a few scattered thoughts behind the cut. yes, sorry, remiss in the blogging lately. i'm busy, writing about budgets and animals in churches and what have you, etc. not to whine, or anything. i knew i'd be busy. it's not like i thought i was signing up for a mediterranean cruise or anything. but i am missing the ability to blog at the drop of a hat.

anyway, unrelatedly: anyone who can whip me into shape to use flash, dreamweaver and improve my knowledge of photoshop will be vastly rewarded. or point me towards things that can do so. email.

Well, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has just been awarded, and yet again it's gone to somebody other than my friend Jeff.

Seriously, what's the problem here, Jeff? Get your ass in gear.

Anyway, the winners received the prize for inventing and refining a reaction called metathesis, which is apparently a big-deal reaction. I assume that's some sort of formal classification.

I've got a review of last night's show up at DCist. To be honest, it wasn't a particularly review-worthy show — good but not great, with nothing particularly unusual happening. But I went to the trouble of bringing a pad and pen and jotting down notes throughout the show like a complete dork. So it's getting a review, goddamn it.

Also, it was nice to run into Sommer, Natalya and Audrey at the show (as promised in comments!). So let's try this again: Architecture in Helsinki on Friday. Who's going?

I've coming looking for your wisdom, o great and powerful internet. Since I can no longer borrow Catherine's digital camera without involving Fedex, I think it's time to buy my own. I know that a lot of you are excellent photographers who are experts at this kind of stuff, so I'm hoping you can help cut down on how much of dpreview.com I need to wade through.

So here's what I'm looking for (besides the obvious stuff like USB2). I'd be grateful for any suggestions you've got.

• Something that can shoot in low light.


• Something pocket-sized (I do have a somewhat liberal definition of this).


• Something that can shoot photos in medium-to-quick succession.


• Something that produces pretty good pictures without expert knowledge — but also something with enough options to keep a one-semester-of-high-school-photo wannabe like myself from blowing my savings on a digital SLR in two months.


• Something that, ideally, costs less than $350. Cheaper is better, and if there's a last-gen camera that's worthwhile and can be had for $150, I'll opt for that.


• Extra bonus point: something that can take a lithium ion OR AA/AAA batteries. This is pretty unimportant, though.


• Extra extra bonus point: something with accessories that'll let it talk to my PDA, either via bluetooth or some other interface (in case I feel the need to blow additional money).

Anybody have any suggestions? I'm guessing 3 or 4 megapixels are enough to keep me happy. But if someone can make a case for a higher-res camera that eschews optical zoom for decent digital (and is consequently smaller), I could be convinced.