So my feelings have been subtle of late. Not too distressed, not too excited, just getting things done on a day by day basis.

Many random things to note, if just as a personal log on things. It’s been nearly 4 months since I’ve been in NY and only today I finally get my bank card and my first payroll here is like a jug filling a glass of water. One of my colleagues is away and he is the person who usually fixes things. Now that he’s away I’m finding strange queries pop up in front of me. Was a little daunted at first at the things I needed to get fixed. In my line of work, everything is time sensitive, so most things need to be fixed yesterday. Still learning a lot and am glad at the opportunities. Just piling on responsibilities now to make myself more useful. Woke up a couple of days ago feeling the need to excel again. I got picked to come to NY because my boss felt I was capable. I haven’t felt that sense of being capable for a while now so I’m giving myself a nudge to be able to perform again. At least feeling slightly satisfied that I’m giving work a proper go again.

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Lots of tech stuff was announced in the last 4 weeks. Nikon announced their new line of DSLRs and I’m really keen on the D300. Heh, it was my original intention to bypass the D200 and wait for its successor before upgrading but I wasn’t expecting it until mid 2008 to be announced. Why do I want one? Better low light capabilities, in both focusing and image quality. The new LCD that comes has enough resolution that you can tell if pictures are sharp straight after clicking the shutter button. My D70 works fine during the day and under ideal conditions, but I find I shoot often during sunrise and sunset to get the best saturation of colours and shadows. Often times, the camera misfocuses due to the lack of light or there is motion blur because the camera tries to compensate the lack of light by increasing exposure speed.

On the contrary, I can take pretty decent pictures with my compact IXUS. Like the picture below

I was walking home from work today when I saw these 3 bottles on the ground. My laziness nearly got the better of me as I recognised immediately that this was an opportune shot but was too lazy to take out my camera. Common sense prevailed and I whipped out my compact from my bag, which is another advantage of small cameras, you have a tendency to bring them everywhere (my current D70 + 17-55mm setup is nearly 1.2kgs?).

The bottles were positioned perfectly, just behind the leaf and I did not create an artificial setup. Everything was as is. Heh, did some post processing to enhance the effect of the picture. I’m trying to break free from being too rigid with my pictures. The technical knowledge helps you to get the kind of exposures you want, but you will still need to have feeling to get the shot to come out right. Will need to continue working on that too.

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Other tech news include new iPods, new computer processors etc etc. Heh, I used to get excited with all these things but now I will just see what’s cool on the market. My lifestyle has changed, so iPods don’t really mean much to me now, but the new iPod touch would have been a great toy for the current student as you can fill your songs in, or some tv shows for the library. When you are bored, you can just whip it out and relax a bit (the iPod touch is an iPod with a 3″ LCD screen and is just big enough that you can enjoy portable video on it). If you run out of media, the built in wifi allows you to surf the internet or watch Youtube clips, and what library doesn’t come with wireless access these days? Perfect media tool.

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So many other random things that go through my mind now like how to make a curry, pumpkin soup. It would probably have cumin in it and I can imagine Vyanne going ‘noooooooooooo’. I have made strange dishes with cumin before and it came out to be not quite edible. *pause*. I shall let my mind wander off.