ashcomp | (no subject)

Spent Saturday doing chauffeur and companion duties--drove Judy to two different yard sales, and then to Metro for a run downtown to "Arts on Foot."

At the first yard sale, we picked up a Nikon Coolpix 950 for $5.00. Maybe 1% of what it would have gone for nine years ago. I used to lust after those things, they were the first cameras to have an lcd which swiveled independently of the lens. You can hold them up overhead in a crowd, and actually see what your picture is going to look like. Of course, it's only about a 1.9 Megapixel item, and uses compact flash cards which are so small, you can only find them on Ebay any more. It's not at all clear if that camera can even format or address a memory card in the Gigabyte range. But I did find such a a thing, and ordered it. We'll see what kind of pictures it can still take.

Arts on Foot is an annual event in DC, now. F street is blocked off from 6th to 9th NW, or between the Sydey Harman hall and the Spy Museum. All manner of artists, potters, fabric designers, and others set up tents and sell their goods. A number of the fancier downtown restaurants have chef demos and booths, where they sell tasty samples for $3 - $5 each. The Synetic Theatre Company did (severely excerpted) 5-minute productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Dracula. All in all, a whole lot of fun and entertainment in a compact location.

The only downside was sharing the Metro both ways with placard-bearing Tea Party attendees, haters, and other Fox News consumers. Ugh.