Cause really, who goes to garage sales anymore?

So I bought a camera on ebay. It's from the early 1960s, comes with three lenses, and will hopefully be here before my birthday next week so I can play with it.

I'm really excited about it, but I always have this nagging thought when I "win" an auction: I'm the only one stupid enough to have paid this much for this thing. Cause really, that's what auctions are based on. You and some other people want something, and the one who will part with the most money for it, gets it.

Still, I'm excited. Despite the dubious honor of my "win."

My hour-long desire

I really want an old camera like my mom has. Or at least, I have for the past hour or so. Well, I've always wanted one, but it just occurred to me that I should be on the lookout for one. You know how you may come across a random garage sale some day, and you think to yourself, "I wanted something that I can only really get used but I can't think of what it is"? And you go to the garage sale and you look around and you don't see it so you don't remember what it was? Well I remember now what it is. It's a metal, fully manual camera. In the meantime, I may make a pinhole camera. that could be fun. Also, coming off spring break, I failed to do my homework tonight, which doesn't bode well for future Zac. Though in my defense, this class has been very easy from the start (didn't have to give it a lot of time early on). It's getting very late in the semester (I'm kind of over it). Also, I already did the homework, Narges (I just want to check the answers cause I feel like my calculated GDP is off target). And I really have always wanted an old camera. I'm tempted to borrow my mom's, but then if I ever get one, it'll be less fun. We'll see.
I'm on the lookout for you, camera

Censorship and mass market video games

It's payday, so at lunch today I bought Rock Band 2 because it came out yesterday and I wanted it (see previous post about delayed-gratification Zac being dead).

I've obviously yet to play it at all, as I am sitting at my desk in my office, but aside from "Livin on a Prayer," "Go Your Own Way," songs by Dylan and Pearl Jam, I'm most looking forward to "You Oughta Know" by the young angry Canadian Alanis Morissette.

At one point, as you most likely know, Alanis asks in the song if her former lover is thinking of her during a specific activity he does with his new girlfriend. One thing I have to wonder is, what will Alanis, and those who are singing along with her in the game, wonder about her former lover in the video game that censors song lyrics? When will we, the singers, wonder if he thinks about her?

It's one of the absolute best lines in the song and really nails (heh) the source of the anger and hurt. In the digital, XBOX 360-version of Alanis, does she wonder if he's thinking of her while he "loves" his new girl? "Kiss her"?

"Hug" actually fits pretty well, but only in meter and rhyme and not so much in tone, meaning or fury. Cause really, would she care if Joey from "Full House" is hugging some chick and wonder if he's thinking of his little under-aged bitter songwriter ex-girlfriend?

For that matter, when the Chili Peppers release the entire "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" album next month, most "whats" will not give a damn? And most "whats" have a cold-what stare? I don't even want to think what happened to Kedis after his eyes popped out and before he dropped his jaw in "Apache Rose Peacock."

Like "Creep," these songs are "so very special" if you know the actual words that the artists used while crafting their, you know... art; and not the words that soccer moms are ok with their children singing along to.

One art please

Three guys stole four paintings that someone, somewhere would have paid $163 million for. The job was pulled in Zurich, which is actually not the capital of Switzerland, in a fantastically low-tech fashion consisting of literally grabbing them off the wall and throwing them in a white van. Thanks, NY Times.