Jack’s Old & Busted Blog

doubletongued.org: Double-Tongued Word Wrester records undocumented or under-documented words from the fringes of English. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words. Special attention is paid to the lending and borrowing of words between the various Englishes and other languages, even where a word is not a fully naturalized citizen in its new language.

Trying out a modified version of a theme I found on the Internets. As I read more and more content via RSS, I seem to be aiming for simpler presentation (especially because I have no commercial application here). The train wreck in the right-hand column will probably stay, because, after all, it’s my blog.

Tampa Bay’s 10 News: Jasmine Roberts, 7th-grade student: “My hypothesis was that the fast food restaurants’ ice would contain more bacteria that the fast food restaurants’ toilet water.”

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

With the arrival of a Nikon D70s, I’m having to evaluate all the camera gear I’ve accumulated over the years as I make the transition to digital. Even though I’ve dabbled with an S1Pro DSLR for a bit, I’ve never really considered until now that film is going the way of the dodo. The rub here is that many of the new lenses for Nikon’s digital SLRs (DSLRs) are unusable on a 35mm film camera. The new lenses will physically fit, but they are designed for the smaller digital sensor, so you end up with circular-shaped images on film. Conversely, any modern autofocus Nikon lens will function perfectly on a DSLR, but the smaller sensor (compared, again, to film) makes the subject half-again closer than it would be on film. This is great for longer lenses and sports, but your favorite “wide angle” lens becomes not-so-wide as a result. Nikon knows this, of course, so they present you with a choice: spend $$$$ on super-wide AF lenses designed for film cameras (but work at 1.5x on digital), or spend $$$ (that’s one less $) on the new DSLR lenses that are worthless on your old film camera.

Nikon wants you to never look back (HINT: they’ve discontinued all film cameras with the exception of the F6 and a cheapo student camera). So, I’m selling off some unused film gear and looking forward to getting some new stuff. I’ll hang on to my “classic” cameras, such as my F2 and Nikkormat, but I suspect they won’t get used much anymore. It kind of feels like starting all over again with the gear, but such is the modern age. I hear they have the Internets on computers now, too.

It’s time again for the annual Oscar contest here on the ol’ blog. Last year’s winner was Gerry. You can submit your guesses here.

You can see how others have guessed here. Note that there are a couple of categories that were added late, so you may want to resubmit your entry (sorry ’bout that).

Special prize this year is a de-lux copy of Pearl Harbor on DVD (slightly, ever-so-slightly, used. Shipping not included. In the case of a tie, winners will each receive one-half of the two disc set. In the case of a three-way tie, winners will get nothing, and should be grateful they don’t have to sit through half, or, worse, the whole film).