Dance Off 2006

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On something of a whim, thanks to having an evening when I wasn’t working and nothing was planned, Prairie and I decided to head down to an event I’d just stumbled across earlier in the day: Dance Off 2006.

Dance Off is an annual competition held in the Seattle area for people who want to prove that they have the heart and soul of a dancer, even though they do not have the training of a dancer.

When we made it downtown and started wandering down Post Alley we were a little concerned that we wouldn’t be able to make it in, as the line just kept going, and going, and going…

Lining Up

…however, we figured it was worth taking a chance and grabbed a spot at the end of the line. I wandered off to snap a few shots, and suddenly saw Prairie heading towards me to tell me that I’d just missed my chance to get a ticket! There’d been someone working their way down the line handing them out, but since I wasn’t in line…oops. Ack! Mere moments later, though, I spotted the girl who’d been passing out tickets, and she spotted me. “You! You were taking pictures!” she said, and handed me a ticket. Once again, all was good with the world.

This Is Your Dance Off Ticket

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Conversation

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Conversation

90’s rock group Soul Asylum gave a free show at the Pike Place market on Thursday morning, and Prairie and I headed down to see them. While we were waiting for the show to start I took a few random people shots around the gathering crowd. This shot is by far my favorite of the morning (the rest are here).

iTunes “Comfortably Numb (ATOC Extended Edit)” by Scissor Sisters from the album Comfortably Numb, Pts. 1 & 2 – Single (2003, 5:39).

Don’t Feel Like Dancin’

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My co-worker Nick got me hooked on the new single by the Scissor Sisters, ‘Don’t Feel Like Dancin’‘. It’s incredibly infectious, catchy, and fun — feels like what the Bee Gees would be doing if they were making pop music today, and would fit perfectly coming over the soundtrack of a roller rink. So far, I can’t get enough of it (and Prairie’s getting a laugh out of watching me bounce around in my seat while it’s playing).

iTunes “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ (Radio Edit)” by Scissor Sisters from the album I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ – Single (2006, 4:10).

Queueing Up…

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For the past few months, Prairie and I have been the kind of customers that Netflix must pray for. We’ve been busy, and we were getting movies from a queue I put together a long time ago, when I was living on my own and therefore choosing films that I was interested in, not films that we were interested in (and while there’s some overlap, there’s also a lot of disconnect between the two). So, we’d ended up getting movies that we just weren’t interested in, and they’d just sit here in the hopes that some night, they’d sound right.

Of course, the longer they sit, the less of a good deal that $20 a month is.

So, on the verge of just canceling the Netflix account, we decided we’d take a little time to brainstorm a bit and put together a queue that we’d be more likely to enjoy going through. I completely nuked the queue I had built up, we found three basic ideas to start from, and got a new queue set up. We’re pretty sure that the result will carry us through for the next few months rather easily.

Of course, the final result might provoke a few laughs, or at least raised eyebrows. But it’s one that works for us.

iTunes “Opening Night” by Bryn Dowling, Meg Gillentine, Ensemble from the album The Producers (Movie) (2005, 1:46).

Vegas: Friday

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Finally…another entry in the Vegas weekend! I just keep getting further behind…

Update: Xebeth reminded me that I’d forgotten a key part of the evening — Bite, the topless vampire show! The end of the post has been updated to correct this grievous oversight. Believe me, the erotic rock angels should not be forgotten!

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Nikon D80 Revealed

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Just a few months after getting my D70s, Nikon’s wrapped up their 20-day teaser campaign by introducing the Nikon D80. Overall, it looks really good — the only thing I see that doesn’t really excite me is that the D80 uses SD rather than Compact Flash (which was one of the reasons I chose the CF-based D70s rather than the SD-based D50), but it makes sense given SD’s dominance of the small camera market.

Brief specs on the D80 (vs D70s):

  • 10 megapixel (6 mp)
  • 3 frames per second, 23 continuous shots (3 FPS, 12 continuous)
  • SD (CF)
  • 11 area AF system (5 area)
  • ISO 100-1600 (200-1600)
  • Upgraded commander mode on the built-in flash
  • Larger, brighter, D200-style viewfinder
  • 2.5″, 230k pixel LCD (2.0″, 130k pixel LCD)
  • EN-EL3e battery (EN-EL3a)
  • MB-D80 battery/portrait grip
  • In-camera retouching (D-lighting, cropping, redeye fix, color).

Looks really, really nice. Given the switch to SD, when it comes time for me to upgrade in a few years I’ll likely be looking at the D200 (or whatever the current camera at that point in Nikon’s lineup is at the time) so I can stick with the CF cards I have now, but the D80 will definitely be fun to play with when it shows up at work. Theoretically, the D80 should be available for sale in September…we’ll see how quickly Nikon can actually get these on to the shelves (the D200, announced in Nov. 2005, has just started showing up regularly on store shelves).

More detailed looks at the D80 are at DP Review, Rob Galbraith DPI and Let’s Go Digital.

Also announced were the AF-S DX 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED (the kit lens for the D80) and the AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED.

iTunes “MANYMEN ARE ZOMBIES” by Jadmix from the album jadmix@gmail.com (5:15).

Vegas: Thursday

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Okay. Pictures are starting to work their way up to my Flickr account and will eventually be all in a Vegas Vacation set. While those go, a rundown of the trip — behind the cut as I tend to ramble. ;)

I was hoping to get one post for everything, but that’s not happening. Something about not wanting to devote my entire time to the ‘puter, and instead splitting the day between working on photos and enjoying the day off with Prairie. Imagine that!

Thursday, then….

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Back from Vegas

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We’re back! It was a wonderful trip — three days having a lot of fun bouncing around Vegas with Xebeth. I’m working my way through the (tons of) pictures I shot while Prairie naps (a multi-step process: import two flash cards of shots, one full 2Gb and one partial 1Gb; find any multi-shot panoramics and run them through Calico to assemble the final shots; name and tag all the photos as accurately as possible; sort through to determine which are worth uploading to Flickr and which aren’t; and finally, upload the final pics to Flickr).

I’ll get more ramblings up eventually (I’ve got a good start down already, actually, I just need to break away for little things like dinner)…for the moment, though, it’s just good to be back home.

Vegas Vacation

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It’s vacation time — a full five days off from work. Incredible!

Tomorrow morning, at some horrendous hour, Prairie’s sister is driving us to the airport where — after the requisite two-hour wait, mile-long back-and-forth line up to the security checkpoint, body cavity search, and so on — we’ll board a plane to fly down to Las Vegas for three days with Xebeth! She’s quite familiar with Vegas, so she’s got a full slate of entertainments lined up for us…most of which she’s determined not to tell us about until we’re there. All I know for sure is that we’re going to be staying at the Stratosphere, seeing one of the typical Vegas shows (the only criteria being “whichever one has the most breasts”), and apparently at some point parking me outside of the M&M’s store and not letting me go in until I whimper (or something like that).

We’ll be returning to Seattle late Saturday night (or early Sunday morning, technically), after which work was kind enough to give me two days off. Apparently, they’re expecting two days of recovery for every three days in Vegas. From some of the stories I’ve heard — and given that it’ll be just me with two gorgeous women — they may be right! ;)

Pictures, of course, will be posted all a-plenty after we get back. For now, I’m off to eat and pack (or, more likely, continue procrastinating until the very last moment, then pack).

As some barely-known, two-bit hack of an entertainer once said…Viva Las Vegas!

iTunes “Land Of 1000 Dances” by Wilson Pickett from the album Forrest Gump (Disc 1) (1966, 2:26).