My view of the world

From the NY Times:
Exxon Mobil, aided by strong energy prices, disclosed Monday that it had set a record for profits among American companies, reporting $36 billion in annual income. But while most companies would be proud to trumpet record profits, Exxon Mobil did everything it could to play down the news.
For Exxon Mobil, which also handily widened its lead over Wal-Mart as the company with the largest revenues in the nation, the report was an embarrassment of riches. Anxious about criticism of the results, executives began laying the groundwork months ago to try to prevent a political reaction against the company and the energy industry.

For example, Exxon Mobil paid for advertisements in leading newspapers arguing that profit margins in the industry lagged far behind those of other industries, like pharmaceuticals and banking.

In one measure of Exxon Mobil’s wealth and influence, its revenue of $371 billion surpassed the $245 billion gross domestic product of Indonesia, an OPEC member and the world’s fourth most populous country, with 242 million people.

Please feel sorry for the poor oil company, they suffered damage from hurricane Katrina and had no choice but to raise prices, and for God’s sake, write your congressman and insist that these poor defenseless oil companies get the “one time”tax break they so desperately need.

“It’s good to be the king”, but, sometimes it’s just as good to have him on speed dial.

I’ve gone from film to strictly digital cameras. I used to use Nikon 35mm exclusively, now I have a small Olympus to throw in my pocket, a Nikon 5700 that has a nice lens, but is too slow to autofocus except in very bright light, and my primary camera, a Nikon D70.
I bought the D70 after looking at the smallest of the Canon SLR’s and deciding it wasn’t comfortable. I had put a few thousand rolls of film through various camera and my favorites were always the larger 35mm bodies. I’ve had the smallest of the film slrs and I never could get comfotable with them.
The Nikon D70 fit me well and the camera store had the Nikon 60mm macro lens in stock, needless to say, it cost me a couple of grand to get out the door, by the time I was done with all the little extras, like spare battery, battery charger and assorted filters and adapters, but I had what I wanted.
The D70S came out just a month later, but I don’t see enough difference to even consider getting rid of what I’ve got. The D200 got my attention when it was announced and I know I’ll wind up with one after they’ve been out a while.
In the mean time I’ve got a sweet digital slr that takes great pictures, especially with the VR lens.

Taken out the car window at 35mph.

I really like the vibration reduction, it offers just enough stabilization to gain me 1.5 to 2 stops, however I’m told you shouldn’t use the VR feature from a tripod. I should get around to testing this theory one of these days.
If you want honest review by a photographer check out Ken Rockwell. He’s been a photographer for more than a few years and seems to have a realistic view of the world.
The only problem I have is that his review of the Nikon D200 gives me an almost uncontrollable urge to go out and spend almost 2 grand.

What do you get when you cross a prostitute with an elephant?

A 2,000 pound whore who fucks for peanuts and remembers you forever!

From the back of “Tiger Rydberg’s” calling card. (Lucy’s Tiger Den, Bankok Thailand)
It’s amazing what people send you out of the blue.

I noticed an article over in the Las Vegas blog with a title that asked if the bubble had burst for high-rise condos here in Vegas.
I didn’t read the article, but this question seems to get posed every time some developer fails to raise enough cash to get the project off the ground. As I see it these rather grandiose plans fail to take into account, that while there’s a lot of money in this town, most people out this way are still hoping for a house, and for the next few years this will be possible, but, as the drive to work takes longer and longer and the traffic gets worse and the price of a house continues to skyrocket, there will be a demand for housing close to work and shopping.
This valley is rapidly being filled to capacity, so soon it will be normal to live in a high-rise. I just think they’re about 5 years too early and the land these planned developements are on is getting too expensive for anything but casinos, so perhaps down one of the cross streets ,or even as far down as Paradise Rd., will be where they’re finally built, but I don’t doubt that they will be built.

Here are a couple of photos of signs from northern Australia I found in one of the photography news groups.
Kinda makes you wonder why swimming is so popular down that way.

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Click on the picture for a larger view.

They net the beaches to keep the sharks out, a small, extremely venomous spider that looks like the american black widow is invading the yards, the houses are nearly all made of brick because of the termite problem, and all the snakes seem to be poisonous, as near as I can tell everything in N. Australia is either venomous or hungry.

I occasionally exchange email with some people down that way, but they live along the southeast coast. They still have the snakes and spiders, but not nearly as many of them and the water’s a bit safer even if it’s cooler.

One of these days I really need to get down that way, I’d really like to spend some time in both Australia and New Zealand.
That kind of travel is expensive, and with having spent $12k on the dentist last year and more coming up, I’ll have to put off travel for a while.
(I know, I know, brush and floss twice a day.)
Still, I aint dead yet, and with a little patients and avoiding the computer and camera stores it’s not out of reach.

I appologize to the photographer for using these pictures without permission and for not giving him credit, but I can’t remember where I found them.
They say the first thing to go is the mind and I can’t remember what’s next.

