimistic.  

Back In The USSR

A couple of weeks ago I came into possession of three Exakta cameras that came from Soviet occupied Germany, and were manufactured sometime in the late '50s to early '60s.  The cameras are hilariously counter-intuitive to use, but the lenses are apparently very desirable and seem to be worth a decently large amount of money if I should decide to flip them.

 I have a roll of film in one of the cameras now. When I finish this, I'm going to walk down the road to a catholic church and finish the roll of film there.

Why?

Because it seems to be very ironic to take photos of any kind of religious establishment, since that really wouldn't have been an option when the cameras were new.

I will post the photos when I develop them.  

There's Got To Be A Twist

 

I was "given" a Nintendo Switch 2 as a gift this past weekend. I'm enjoying it so far, and it is not lost on me that I got my first Switch (Lite) just short of six years ago.

I don't have any pictures to post right now like I did before, but I plan to get some screenshots and write a bit more about it in a few weeks.

When I got the Switch, I was about 2 1/2 years into the life of the thing, so there was a pretty good selection of games to choose from, and I'd say I snagged some good ones to go with it right out of the gate. The Switch 2 was the Mario Kart World bundle and I snagged a copy of Bravely Default, which I enjoyed on the 3DS, and really want the opportunity to go through again. I haven't gotten the chance to actually start that one yet, but I've been playing some Mario Kart and Animal Crossing.

Yes, I started another island.

I re-read my post from my first day with the original Switch Lite, and I must say. I'm disappointed that I haven't managed to play through FFXII yet. I don't use the Lite much anymore, that has been taken over by other people in my house, and the digital versions of games start to get a little weird when you have more than two consoles. I should probably start looking for a cartridge for that one. And maybe, you know, actually play the game.

But I digress.

And forgot what I was going to write.

He's A Pinball Wizard

 Came across a Nintendo Switch Lite.

I’m enjoying it greatly so far! As it stands, it is the best way I’ve ever seen to play games I’ve owned for a long (in some cases, decades!) time.

I had been up in the air about getting a Switch since it basically first came out, and then when the Lite came out recently I spent some more time contemplating it.

With the original Switch, I was really liking the idea of TV/Portability, but the cost was a huge turnoff. Also the issues with the JoyCon drift and a few other things I was on the fence. I started evaluating the Lite version, and when I realized that I don’t really do any sort of gaming on an actual TV screen anymore, it became a more serious contender. After actually holding one, I really started liking the way the Lite feels in my hand. Seeing as the controllers aren’t detachable, it feels a lot more solid, which is part of the appeal.

Yes, the screen is smaller, but it looks great, and is a wonderful size!

As for the game library, the ones I have are all games I have owned for a long time:

I’ve owned the original Link’s Awakening since my father gave it to me as a birthday gift in something like 1996, and every now and again I pull it out and play it.

Final Fantasy X was the first game I bought with my refurbished PS2 in about 2002 or 2003, and I play that one every now and again.

Final Fantasy XII I bought new. Got it at Target right when it came out because they were giving away a gift card with the game purchase…Which I used to buy groceries since I had just spent my grocery money on a video game.

Breath Of The Wild is the newest game I own on this list. Got that one with the Wii U at the beginning of the year and I’ve enjoyed the heck out of that one.

As for the games, Link’s Awakening is a remake of the first portable Zelda game. This is an amazing game all around, a direct sequal to the brilliant “A Link To The Past,” and released about two years after. It took me something like two years to get through this game. Partly because that Gameboy consumed batteries like nobody’s business, partly because I just never wanted it to end. I picked up the port of the Deluxe edition that was released for Gameboy Color on my 3DS a few years back, but this one is absolutely the best remake.

The graphics are very much similar to those in A Link Between Worlds (also fantastic!), and I feel like Nintendo knocked this one out of the park.

As for Final Fantasy XII, I’m not sure why they added “The Zodiac Age” to the title, and I honestly haven’t bothered looking up the reason for it on the internet, yet. As for gameplay itself, the cutscenes are a lot prettier than I remember and the in game graphics are very nice too! It is an updated version of the original, while still keeping very true to it.

Final Fantasy X is one I haven’t started playing through again yet, and I’m a little bit into Breath Of The Wild, so I don’t have any sort of images or anything from those two yet. I’m tempted to grab a video capture device and record some playtime from the Wii U version. Although I might just see about getting some screenshots of both versions, just for comparison. Same thing with Link’s Awakeing, If I can find out how to grab a screenshot or 5 from the 3DS, I will update this post with some side by side shots.

