Sunday, August 10, 2003 Summer is Here at Last (ugh): Rainy season, for some reason, ran very late this year, with the full heat of summer only starting up this week. Mid-July is what I normally associate with the beginning of the blistering heat and stifling humidity of full summer, but that didn't happen until early August. (Not that I welcome it, exactly, but it is nice to have some continuity to the seasons.) Then there was the added bonus of a typhoon (well, part of one) inflicting high winds and driving rain on the Tokyo area most of yesterday. Yeah, it was cooler, but it made leaving the house difficult (which I was forced to do because I WAS OUT OF COFFEE. There are some crises that must be dealt with immediately. (Okay, I had an emergency supply of instant coffee, if it came to that, but only under truly dire conditions (such as natural disaster, meteor strike, civil insurrection) that would close the stores.) 6:33:28 PM    Comment on this post! [] My New Toy, part 2: I'm still playing around with the new digital camera I bought early this week. I've taken maybe a couple hundred photos, trying out the varous settings to see what they do. Personally, I'm amazed at the flexibility of this thing, especially under low-light conditions: I can capture stuff that's either impossible or damned difficult with my old Canon FTb 35mm SLR. Also gratifying, of course, is the immediate feedback on experiments--as opposed to bracketing shots with a film camera, waiting for the film to be developed to see the results, and paying for the privilege to boot. Whatever doesn't work goes straight into the bit bucket. Eventually, I'll start posting my own pix, just as soon as I get enough to make it worth it. Meantime, an early shot of my home train station, Musashi-Sakai: 6:02:14 PM    Comment on this post! []