I was going to post a picture of a rose that’s in bloom, but the wind is blowing and it’s getting cool enough so I had to wear a jacket.
I just checked the weather and it’s 52 deg.f with winds of 15mph, the expected low will be somewhere near freezing. So much for avoiding winter.

I got a Fry’s gift certificate for Xmas. I figured it would cost me several hundred dollars, Fry’s has that effect on me.
After finding out that they didn’t have the 74gig 10,ooo rpm hd I wanted, they’ve had these in the past, but the inventory listing in the computer refused to acknowledge that they had ever existed, I found a few things and bought some more memory for my graphics box.

One of the things I bought was an 8 gig usb microdrive by Memorex, the protective shield/guide that plugs into your computer came off immediately, this is non-fatal, but really annoying.
The memory was by the right company, but it was 2 sticks of value ram instead of a matched pair of the high-end corsair I had requested. The sales dweeb was lost at best, and had the personality of cold pasta. Have you ever dealt with a salesman who left you with the impression that you were interrupting their morning cartoons? The scary part is that these guys are on commission.
The only guy there who seems to know what’s up is always busy at the desk, he’s also the only one I’ve seen more that once.

The lesson is simple, unless you absolutely have to have it today, buy online from fry’s at outpost or newegg, I prefer Newegg. Nothing can protect you completely, but by doing this at least you can assure yourself that you ordered the correct part number, instead of relying on some semi-literate, soon to be unemployed luser.

As for the memorex problem, this is a symptom of living in a world where very few people are willing to pay more than Walmart prices. The end result is a lack of quality control and the expectation by the manufacturer that a percentage of returns will go unnoticed by the customers. This unit cost about $200 usd, but the quality is just like the cheap shit.

It only cost me a hundred and seventy dollars out of pocket, and I went away with the wrong memory, (my choice, I have another box that needed memory so it’s not a loss) a defective Travel Drive,(usable but annoying) a usb/card reader with a really flakey install and no docs, (Windows handled it, in spite of the weird install, by not installing the drivers off the disk) a bunch of other small bits and pieces and a Memorex dvd burner that worked the way it was supposed to. The burner is the odd one.

Once upon a time, I’d have been pissed, but now I’m so used to shoddy merchandise and bad service that this is as close to a complaint as I’ll bother with, I guess the assholes are winning after all.

Yet another change in the law that was undoubtadly well intended from rational rants at Ziff Davis.

It’s still warm although, I did wear a windbreaker this morning. It’s gotten down to freezing a couple of nights and it should rain a bit over the weekend, beyond that our highs have been in the 60’s, and to David in Minnesota, neener neener.

I’m helping a couple of people with their sites and I’m forever sending the wrong file to the wrong person.
The good part about being a bit confused about who’s stuff is who’s, is that since we’re all friends and none of us are exactly talented when it comes to programming, we can look over each others code and hopefully make it all work.

I see Pioneer Loan is having fun trying to get their site moved.
Having done this a few times myself, I understand. The theoretical 48 hrs from beginning to end is like most things we plan, just wishful thinking. On the other hand, their primary site is moved and the others are still operational, even their blog works.

I just read in the Las Vegas blog that Paula Abdul is still a bitch and that I missed the implosion of the Castaways, ..yawn. When they imploded the first couple of joints it was impressive, but now it’s just another traffic jam.
I remember when the Castaways was on the strip, with a polynesian motif and aku aku glasses and the Showboat was basically a locals joint that caught the overflow from downtown, with a world class bowling alley and a $3.50 buffet complete with soft ice cream.
The Boat attracted an older crowd and was a good place to play the slots or $1 blackjack and if friends or relatives came to town you could always get a room for a good price.
The Castaways was a fairly small joint but they served an honest drink, I never got a short shot there, they had friendly people and they also had great polynesian dancers, I always had a weakness for island girls.

Things change, I looked at ticket prices the other day and even a so-so show will set you back more than a c-note.
I live in the area near Sam’s Town and I’m not far from Boulder Station, but if I go out it’s usually to one of the local PT’s.
I generally eat lunch, on those days I bother to eat lunch, down at the Bonanza Lounge, which has older bartenders and no pool tables, the owner doesn’t want a younger crowd, but serves good food. I like the bartenders I’ve met there, they’re friendly, they poor an honest drink and they don’t seem upset if you don’t spend a lot of money. I think that’s why I stick to the small joints.

As I write this it’s in the high 60’s, the sun is shining and there’s no wind.
In the mean time, a gentleman I have known for 10 or 12 years is sitting at his new assignment in Minnesota.
He claims that my weather reports in my email are grounds for justifiable homicide.
It’s not my fault if he got a real job and they transfered him after a decade or so here in Las Vegas.
Our version of bad weather is a cold rain or a couple of days below freezing, in the summer we get hot, but all the houses have air conditioning.
On the whole, I’ve been places that 95 degrees would be fatal and sub-freezing is an everyday occurrence.
There are reasons I live here and the weather is one of them.