Bagger Blogger

Insane Rental Car Taxes

David — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:53:32 +0000

Heavenly Houston’s Ribs in Memphis

David — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:33:20 +0000

It’s been two years since lived here and had BBQ ribs at Houston’s on Poplar Ave in Memphis. OMG! Every bit as good as I remembered, and then some. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Truly fall-off-the-ribs tender with great sauce. Eve couldn’t have been more pleased with the rib she got from Adam. The wait staff are very polite and were right on filling up my soda.

Dialogue Project

David — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:17:38 +0000

We ran into the Dialogue Projectat the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco. Their rendition was to have inspirational quotes by category posted on windows. There are many quotes on a poster, arranged in different fonts and font sizes, making visually appealing art that stimulates thought and conversation. Very cool. I just ordered the book that contains 2000 quotes they’ve assembled.

Carded at 55

David — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:40:05 +0000

Now I realize that some people are a VERY poor judge of another person’s age, but I found this too amusing. Today I was in Safeway and as I checked out the clerk asked my birthday. I was certain I misunderstood, as grocery store clerks just don’t ask such personal questions out of the blue. So so I asked her to repeat. She did. By then I was sure that - in spite of my hearing aids - that I must be really be having a hard time understanding her. She then stated, “What is your birthday for the alcohol you are buying?”

“Oh, that!”

I was last carded when I was 40 years old. And that was 15 years ago.

I think I’ll just take it as a compliment.

Finch Sock Thistle Feeder a Big Hit

David — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:35:55 +0000

We’ve been in our Lake Mendocino place a month now and have put up a few bird feeders. I was wandering around Walmart and spied some bird food and feeders. I don’t know much about what birds are around here or what they like to eat but figured that what was for sale would be a fairly good indicator, so picked up bag of black sunflower seed and a bag of thistle seed for the “little” birds. Already had a feeder for the sunflower seed so picked up a cylindrical one with smaller openings for the thistle seed.

That all worked ok, but a week later Sharlet saw a sock feeder for thistle seed. It had a picture of something like eight finches on it. I commented that many birds on a feeder must have been Photoshop’d in. Little did I know! After a few days for the “news” to get around, we’ve counted over 20 Finches on the sock with more flying around trying to get on. They eat through the thing in three days! As soon as the sock feeder showed up they ignored the other thistle seed feeder so I’ve converted it to a second sunflower seed feeder. Who’d a thunk?

Canine Intelligence

David — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:20:24 +0000

Time has a fascinating article on canine intelligence and the effects of dog’s social interaction on their intelligence. In particular, how their ability to interpret pointing, whether a finger or a foot, appears to have developed through social skills. This human skill is not shared with any other animals, not even chimpanzees.

Canon EOS 7D Looks GOOD

David — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:31:49 +0000

Today Canon announced the 7D, replacement for the 50D. Looks DANG GOOD! Some thought it would come with a full frame sensor, but it has a .63x sensor (slightly larger than the .59x 50D and virtually the same as the Nikon D300). I’m a bit relieved as this means I can update and still keep using my existing lenses. Although when I go to a full-frame it is most likely going to be a Nikon D700 (or whatever follows), the 7D sets a new standard for DSLRs that aren’t full frame. I’m beyond impressed. This is substantially more than I expected to see replacing the 50D. Cannon is going to keep me in the fold a while longer.

Key features

18MP APS-C CMOS sensor
8 frames per second continuous shooting
1080p HD video recording with manual controls
3.0 inch Clear View II LCD screen with 920,000 dots
19-point AF system (all cross-type)
1.0x magnification and 100% coverage viewfinder
Wireless flash control
Environmental sealing

Take a look at what my favorite camera review site has to say:

Press Release coverage
Hands-on Preview

For the last couple years I’ve bought nearly all my still and video gear from Adorama.com, but recently I’ve been ordering mostly from Amazon (although places like Adorama and B&H have a much wider and deeper selection). They’ve added a section dedicated to cameras (amazon.com/camera) and their prices are very aggressive. They are also taking pre-orders of the Canon EOS 7D but haven’t announced pricing as of the date of this writing.

Battery Capacity & Life

David — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:57:39 +0000

Interesting NaturalNews article on batteries, their life & capacity, and how some manufacturers actually put an AA battery inside a D battery!

Green Screen Chroma Keying Software

David — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:58:49 +0000

Good green or blue chroma keying isn’t easily done if you want really clean edges, retain all the strands of a person’s hair, and things like that. I just ran into PhotoKey on TubeTape.net, thanks to a YouTube video by IceflowStudio. Although I haven’t used it personally yet, it looks very promising (read: better than what is in Adobe’s products).

Check it out if you are in the market for chroma products.

Monitor Your Bandwidth Usage

David — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:43:41 +0000

We may be moving into a place that doesn’t have broadband availability from any land sources so I’ve started checking out satellite and all satellite providers have comparatively low bandwidth caps, so I thought I should start monitoring my usage. I came across Net Meter by Hoo Technology on CNet’s site. It is $20 after a 30 day free trial. I am finding it simple to install and use and it has very informative reports - just what I was looking for. Here’s how CNet describes it:

“Net Meter monitors network traffic through all network connections on the computer it’s installed on, and displays real-time graphical and numerical downloading and uploading speeds. The software supports to display transfer rates of multiple network connections at the same time. It also logs network traffic and provides daily, weekly, monthly, and summary traffic reports. And start days of week and month are customizable. The program allows you to setup a notification to get an alert when you exceed a certain amount of bandwidth usage. And, traffic stopwatch enables you to test bandwidth speed of connections. You can also record transfer rates of connections. Net Meter works with the majority network connections including phone modems, DSL, cable modem, LAN, satellite, wireless, and VPN.”

I also tried a free bandwidth monitor from CNet on my laptop but it is like a toy compared to Net Meter.