I turn my camera on

Busy day today: up at 10:30, putzed around the house for a few hours, went shopping, read at a coffeeshop, and met some friends for dinner and a play. I'm not sure whether I'm dreading having to go in to work every day or looking forward to it. Getting up in the morning will be bad. The world needs to readjust itself so that the workday begins at, say, 11 am and continues through 7 or 8 pm. That's my kind of schedule. Waking up early was absolutely the worst thing about being in the Army.

Anyway, I bought a new digital camera today. My old one was from 2001, which was when digital camera dinosaurs roamed the Earth. They were too large and stupid to survive, unlike today's modern cameras which are sleek and intelligent, like human beings. I bought a Canon SD550, which is 7.1 megapixel point-and-shoot. My old Sony, besides being heavy enough to affect the gas mileage of a lightweight car, was blessed with lots of cool manual controls. Since I used to be very slightly into film photography -- I inherited a very nice SLR from some weird old uncle who died -- I thought that was what I wanted. But in five years of taking pictures, I manually adjusted the settings maybe ten times at the most. Screw real photography, I'll let the camera do the work.

Here's a picture of me, trying desperately to look cool:



Smoking is bad for you, kids.

I also bought a new album by Bettye LaVette, who's an old soul/r&b singer. There was an interview with her on NPR about a month ago and I've been meaning to pick up the CD ever since. The album is "non-traditional" in that she only sings covers of non-soul songs on it. This works well on a lot of the tracks -- "Sleep To Dream" by Fiona Apple, "Little Sparrow" by Dolly Parton -- but sometimes the conceit is a little strained. A funk version of Aimee Mann's "How Am I Different" actually sounds just about as bad as you would imagine. Still, the album is quite good as a whole; LaVette's band is consistently outstanding, real tight and greasy. I recommend it.

For dinner, I met my friend Meier and his wife Suzie at an overpriced nouveau-Mexican place near Chinatown. Meier thinks the dining scene in DC is bad (compared to Chicago). I think you just need to avoid the pretentious restaurants and probably anything located downtown. Except one day I plan to go to one of those mahogany-and-leather steakhouses on Capitol Hill that the lobbyists frequent. Eat an eighty dollar steak, do some wheelin' 'n' dealin', maybe try to pick up some Indian gaming permits. If you live in DC, you really should do the town Abramoff-style at least once.

After dinner we saw The Gigli Concert at the Woolly Mammoth theater. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with the Ben Affleck/J-Lo flop Gigli. Still, it was pretty good, at least until the end when the syrup started getting poured on hard. And now I can say I'm a devotee of the lively arts. Viva la theater legitimate!

I'll leave you with a picture of my car. Why? Because I can.