Monthly Archives: October 2009

SLR Lust

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I did not think I would ever be one of these people…But I’m lusting after and SLR camera. YES, I really want to be one of those ‘amateur’ photographers that carries around a big camera looking very conspicuously like a tourist OR trying to pull it off looking like an artsy hipster.

Nikon D3000

Nikon D3000

I did some admittedly limited research and the Nikon D300 looks like the one to lust after.  Ideally with a wide angle lens with automatic focus like this one…

Wide Angle Lense - 10 to 24mm (supposedly picture angle is equivalent to a focal length of 15 to 36mm in FX- and 35mm formats)

Wide Angle Lense - 10 to 24mm (supposedly picture angle is equivalent to a focal length of 15 to 36mm in FX- and 35mm formats)

But I have to do some soul searching.

What I want is:

  • Be able to click and take a picture without the delay you get in point and shoot cameras.
  • I would also love to have a wide angle lens for great vistas without everything looking flat.
  • I want nice rich color pigments in my pictures.
  • Be able to take pictures in low lights without flash.

What I don’t want is:

  • A very expensive camera I have to worry about losing / getting stolen / getting ruined.
  • A big camera that is heavy to lug around.
  • I don’t really want to play with manual camera settings.

I currently have a Canon Cybershot and overall I’m very happy with the camera aside from the obvious limitations a point and shoot will have. (Again, why is the Canon site so lame? Why does it refer to film cameras? And why does it not have a picture of the actual camera I own. The image below is of an older version.)

Current Camera I Own.

Current Camera I Own.

For not I’m going to have to start saving money in soft mushy Pakistani Rps. and start converting it into some cold hard cash. Many things to save for till May 2011.

Electro Disco Pop Is My Guilty Pleasure

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Some times I have pretensions of liking deep house, electronic experimental, indie rock…But I checked my most played iTunes list; is all electro-disco-pop.Top of the list recently is The Ravonettes – their new album, In and Out of Control is not instant love for me as LUST, LUST, LUST.  (Maybe because I instantly loved the title… Lust… Lust… Lust…) The new album is more upbeat, with fewer hooky tunes – but it’s got the trademark wall of hazy sound. I’m going to get into it.High rotation on my list is also Desire – best song is ‘Don’t call’, ‘Mirror Mirror’ and ‘Colorless Sky’. Big surprise that Johnny Jewel is behind Desire; also of italians do it better; chromatics; glass candy – all artists who have been in heavy rotation in my digital record player.Which brings me to – why is eMusic a walled garden? As I’m writing this now, I would like to link to all these artists on emusic. Its an excellent music wiki; I love that ‘editor’ plus ‘regular peeps’ reviews, plus it automatically pulls the artists info from YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr in one page. I would be GREAT if other people could see it!Think of all the excellent google indexing they could have, tons of organic traffic and many more subscriptions! Grrr – opportunity wasted makes me mad. Also, I hate that emusic doesn’t automatically tell me when there is a new album by an artist I have already downloaded.All things I would love to fix. I wish they had something like mystarbucksidea.com where I could tell them about this. I’ve emailed emusic (because in actuality I’m a big fan girl of the site) quite a few times of things they need to add to site – but never any response.Booo product manager.

Delete, Empty Trash Can

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So as of recently – oh say – past six months I have heard a lot of crazy things. Okay, crazy IMHO.Things like…’… so I asked my mom to pray every day so that jinns don’t put a spell on me…”… you cannot eat more than two types of desserts in one meal. It’s not religiously allowed…’Initially, I started writing these crazy things down. I would recount them to people – expecting to hear ‘that’s f*****g crazy!’.But I didn’t.And it freaked me out. Seems the crazy rabbit hole can be pretty deep.My new philosophy is; I pretend to not hear crazy speak. As in, I listen to people when they tell me things which are ‘CRAZY’ and I smile and nod. And then, I go into my memory database and press delete – empty trash can.

