Day: April 30, 2008

Crankypantsing

Pee Ess

Shelly

Gas was $3.75/gallon this morning. That was for cheap-o 87. There’s some speculation that it could soon be up to $10/gallon, which would put it in line with European gas prices. Aieee! I mean, I know we’ve had it good in the US, in terms of gas prices, and that folks in the rest of the world are tired of hearing us whinge about it. The thing is, this gas prices here are suddenly making a quantum leap, and we do not have the infrastructure or the wage base to support such a sharp rise in fuel costs.

And it’s not just the price of the gas I put in my car, either. In the past month, prices have gone up on almost everything at the grocery store, because of the increase in transportation costs. And my heating bill nearly doubled last winter, even though my heat is electric and Duke get its electricity mainly from coal, not petroleum.

As for the gas that goes in my car, it sucks that the price is going up, but it’s not the end of the world. I use a little over a gallon of gas a week. Even at $10/gallon, it won’t kill me. The ripple effect, however, will.

Photography

R.I.F.

Shelly

Reading is fundamental, folks. Seriously.

In other news, my tax rebate arrived yesterday, so I did my part to stimulate the economy by buying a toy lens for my camera. Also file folders, light bulbs, and cat food. Exciting, eh? The rest is going to pay bills.

The lens is the Lensbaby I tried to buy a few months ago. I ordered it through a 3rd party and received the wrong mount for my camera, so I sent it back. Instead of replacing it with the correct one, they credited the charge back to my card, and I decided to be a grown up and spend the money on bills instead of re-ordering. I already have the Lensbaby macro kit. At some point, I’ll need to get a wide angle/telephoto kit, too. Those run $89.

Lensbabies have a fixed aperture, which you can manually swap out (I think the one I bought comes with three different aperture sizes). They also sell pre-cut fun aperture shapes (hearts, stars, etc.) as well blanks that you can cut yourself.

Anyway, my Lensbaby is shipping USPS (free!). I hope it gets here soon, because the wait might just killerate me.