Robocop Showing at the Inwood at Midnight

Matt was kind enough to let me know that Robocop is showing at The Inwood at midnight tonight. And, as it’s my 8th favorite movie, I wouldn’t want to miss out on that :).

I’m guessing this isn’t the director’s cut, which is a minor disappointment, but I’m still pretty stoked about this since I’ve never seen the film on the big screen. Oh, and for any Dallasites attending, keep an eye out for some Dallas landmarks that crop in here and there, such as the interior of the Plaza of the Americas and Dallas City Hall standing in for the OCP building :).

My Nikon 5700 is a PT Cruiser

I’ve had a Nikon 5700 digicam for a couple years now and it’s served me well. All the same, it’s been getting on my nerves a bit recently as I've been pushing its limits — my current gripe is that there's no way to disable the internal flash while leaving an external flash enabled.

And, while reading Ask MetaFilter, I came across an analogy from kcm which was able to nicely summarize my perspective on the camera:

I was never happy with the prosumer choices like the S2 (I had the PowerShot G2 and G3). Not enough control to justify the size. It’s like driving a PT Cruiser because you need to haul stuff for construction projects but you want a small car to autocross: it sucks for both. […]

Now, I don’t think my Nikon 5700 sucks, but I have been keeping an eye out for an upgrade. The hard part is where to go from there, which kcm comments on as well:

If you DO go for a DSLR, be prepared to have two cameras — one to slip in a pocket, like your Elph, and the DSLR, which is generally too bulky for events where your primary concern is not photography.[…]

So maybe that would be a workable long-term strategy (buying both a compact digicam & a DSLR). The predicament I have now, though, is that I can't afford both of those :-/. Decisions, decisions…

Gemütlichkeit

I ran across gemütlichkeit in Wikipedia and I like its connotation of “a cosy place”, but with a meaning conveying more than just “cosiness”:

Gemütlichkeit is a German abstract noun whose closest English equivalent is cosiness. However, rather than basically just describing a place as not too large, well-heated and nicely furnished (a cosy room, a cosy flat), Gemütlichkeit connotes, much more than cosiness, the notion of belonging, social acceptance, cheerfulness, the absence of anything hectic and the spending of quality time in a place as described above. […]

The article went on to say that Queen Victoria was one of the first to use the adjective gemütlich in English; since it seems to be a useful word, I might be inclined to do the same. How would it be pronounced, though? Something like geh-MUTE-lish?

Yeah, Stars. Whatever.

As I was walking out of work this evening, I came to a “Don’t Walk” crosswalk and, as I waited, another commuter walked to the crosswalk as well. She then thought to strike up conversation:

  • Her: “It’s nice seeing stars in the sky. I don't often see them after work.”
  • Me: “Ah.”
  • Me / inner dialog: “Stars? Yeah, fine.”
  • Her: “Can you see it? It’s right… [pointing with her finger] there. ”
  • Me: “How about that.”
  • Her: “No, I’m not sure you're seeing it — take a step back… Do you see it? Right there?”
  • Me: “Oh. There it is.”
  • Me / inner dialog: You’re still talking?
  • Her: And I know it’s not an airplane because it’s not moving. It really is a star.

Fortunately, the light changed at that point and we crossed the street. I have nothing against astronomy, but I guess I've seen enough stars that they're not that exciting to me.