Dogs and the Brain

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I saw the most disturbing things yesterday…I was driving around 8.30pm so the city was dark and as usual there were not streetlights working. On a busy fast moving street (sunset blvrd) the traffic suddenly started swerving weirdly.I was a dog trying to cross the street.I don’t think he made it un-harmed – he barely missed the car right in front of me only to slam right into the taxi in the next lane.  When I saw him as I zoomed by, he was still up but I’m not sure he got to the other side.Makes me think – what exactly was the dog looking for on the other side of the street? Couldn’t he wait till like 2 am, when his survival rate would be better? He is dog after all – its not like he has to BE somewhere.The little doggy clearly did not have the proper crossing technique mastered. I see people everyday; women in buqas with kids in tow, old men, cross the ‘highway’ near baloch colony. You know they see you driving by when they are looking past your car into the distance behind you trying to gauge the timing between cars.I’ve been reading ‘A users guide to the brain’ (ha ha – I know! The title gets me every time).It seems surprising since we do it so easily; but at the brain level gauging speed and distance are pretty complex tasks. Our brains evolved so that we can quickly access data in the brain and make decision (cross or not) in an instantaneous gut-reaction instinct kind of way.Which is why humans are better at crossing the street than dogs.

Although dogs can do some pretty fun things…

Fear and loathing in…

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… Karachi.

To start; I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on Saturday night. It’s been – oh I would say – at least 7-8 years since I first watched the movie.

Aside from MAYBE catching bits of it on TV (is that really likely?) I hadn’t seen it since. Definitely a different mind state from the first run – where I found the movie totally incomprehensible – this time some things really connected.  I think I could appreciated the drunken, debauched, grossly sickening drug fueled adventure without having to bother about moralism (really me?) or rationalizing why that haven’t O-ded yet and was able to really wallow in both Depp and del Toro’s mind-blowing performance.

Dr. Gonzo Needs No Help

Dr. Gonzo Needs No Help

Also, since I recently read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test I second degree mourned with the ‘wave speach’.. (What a time! Would I have been part of it if I was alive then? Sad Truth… most definitely probably not.)

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.Source: Wiki-love

Which brings me back to fear and loathing in Karachi. (Kind of).The city is in high alert. All visible public places are to be avoided including… Cinemas, Markets, Restaurants, Hotels, Streets, Parks.. and yes ESPECIALLY schools. Its only a matter of time until a suicide bomb goes off and terror, terror  is everywhere. I am here, right now. What should I be doing?… I think its a good day to go shopping; the stores will be crowd free.

Karachi street.

Karachi streets - needs help.

Things missed: Street Fashion

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One of the things I miss living in Karachi is the non-existent street life.For those who don’t know; basically if you are on the streets in the city you try to blend in as much as possible. You also have to avoid the general hotness, garbage in the street and ignore all the men staring. As in – not a place where any young people are going to be walking around in fun street fashion.Because of this I’ve been really into following street fashion blogs from around the world. My favorite is of course; The Sartorialist. Really what I love about what he shoots – aside from the loving depiction of people from all walks of life and beautiful to look at pictures – is the quirkyness of his subject. The subjects are not usually of  ‘fashion magazine’ perfect fashion sense – it’s all about how their style represents a personal statement.Below are a link of some of my recent favorite images. I just like looking at them and imagine the environment – it’s almost like a 30 second mini vacation.

I love bright yellow background (my fav color) and the moment captured (what is the conversation onthe phone?) In terms of the clothes I love the boxy men's style of the clothes which still to me looks very breezy cool and sexy.

I love bright yellow background (my fav color) and the moment captured (what is the conversation onthe phone?) In terms of the clothes I love the boxy men's style of the clothes which still to me looks very breezy cool and sexy. (Source: thesartorialist.com)

Young girl with skinny legs on phone.

Young girl with skinny legs on phone. I really like the contrast between this photo and the one above both in terms of the background, expression on the woman's (girl's?) face and the overall tone of the image. I love the outfit for its flow-y thick top and the skinny bare legs with short dress.

Other blogs I’ve been recently following include Feedshion which is (you guessed it) an aggregated fashion feed site.  Also love Feedpeeper (Peeps!) – but the RSS feed doesn’t include the pictures so that’s a booooo. But it does have street fashion from different cities which is fun to compare and contrast.

Damn… Another problem encountered.

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So this blog thinks that it is September 24th today – and although I would like to go back in time and re-live the past 1 month with hind-sight perfect vision – today is actually October 24th 11 am.  I wonder what is making said blog so grievously mistaken on the date. My guess is the server time.  Anyways; I suppose this will require further googling and investigation.