newcam

got the new camera today. The opening picture here is the first image i shot with it. Image number 1 on the new camera. Say hello. I'm feeling good. I mean, it's not a $3000.00 camera or anything, but it fixes the problems i was having with the pinner for sure. There is still some noise in the images, which i'm cool with because today was gray, and it was getting dark, and i was pushing a 1/4 to a 1/2 at 400 anyway, and i still think it's noticeably better. But then i got rained on. Hard. I got rained on under the Manhattan Bridge. It was hard, because i had forgotten to bring my umbrella along. I left it on the kitchen table, because i knew it was gonna rain, but man, i just didn't have it in the bag when it was time to pull it out.

what was in there? 2 cameras, (the old canon pinner, and the fuji S2) a wig (don't ask), my Boca Ratons, and a strobe for the fuji. Oh, and there was a nice unemployment check in there that i had forgotten about. (that's the sort of stuff that would make the guy who fired me grit his teeth) I was SOL with the umbrella. I was happy to be wearing white tennis shoes too. So the last picture you'll see in the sequence today is where the rain started to kick in. I was walking up to the approach for the walking path across the manhattan bridge. I had all these ideas of taking pictures as i walked from downtown back to redhook, and i think i would have done, except for the rain. So i went to the bank and made a deposit. And then, i got on the six train at rush hour heading downtown. It was great. there were maybe 3 people on it total. I mean out of all 12 or 15 cars total. And i thought to myself, "huh. this is the rush-hour-six..." but no matter. When i got to Nassau to switch to the AC line i was rewarded with some real rush hour shit. I tunneled my way through the earth with the roving masses, and i couldn't believe the crush at the platform. it was like i was at the 1994 World Cup Soccer Tournament, USA vs. Brazil, July 4th at Stanford Stadium. I was grateful for the ol' Shuffle with 2 sets of headphones at that very moment. I was playing Bodyrockers, and Frank Black. (sort of a wait in the station) and when the train came, it was already jammed to the gills with people heading out of town, so there was the obligitory crush where everyone tries to pack in even tighter, but me? i just hung back. I figured, as it goes, there's got to be a nice empty train right behind it. (and there was) But what struck me about it when the stuffed train started to roll out of the station was that feeling. that thought that people in new york get now, (thank you Fox News and Mister Bush) that dreadful feeling of "what if?" You know? what if 3 or 6 of the passengers jamming onto this rush hour train were the kind that had their own bomb-belts? and what if they wanted to hit the switch once it got into the tunnel? or half-way through? (and i was listening to Frank Black's switched you at this point) And my mind raced through the scenario. I mean, first of all, forget me. I'm fucked. But the folks in the trains? when the tube ruptures? and then all the water from the east river comes rushing in to fill the empty space, and blasting out both ends of the tube like a force that would make the tsunami look like a little ripple on a placid lake, and all the people on the platforms having no idea what the hell is going on before it's much to late to even think about reacting, and the water gushing UP the stairs to the next levels where the 4 and 5 trains, and the JMZ trains are coming in, and the electricity, the super high voltage, and aw man, i tell you. I never used to think about that kind of stuff at all. Never. Now i wonder how many people in this town are just like me, not being paranoid, but you know, the movie rolls in your mind. where you know, like, 5 years ago it would never even enter your mind at all. That's what gets me about it. But anyway. it was just a thought. There was lots of other news over the past couple of days that i wanted to mention instead.

firstly, i logged in to MySpace. i was thinking i would conduct an experiment. I wanted to see if it was true that you could sign up to MySpace and overnight have a billion people checking you out and going to your website, and linking you to this and that and before you know it, you're a Rock God. But when i woke up this morning, i still wasn't a rock god. So i'm not sure how that's all going to pan out, but check me out on there if you're into it. I'd love people that go to my site to become my "friends". I spent hours reworking the profile in dreamweaver last night, but have honestly NO IDEA how to actually upload the completed profile. (hey, i never said i was a webmaster!) so, i've got the generic. but if someone out there knows how to do it, how i can just take my code and drop it in there, let me know. i'm down. i tried it several times and it came out all jacked. I mean, it works HERE on my machine, but that's not the point.

Also, while downtown today, i took a picture of the gleaming new Tower 7 at the world trade center complex. Yea. don't worry. I know. they made it out of steel again. but what are the odds there'll ever be a fire in there again? So, it should be okay. I'm sure we'll be fine. Remember, we've got George W. Bush at our back.

Yesterday, i sat down to lunch, and next to me at the table was Olympia Dukakis. Later that day i went up to the Ritz to take care of some business, and ran into Reese Witherspoon. Nice girl. Then I went up to Lee Ann Womack's room and hung around making pictures for a little while, and off she went to the Country Music Awards and walked away with an award for Single of the Year. (Congrats girl! Go Gettim!) So, tuesday was alright. Celebrities coming in the windows as it were.

Oh, here's what i wanted to say. Any of you use the macintosh iSight video chat? I started using it last week when i got the new machine, and i have to tell you. Apple sort of lied a little bit. I mean, my chats look absolutely NOTHING like the ones they show on their site. I mean, not even in the neighborhood. It's like, did they think people wouldn't find out?! I was/am astounded by this. I'm going to include a couple of pictures so you can see what i mean. One is a screen shot of
myself, Misha Gravenor, and Brad Swonetz (see my links) having a video chat. The other is what apple uses as a sample of the image quality you would be expecting if you bought their little camera, or a new machine with one built in. I don't know if having two low res images, sized down to a blogsite will illustrate my point as well as i'd like, but one thing to consider is that the apple image actually uses 4 people in the chat verses 3, which i can assure you, if we tried that, it would seem like we were doing a 70's claymation video.

I don't think i'm going to update the main site today, i'll just put in some little images here so you can see that the new camera is up and running, and i suppose i'll make a scroller for them another day. i've been staying up far too late, like 4 and 5am working on code for the past few days, hashing out ideas for the archives page and myspace and so on. So for now, i'm going to cut it short, get some pictures in here, and then go to the bed. But i'll be around. And i have one of those built in blogs on the myspace site, so you can check in there sometimes too if you don't think i talk quite enough.

be good to each other, and i'll be back real soon.

dTown 47˚ with a light rain, listening to The Red House Painters.