front cover up
i used to be so on top of music. i would buy an album and tell people all about it…they’d think it was trash and two years later they’d be all hot shit and on the radio.
it used to make me mad but now i don’t have time to find music so i’m stuck being one of those unfortunates that are always behind on this type of thing. i don’t have time to scour message boards, irc, and blogs and all those other things i did when i was a whipper snapper and broke. At about 5pm I figured I could waste an hour looking for new music…I started out with some fabulous suggestions; using amazon and itunes to point in me in similar directions…
1 busted bank account later; i got some good stuff….behold.
Jack’s Mannequin - Everything In Transit
OneRepublic - Good, wholesome, emo.
The Postal Service - Give Up Where have I been??
Other Stuff I Stumbled Into:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend I can’t sit still. Seriously.
Stuff I Sort Of Had But Didn’t & Am Currently Digging:
MGMT - Kids & Time to Pretend These tracks are all over fabulous
She Wants Revenge
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
I saved a little over $20 by buying mp3 downloads through Amazon.com instead of iTunes. No sales taxes, DRM free, and they’re about a buck cheaper than iTunes. The only bad thing about Amazon’s download utility (it’s just like eMusic’s if you’ve ever used it) is it downloads 2 at a time and when the server gets bogged down you might be waiting a while. The fabulous thing?? The downloader adds your new tracks to your iTunes library without you having to do anything. I haven’t bothered putting the scrobbler on this mac…I might do that this weekend.
Anyway…if I had gone with the iTMS my monthly fun budget would have been blown to smithereens. At this point I can buy a book, some B&W 120 film + developing and still keep it together. Happily, February is a short month.
camera geekery
By the end of the month I should have enough on my card to buy a new lens…as soon as I pick one.
The contestants:
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
The 28-135mm and the 17-85mm are equivalent lenses except that the former is a higher end lens and can be used on a pro body whereas the latter can only be used on a 20D or the Digital Rebel bodies. The 17-18 is compact…the 28-135 is not. The 17-18 is $460 and the 28-135 is $416.
The lens that came with my camera is an 18-55mm. It’s nice and wide for taking pictures indoors or at family gatherings and has a little zoom for cropping your shot just right. Sometimes though…you want to just get right on top of something that might be far away and you need a good zoom for that. Thus my waffling. It took me almost a year to buy the 50mm lens I got this holiday season and I have had *so* much fun with it.
the 70-300 will be nice to have this spring when everything blooms. *sigh* i really do have better things to worry about.