This week we picked up a new gadget from the lay-away department at Wal-Mart... a couple of weeks back there was an incredible deal on refurbished Sony Cyber-Shot digital cameras, and Nathan had the itch to get it (I suspect that when his brother bought one, he got to thinking about how old ours is - three years - and caught the shiny-toy fever). I convinced him to lay-away it instead of just blowing the cash all at once. (It's a trait I picked up from mummy dearest.) So now we have it home, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it properly. I have an instruction booklet and I'm not having any trouble taking pictures or working out how to transfer files, but I'm still struggling in some way. I'm usually pretty good at picking up new things quickly. I'm managing to figure out how things work with this camera intuitively - what all the buttons do, how to use the menus and such - but it's just not coming together. I don't know how to use it effectively to take good pictures. I know it will take a while - we've only had it since Thursday, after all - but I'm impatient. I wish there was a USB port in the back of my head so I could have some kind of direct knowledge transfer of just how in the hell things work drained into my brain.

In the meantime, though, I did figure out how to make the camera take black and white pictures.

( click! vanity shot! )

Turns out I didn't watch a movie last night, anyway - I did start with "Gosford Park", and I was actually pretty interested in it but my brain has that annoying way of getting me involved in other less interesting tasks when I'm not sitting down to watch a movie with someone. I was going to persevere after the boy called me from work, but when I described the movie to him he said he'd like to see it too, so we'll watch it on one of our days off together.

Interesting (or maybe not) note on "Wings of Desire" - a lot of FT'ers put in a vote for that, and it was actually because of FT that I got it... I read so much about how it was the inspiration for "City of Angels" and about infinity-times better than it too, so I knew I needed to watch it! I borrowed it on tape once before but never got around to it, so here's to hoping I don't pick up a fine on this one for keeping it out too long.

But really, how cool is my local library? They have such good movies. I'm eternally grateful for it because my only other options for borrowed-DVD bliss are Blockbuster and Hastings and both of those bitches have ripped me off. So yey for the library!