Adding to the junk heap of cameras...

Some time during Anthrocon, I broke the Sony Mavica. I guess it didn't take too well to being accidentally dropped onto the floor. I already had some pictures from Friday and Saturday so it wasn't a total loss. Anyway, I probably won't ever consider that line of cameras again. The floppy drive is just too fragile. It was quite a novelty in its day before memory sticks and CompactFlash but it's obsolete now.

I remembered there was a digital camera somewhere so I started searching when I came home. Indeed there was. The Largan Chameleon Mega that came with the Dell PC was still sitting on the table. It's quite limited in features and there's no LCD preview but the captured images aren't too bad after a bit of tweaking with Photoshop Elements. Picture #1 Picture #2. It might make a good camera for geocaching because it is light and I won't be terribly upset if it gets smashed on a rock or floats down a stream.

Since I was at the Palisades Center Mall though, I took a look at what digital cameras the electronics stores there had to offer. Picked up a Nikon Coolpix 2000 at CompUSA since they were having a one-week special. I'll see how this works out. Most of the digicams would have been fine though. All I really needed was the LCD preview and some optical zoom. Considering that most of the pictures I take will be shrunk down to 500x500, even 1 megapixel would be more than enough.

The Frugal Life

Grumpy millionaire leaves estate to create kids' sports park

MEDFORD - A reclusive millionaire known for hating children has bequeathed his estate to build a youth sports park.

Wes Howard -- a frugal man who used an outhouse rather than pay to install a toilet in his house -- died in March at age 87.

He lived in an 1890s farmhouse and cooked on a turn-of-the-century wood stove.

The article also mentions that most of his money was won in an injury lawsuit so it could be that he didn't know what to do with it or he felt he didn't deserve it. Personally, with that kind of money, I'd get plumbing!

One Reason Not to Drive with the Window Down

Flying Underpants Cause Highway Crash

BERLIN (Reuters) - A pair of flying underpants caused a crash on a German highway when they landed on a driver's face and blocked his view, police said Tuesday.

A police spokesman in the central town of Gotha said one of a group of naked men in a van threw the underwear into a Volkswagen Passat as they passed it on a busy stretch of one of Germany's notoriously speedy autobahns.

Just wait until they get their Hanes on you.