Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Dishblogging: Normally today's E.G. for Example would point to yesterday's eloquent Molly Ivins column about class warfare and oligopoly, but we sudsy men know what brings the traffic: It's a Gemco Li'l Scrubber from Gemco Ware Inc. of Hauppauge, N.Y.  The company has a Web site but it's a cruel tease, promises a product catalog but then says only distributors and salespeople can see it. While I do half the dishwashing and all the vacuuming at the estate, I should confess I'm not as tidy a housekeeper as many of my blogging brothers; I wrote in a column about my college apartment years ago and have often repeated the motto, "Dust is nature's coaster." 10:11:50 PM    commentplace ()

Many Webloggers post fine and fascinating photographs, and one globally renowned diarist refers frequently to dishwashing equipment, so I thought I'd show off one of my rare successes in macro mode.  Actually, the camera that makes me wish I was a competent photographer instead of inveterate camera-shaker is the impressive Toshiba PDR-3300 I just tested for Hardware Central—a compact 3-megapixel, 2.8X-optical-zoom model with a full array of manual controls as well as automatic point-and-shoot modes, for the low 2-megapixel price of $349 (with, admittedly, cost-cutting in the form of an inadequate 8MB or five-shot memory card).  It earned one of my most positive reviews, though I had to explain to a suspicious geek in the forums yesterday that what he thought was "Conflict of interest—banner ad for Toshiba camera right next to HwC review" wasn't an ad but an illustration or link to the review. I'd buy myself the PDR-3300 for my upcoming birthday if I thought I'd make decent use of it; my dad was a skilled (just amateur, but often frameworthy) photographer and I've often wished I had the talent.  I know I have an eye for beauty; my wife is cool to my getting a digital camera because my first impulse is to take pictures of her, even though I keep assuring her the shots would be strictly for my personal wallpaper use and not posted on the Internet. 7:49:16 AM    commentplace ()