Month: October 2024 (Page 2 of 4)

–Watched the 49ers lose to Patrick Mahomes again. Disheartening.

–Bought a “new” “2020” Paradigm Diamondback razor at Damn Fine Shave. After a TON of poring over my spreadsheet, it seems I have three of those: $295 from DFS a while back, $895 from eBay, and now $550 from DFS again (coming). None of them looks obviously unpolished, but—–after a ton of searching, I can’t find one photo or bit of text that shows a 2019 unpolished, let alone a comparison of the 2019 and 2020. Oh well…

–Sort of tried to revive the Leica X Vario. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s not a night camera. It does have shutter speed and aperture dials on top, but trying to zoom/focus with the LED is awful.

–Played with photos all day. Turned all .tif into .jpg and re-did the various albums. Good quality, less storage space.

–Took Grace shopping at Koreana Plaza.

–Started getting serious about music again. Downloaded (and bought) foobar2000 MP3 player, with 31 channel graphic equalizer, MP3 Tag Editor, Audacity, and MP3 Gain. We rollin’ now…

–Took the BMW to get bagels. Stopped to pick up Leica buttons at UPS (pretty skimpy) and milk/pizza at Bel Air.

–Went to see Dr. Liu at Folsom Eye. Seemed like a no-nonsense guy. Recommended big stent in right eye (higher pressure, more risk of damage), smaller stent in left eye, laser cataract breakup (less heat, safer). He does 800-900 cataracts a year, which is good. Will start on right eye–sometime in January, maybe. Something’s going on with access to medical care, but it hasn’t hit the news yet.

–Motor City pizza for dinner. Good, but I like Red Baron better.

–Cooler, partly cloudy, a couple of sprinkles today.

–Tried (again) to revive the Leica SL. Got all the buttons/wheel perfectly set up, then recalled it doesn’t have image stabilization. Further, a comparison with the SL2-S showed it to have considerably lower contrast/saturation, which seems puzzling. Will try again tonight. [edit] Tried again; was reminded that the SL2-S has the best sensor ever. SL goes back in the closet. Did ONE MORE Q2 vs. Q-P test. Q2 started out looking better than usual, but once again the Q-P beat it. Q2 goes back in the closet.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Rode 12.4 miles in Folsom with Tom Elken. Tiring.

–Had Rao’s frozen dinners; watched the conclusion of Reacher season 2. Pretty good.

–Tested Leica Q2 vs. Q-P again. This time I was able to get a decent night shot (back patio) from the Q2, and the camera is much easier to customize than the Q-P, but the Q-P still seems to make it easier to get good night shots.

–Leica Q-P came in. Pretty good shape. Spent a while trying to clean it with alcohol, then even it out with Nano Oil. Looks a little worse, per usual.

–Tried all day to revive the Sony. The “menu” system on that camera is so Byzantine it’s beyond belief. I never did figure out how to put ISO on the front wheel.

–Did various showdowns. The Q-P doesn’t seem to have quite the auto-focus capability of the Q2, but it held its own in daylight. At night (in back) it was another story. Tried the Sony first. It did auto ISO of 12400 and took a really bizarre, completely unfixable photo. I’m sure it could be improved, but when the SL2-S does great night pics with easy settings, it’s not worth the hassle. Shockingly, the Q2 also took a terrible pic. More fixable, but ugly. And once again a Q-P kicked butt. Super-nice picture that I would have kept exceot for all the toters in the alley. I suppose I should look at my Q again. Doesn’t have engraving on top, but (I believe) I bought it new and perfect.

–Went to Bel Air for cookies, cheese, cream, jock itch medicine, oranges.

–Started trying to organize razors and brushes again. Been a while since I catalogued anything.

–Went to Home Depot on a mission for Grace. No dice. Stopped at UPS to pick up yet another fidget spinner.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner, then two episodes of Reacher, season 2. Much better than season one.

–Drove the BMW to Black Sails to pick up coffee, then to the PO to get stamps for Grace.

–Took a bike ride to the dog park, 10+ miles. Tiring.

–Went to UPS to pick up another fidget spinner.

–Took a shower and shave.