Kevin Basil

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I treated myself to an evening at Olive Garden this evening, then I ambled over to Best Buy and purchased a cheap digital camera. All in all, a good night.

At the Olive Garden, I had a bowl of Pasta e Fagioli and breadsticks, with a glass of Black Swan Shiraz. My bartender must have thought I needed carbs, since he brought three breadsticks for a single patron in the first basket! The shiraz was very smooth; I’ve learned from Dr. Bacchus that a good shiraz goes well with spicy, tomato-based foods. It was good to have a good experience after having a glass of cabernet at Chili’s a few months ago which turned out sharp and acidic and just rather cheap. My only objection to the Black Swan was that it was almost too smooth. Shiraz typically has a bold, distinctive flavor; it almost seemed like this was the radio single version: tamed and accessible. But that’s a quibble; it was a wonderful glass of wine.

I concluded with the Black Tie Mousse Cake and a cup of coffee, with cream and sugar. The sweeteners are slickly packaged in these cool, Italian looking wrappers: long and slender. However, I did not remember that the three sweeteners are distinguished by the color at the tips of the packets: light blue for Equal, pink for Sweet ‘n’ Low, white for cane sugar. I picked up blue, and I don’t remember anything after that.

At Best Buy, I shopped for a digital camera. I had a fairly simple set of guidelines: Cheap, while still producing acceptable images, cheap, cheap and cheap. Basically, I went in looking for the least expensive camera they had. I settled on the Olympus D-395. Since it’s the cheapest, it does not have optical zoom, but it turns out that it doesn’t really matter that much for my purposes. At the time of this writing, I haven’t noticed any pixelation, though there are other reasons making optical zoom optimal.

For simply having a digital camera, I am impressed with the Olympus. I could have spent about thirty-five dollars more and purchased a Sony with more mega-pixels. The usability factor of real batteries pushed me over the edge in favor of the D-395. I prefer buying batteries, and being back in business in seconds, to waiting for hours while an eccentric, product-unique battery charges.

I felt now was the time to purchase a camera, even though prudence nearly persuaded me to wait and use a camera as a reward for saving some money. Now is the time because, hopefully, in a few weeks I’ll take some leave. I’ll see M and the Little One, and I want to get some pictures!

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