CAMERAS The deepening recession meant that it was time to get an expensive camera so I could shoot simulated grainy B&W photos of poor downtrodden folks laid low by these troubled times. Actually, photography's not a very deep interest for me- I like gear (especially if it's black and has lots of accessory potential), but am not much interested in the deepgeek technical stuff like "RAW workflow" and Depth of Field calculations. Basically, today's digital SLR's can take high quality pictures in low light, with fast autofocus and minimal shutter lag. A Nikon D90 has enough manual settings to satisfy an authentic camera geek, but you can run it in full auto mode and make people think that you're a camera geek (especially with an 18-200mm telephoto hanging off its noggin). I thought that a new camera would be useful for the website, iffen I ever made anything again worth photographing. (Nevermind that a 4288 X 2848 pixel image would have to be greatly reduced or cropped to be suitable for web, like what you'd get from a $50 Point & Shooter.) I even got a remote-trigger flash for fancy lighting, iffen I ever made anything again worth photographing. Realistically, it's more of a hassle than I'm used to just to set up a simple shot. Cameras are great justifications for going to places and activities that you might not otherwise go; they give you something to do, and you might even find yourself taking closeup shots of flowers. (Sheesh!) If you're smart, you'll get your wife involved so she can have fun with her own camera (and isn't perpetually waiting for you). On the practical side, cameras are useful for documenting things like hail damage, feral kitties, friends & relatives. Oddly enough, our new expensive toys can't photograph purples-- purples come out as blues. My old Canon G2 didn't have problems with this. Even weirder, there are only a few references to this through Google, and most delve into arcane scientific explanations of the phenomenon, or how easy it is to correct in Photoshop. Sounds like bullshit to me: I know what purple looks like. If my ancient G2 could do it, why can't the fancy Nikon? My one big 'heads-up!' warning for prospective new DSLR camera buyers: Google "Grey Market" before you start shopping. Cameras distributors like NikonUSA refuse to repair, touch, or even look at a Nikon if it wasn't intended for NikonUSA distribution, bought through an authorized dealer. And it's near impossible to tell the difference from markings on the packaging: They'll do a lookup of their top-secret serial number list and give you the bad news when you try to register it. If you want a warranty, be sure to look at the list of 10,000 dealers at their website. Assume that it's probably grey market if you see what appears to be a good deal. (Or conversely, if it appears to be overpriced, it's probably legitimate.) For what it's worth, this is a really useful link for checking out those questionable online sales sites: resellerratings.com

GUNS Tarnation!!! This h'yar be Texas, and we likes our guns black, with lots of accessory potential, just like we likes our Presidents. In a less civilized world, these might serve a more essential function... but we can only hope for the day when mutant zombies will rise up and provide meaningful target practice. Until they do, centerfire target practice is an expensive way to punish paper for foisting recycling on us. Think Olive Drab, doods! I was oblivious to the "Obama Effect" when we decided to get an S&W 617 22lr revolver a few months back. My wife's previously reliable Ruger Mark II & Browning Buckmark had been acting up during our last trips to the range, so I was convinced that 22lr & semi-auto pistols were a match made in Hell. I've since figured out that the ammo we were using was actually really old and crappy ammo that my wife had put into empty boxes of CCI Minimags... Doh! The Ruger and Browning work great with non-crappy ammo, but the S&W revolver is a beautiful hunk of stainless. Nevertheless, I'd wanted her to feel comfortable with a beefier and more reliable round, like 9mm. I scoped out some pistols for her, and saw a really nice & 'spensive Sig Sauer 226 Elite, with Rosewood grips... and realized that she should do her own choosing. Wish I hadn't looked: I got the Elite for me, and she got the hand-me-down Walther PO1. Then it was time to restock with ammo... Jesus Frickin' Christ... I stopped shooting .223 a couple years ago because that was so 'spensive, but I didn't imagine that the humble 9mm round would be so hard to find and so expensive! I came this close (><) to getting an Uzi Pistol (another 9mm shooter) before I wised up. I've got nothing against 22lr, but it seems extravagant to pay range fees just for that. Alternatives? Pellet guns can hurl lead at a very respectable velocity, so they're a practical and convenient way to have fun between trips to the range. But it ain't the same. There's no substitute for the crack and recoil of a carefully aimed shot, and the smell of gunpowder. (It's especially nice when the holes in the target are in the neighborhood of where you've aimed.)

