Wednesday, August 6, 2003 A New Toy: Maybe I shouldn't be splurging like this, but I finally broke down on Sunday and bought a digital camera; specifically a Sony DSCP72 Cybershot Digital Camera, with 3x Optical Zoom at the big Yodobashi Camera store in Shinjuku. It cost me about ¥35,000 up front, but in the long run, certainly, I'll save a lot of money on film (developing three rolls of regular film I brought in to my local photo developer cost me over ¥5,000!). The camera has 3.2 megapixels (5 times the resolution of my aging video camera), a 3 times OPTICAL zoom (digital zoom makes no sense to me, and even a movie mode (MPEG, with sound!). It even came with the rechargable NiMH batteries and charger (which I nearly bought separately before the sales person pointed that out). (The only problem I had with the camera was, well, it didn't work: all I got was multi-color snow on the CCD pickup. So I had to go back on Monday night and swap for a working one.) I'm still fooling around with it (thanks to the English-language owner's manual I downloaded from Sony's website). In the near future, y'all can look forward to shots of things I see. Hell, I may go back and add shots to earlier blog entries. 11:06:22 PM    Comment on this post! [] Another Bunch O' Links: I've added a few links (there to your left). So I might as well explain what they are: Cal's Main Page: My home page. Very basic info about yours truly Books of Interest: A page describing some books I've read recently, will be reading, or are just on my mind for some reason. Paul Krugman (NY Times): Economics and political commentator, appearing twice weekly in the New York Times. Krugman takes no prisoners, puncturing the economic myths and gasbags of the right and the left (supply-side economics. the evils of globalization. Robert Bartley, William Greider, etc.), doing his best to explain in clear terms what economics really is. Long may he wave. Some things I said about Krugman can be found here, about halfway down. William Pesek, Jr. (Bloomberg): A columnist with Bloomberg News. Some things I said about Pesek can be found here. The Liz Connection (blog): A new blog kept by a friend and colleague, a fellow North American expat Pops Racer's Pit Stop (blog): A blog kept by an old college housemate from back in Berkeley. Amazon.com: Where I buy bunches of stuff (and where I have a Wish List (hint hint). Japan Today News: News headlines from Japan Headlines from The Guardian: A headline service from Britain's The Guardian newspaper World News from the Washington Post: A page of world news from Post 10:14:29 PM    Comment on this post! []