Jack’s Old & Busted Blog

Went to Kansas City this weekend. We really like the Country Club Plaza area. It’s like a giant outdoor yuppie amusement park. One curious thing is the traffic. It’s a very busy area, but pedestrian and auto traffic get along great. I’m convinced KC drivers are just plain better than they are here. More courteous, anyway.
An obnoxious thing about KC is the almost total lack of meaningful road signs. In most big cities, you can rely on signs to eventually get you to the interstate. Not in KC. You can drive for miles on major intra-city thoroughfares and never have a clue where the big slab is. As one guy at the gas station put it, “Most cities have signs; we have secrets.”

Bought five Lotto tickets, none of which paid off, obviously. Like I’d be diddling away online right now if it had. Is there really any point in buying more than one Lotto ticket? Do the Fates look down and say, “Wait a mintue, this guy bought a dozen tickets”? All those wasted chances are bound to becosmically redeemed somewhere, somehow. Buying more than one ticket is just inviting a piano to fall on your head, if you ask me.

I’m thinking about getting a negative scanner (Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual II). Most of what I shoot professionally is digital, but I have a substantial investment in film cameras personally. With a negative scanner, I can achieve more megapixels than I could afford by buying a digital camera without losing any of the frame. Of course, there are tradeoffs. One of the great things about digital photography is its ability to handle different lighting without filters or tungsten-balanced emulsions. And there’s a built in ongoing cost for film and developing, although it’s cheaper when you don’t need prints.
One other thing: film keeps getting better. People are always talking about more and more megapixels, but they forget that film research continues to go forward, with finer grains and better color. I guess the bottom line is that I trust my lenses, my cameras and my experience with various films. And $249 plus shipping is a LOT less than a Nikon D1.