Checksum Arcanius

Of course thats not the entire story. In some fo my time-wasting activities I have been researching for a future purchase of a digital video camera. The contest has come down to three candidates, which I will list in the order of my current relative preference:

Panasonic AG DVC-80
Canon GL-2
Sony VX-2100

The DVC-80 doesn’t have the 20x zoom lens that the Canon does, but it has a wider wide angle and bigger CCDs, which allow for better low-light performance. It is also newer and has better audio hookups. The GL-2 has by far the best lens of the groups in terms of zoom, but I’m not sure how useful extreme zoom is – I think wide angle is preferable for indoors shooting like I plan on doing. The Sony VX-2100 is supposed to have the best Low Light detail of the group, but its lens lacks any distinctions and it doesn’t have the progressive scan “frame” or “film” modes that the others boast, which is a feature I am interested in. They all go for slightly north of $2000.

I am also interested in picking up a Direct-To-Edit hard disk drive capture box for the camera. Although they run for around $1000, this completely eliminates the need to capture video after shooting, which adds as much time as it took to shoot originally to the editing process. Of course, the DV tapes are only several dollars, and I can keep them labelled long after they are orignally recorded as backup of original material, so perhaps that is just as good for now.

As if these things were not enough to spend my money on, a coworker just informed me that he is selling some cars – the one that piques my interest is a 1994 Nissan Sentra with 100k miles on it, going for $1500. Its smallish, white, two doors, fuel efficient and runs well. I really do want a replacement for the truck I drive now – I’m getting tired of the no-radio no-air-conditioning rides that suck 4 gallons of gas to and from work. It’d also be nice to have transportation that I could call my own. Thinking aobut it though, I think I have to check to see if its FWD or not, since that is kind of important in the driveway. Of course, that may not matter when/if I begin at the UW…

I’ve been really sporadic on posting recently, which is bad because posting here gives me a chance to materialize some thoughts, which seems to be a healthy thing for me to do.

Today in my Differential Equations class, we had the third and final midterm – I studied practically all night, albeit not very efficiently due to distractions of the Counterstike type. I went to sleep around the time the sky began to light up again, then woke up at verious 7 minute intevals between two and four hours later. Mother cooked me an excellent breakfast, and after brushing up on a few problems and missing my tennis class, I proceded to campus to take the test. It went alright – I’m fairly confident on 6 out of the 8 problems. The other two went pretty badly, though I may scrounge up some partial credit. Barring stupid mistakes on the 6 problems (which is not out of the question), I should do passably on the test. Otherwise it could get ugly.

The lesson to be learned here is that my time management, work ethic, and focus under pressue still need major improvements if I am to become a well-rounded functional person. My natural gift for test taking and blind intuition can only carry me so far thorugh life without additional effort.

On Sunday, Shai and I went to Bellingham to visit Beth and Greg. We had a good time walking among the Ski to Sea race extravaganza which included many street booths. We ate at Lemon Grass, the best Thai food resturant ever. Excellent food, good prices, excellent service, and a good time was had by all. We also thre in some frisbee and Lava tag with some WWU students that showed up before returning.

I have fallen rather far behind in my photography class as well, not having done anything to speak of in the last two weeks other than thinking about the upcoming assignment (due Tuesday). I will take pictures this weekend and develop and print on Monday, which I am getting off of work. Also due on Tuesday is the final project in the Diff.Eq. Class, which I haven’t even taken a look at yet. That will also have to be done this weekend, emailed in for comment, and tweaked (or rewritten as the case may be) Monday night.

My grueling work schedule over the last two weeks has played a big part in my lack of progress in other parts of my life – an average of more than 30 hours the last three weeks. The time outside of this is often wasted, I have to admit, usually by myself but also sometimes by others. I wouldn’t call the trip to Bellingham a waste, but the 2-3 hours of Couterstrike every night is definitely excessive, as are some of my other, less talked-about habits, such as surfing the web and other messings around involving, generally, my laptop, on which I have been on a rather lengthy binge. Of course there are classes as well (but reall yonly 7-10 hours), and the Seattle International Film Festival just grabs a little more time out of the pot. The result is that I’ve only taken a few hours for schoolwork, which was mostly composed of catching up in reading my Diff.Eq. book, because I got behind by, surprise, not reading any of it for a long time (and this well after the FIRST Championship Event, so I cannot place any blame there).

I do wonder how it is that I can get myself out of this rut. For the whole time, I was on the pills, (although they ran out today), but then I also have to wonder what affect those have other than leveling my mood – at least thats what I think they do, its so hard to tell, especially since I’m so insensitive to change.

Well, enough of that for now, back to work I guess.