RADIO CONTROLLED CARS Slot cars are now enjoying their retirement. I'd taken down my slot car track to make room in the storage shed for storing stuff (huh?). It was a hard thing to do because playing with those little suckers was fun. Still, that didn't kill my interest: When I found out that Revell was going to release the John Surtees Can Am Lola T70, I had to get it-- even without a track. The Surtees Lola got me thinking about slot cars again, and specifically, the choices between the traditional analog style and the newer digital styles. (Style(s) because manufacturers have their own versions of digital systems and they don't work together.) As I understand it, digital lets you run more than two cars in two lanes because cars can use special sections of track for switching lanes and passing. Of course, adding this to an existing analog setup can be problematic, and certainly expensive. That got me thinking of new ways to spend money... Even though they've been out since around 2002, I'd never heard of Kyosho's radio-controlled Mini-Z cars before, but that's where Googling "1/32 RC cars" led. At 1:28 scale, they're bigger than 1:32 slot cars, but smaller than 1:24 slot cars. Although the RC cars are more expensive (but not always), RC gives you more functionality for your buck. These tiny things have front and rear suspensions, and more opportunities for tinkering and spending even more bucks on upgrade parts. On the other hand they're much less tweakable than their larger scale cousins, which can suck some major bucks out of your wallet. RC cars don't need special tracks to change lanes and 40 of them can race at the same time. They drive forwards and in reverse, and you have to steer them! They're less challenging than RC helicopters (which taught me my limitations, skill-wise and pocketbook-wise), but more so than slot cars. Of course, to get really good at anything is challenging, since we run up against those humbling limitations of our reflexes and abilities. A cheapie lap timer/counter can be cobbled together with a laser pointer and a Microsizers Digital Lap Counter (about $5 on eBay). IR detector is made external with an extension and put into an aluminum tube so you can handle the control unit without changing the laser/detector alignment. Alignment is not very critical. Slot car tracks are fairly space-efficient and can vary from a small, simple loop to an elaborate setup with overpasses and scenery. Even the simple ones are enough trouble to set up and take down so that you're inclined to want a permanent or semi-permanent setup. One attraction of RC is that you don't need a track. You can run Mini-Zs on low-pile carpet or the smooth concrete of a garage floor. A couple of plastic barrel tops thrown on the floor and you're set to do laps and figure-8s. If you want to invest in a formal track, RCP makes a modular system of interlocking foam panels. RCP tracks have very good traction, which lets you go fast without spinning out. The formal track enforces lanes that you cannot cross (versus a line drawn on concrete). The foam guardrails help to minimize serious damage to your car (from the track-- not from other cars). These tracks are huge though, by slot car standards-- A popular lane width is 2 x 19" tiles, resulting in a 33"-wide lane. RC cars need a lot of lane width if you want to drive fast, and RCP's basic "Wide L" track easily fills half of a two-car garage. Despite this, the track is quick & easy to set up/take down and store, since it's light and can be broken down into 5 or 6 sections that can lean up against your garage wall. Especially important when you hear there's a hailstorm headed your way! 1:1, 1:10, 1:28, & 1:32 This isn't my first experience with RC cars-- I have an ancient Kyosho 1:10 scale Testarossa and Team Associated RC-10 from back in the day. What I didn't like about those was that you had to go somewhere outdoors with a lot of space to race them, and the batteries only gave about a 5-minute run time. The battery life/capacity has improved, but I was blown away when I heard that these little 1:28 RC cars could run for 45 minutes on a set of AAA rechargeable batteries (less if you use high gearing and a power-hungry motor). Between the long run time and the convenience of racing indoors, whenever you wanted to, one could put in an awful lot of practice time... even at 3 a.m. in your skivvies. However, Mini-Zs are fussy about where they're run. The racers are indoors cars (with minimal road clearance), although you can set up an RCP track outdoors. They definitely can't be run off-road, or in a parking lot where tiny pebbles are like 1:28 scale boulders-- they need a really clean and smooth garage concrete floor, or you'll hit micro boulders and collect bunches of crap in the wheel bearings. Given how neat Mini-Zs are, I was surprised at how few websites were devoted to them, and how meager a following they seem to have. By that measure, slot cars seem to be far more popular. Larger scale RC cars remain far more popular, at least in the USA. They're really fast, and it's a grander spectacle to watch big cars racing around a dirt track or concrete parking lot than tiny cars zipping around a big track in a room. It could be that Mini-Zs have been out for quite a while (so the novelty has passed), or that they're fairly expensive to get into, or that there's so much competition between other scales, or even poor marketing by Kyosho-- at this time, Hobbytown USA doesn't carry any Kyosho. Mini-Zs aren't the smallest RC racecars, but I think they're a nice balance between compactness of an indoors runner, reasonable scale physics, and ability to tweak without needing a microscope.