Needless to say, I am enjoying it greatly.

One More Cup Of Coffee 'Fore I Go

A while back I came into possession of a Sony A6000 mirrorless camera. 

(Yes, that IS a hand made Star Trek neck strap!)

Finally I am able to play around with it.

My employers gave me a broken camera and lens a while back.  The shutter was stuck shut.  After a few months of poking around online, I found a functional body for less than the cost of repairing the old one, so I snagged it.  There was a lens included with the damaged camera, so I had hopes that it would function.

It did not.

Since I have been pretty much all about Nikon camera equipment for the entire time I have been doing this, I ordered an adapter to allow me to use my Nikon F Mount lenses with a Sony E Mount camera body.

Once that came in, I was able to finally use the camera, and I must say, it is nice!

 

The above photos were taken with a 75-300 Vivitar Macro Focusing Zoom lens manufactured in about 1975 mated to this glorious 24.3 Megapixel beast, and I must say…The images this combination produce can be stunning if you take your time.  The lens is not fast by any stretch of the imagination.  Take your time, line it up and get it exposed correctly and it is beautiful!
Currently I have an old Nikkormat lens from about 1959 on the body, and the results are just as beautiful:

The low light results are also very nice, and for the most part, very clean.  I’ve gotten a few grainy shots with the ISO maxed out at 25,600 but, for the most part, I don’t need to use it that high since I can easily set F-Stops and shutter speeds to work in harmony with a flash to produce cleaner pictures.

The continuous shooting mode is smooth and fast, thanks to the mirrorless nature of the beast, but be wary…You will fill up an SD card real quick if you aren’t careful!  Took me about 3 hours to fill a 16gb card.  Part of that was messing around with it, but al lot of the space was taken up by the RAW files which are ~24mb each.

  

Overall, it is a camera that I am very happy with.  The size and weight take some getting used to after using a DSLR or SLR for so long, and it feels fairly durable.  I doubt it will fully replace my trusty old D40x anytime soon, but it is a lot of fun to use, and in some situations it vastly outperforms my old DSLR.

Wondered How Tomorrow Could Ever Follow Today

Decided to send a message to my old friend from school this evening.

We ended up having a nice conversation and became FB friends, so I guess all is well.  It was nice to catch up with her a little, she was one of the most positive influences in my life back in those days.

I Want My...I Want My MTV

While attempting to consolidate and, for a lack of better term, archive my web presence in one place, I completely forgot about my old Geocities sites.  Problem is by the time I realized that, Yahoo! had shut the whole thing down and deleted it.
Actually deleted all of it. For everyone. Everywhere.
ALL. OF. IT.
A huge record of the “early days” of the internet. Of early, free web hosting and usable tools for design.
Every now and again I check the oocities archive to see if either of the two sites I actually remember pop up.  I downloaded the index file for the nearly 1TB torrent, but I cannot find anything in there.  Nor do they seem to be present on the Internet Archive.
Maybe I have it backed up onto a CD. While not likely, I did find two pages on a CD I did for a birthday gift for an old friend last week.

Here are those, at least:

Faces Come Out Of The Rain

I saw someone at Kroger this evening who reminded me of an old...Friend? I guess you would call her?  Our relationship was a very odd one.

I know it was not her, but I began mentally having the conversation we probably would have had...It disturbed me to hear the things I think I may have told her.  Things I have been aware of for...Oh, I don't know the 22 years it has been since we met.  The year and a half of bad decision making leading up to it?

I should probably have a talk with the psychiatrist that lives in my head.

Pa Rum Pum Pum

Since I started out my photograpy stuff with 35mm SLR cameras and do not believe in post processing, I have amassed a sizeable collection of camera filters over the years.  Some of them are actually useful, some of them are just downright bizarre. A few of them I purchased, a lot of them were gifts.

My collection is mostly colored stuff.  I have a huge set of solid and gradient filters, a small set of colored gradient filters that I can actually screw directly to the lens and each other, a set of bizarre plastic I don’t even know filters that I refer to as my “analoge Instagram filters”, a couple of neutral density filters and even one odd…I don’t know? Fly eye? thing.  I also have a telescope lens attachment that I’ve never had ample opportunity to use and a fish eye job that I haven’t seen for years that I really need to find.

Solid and gradient filters

My wacky 5-way thing

SUPERSPEED!

Last but not least…My collection of analog Instagram filters!