A Chorus Line

Went to see this revival in NYC with just-met rexsteed.

I missed the phenomenon the first time around and the show hasn't aged well.

The most glaring non-working thing to me was that maybe back then admitting you were gay, or having your parents catch you performing in drag, or being a wierd child, were intimate revelations that made you feel like you knew and cared for these people.

Now, with the internet and reality TV absolutely nothing was shocking. It was just boring - turn on any reality show to see people who are far more fucked up and think nothing of having a camera trained on them as they act it all out.

The woman who played Cassie - Charlotte D'Amboise - was a clumpy dancer, so much so that I had to ask rexsteed if her big mirror dance number was to make me believe the character was not and had never been a good dancer, or if the actress was merely ungraceful.

Also the guy who played the director was 1/2 her age, making the failed-relationship thing seem to come out of nowhere. He he took her out of the chorus line it was right after she picked him up outside the elementary school.

There were no "gasp" moments of good acting and it felt very work-a-day overall.

One of the guys had really pretty arms and they had him in a sleeveless shirt. rexsteed pointed out that in the original they had dancer's bodies, not gym-porn bodies. At least it gave me something to look at.

rexsteed was much more engaging.

New cameras, and an amazing deal

I have a Fujifilm F10 that I've had for a couple of years that takes great photos, especially under low-light conditions that other cameras can't touch. It was the first of the F-series and was followed by the F11, then the F30, then the F31fd, and sort of as a branch off from the F30 route they introduced the F20 and F40.

(This sounds like an advertisement, but I just want to share the camera love and a pointer to a very inexpensive cool camera.)

Everyone takes photos differently. I love that at ISO 1600 I can get photos that look like this:



or like this (one of those LED solar-powered lamps - not much light out of it)



The trick with these cameras is to take a lot of photos. With a 1G card, 6.3mp images, and a battery that lasts forever (seriously, 300-500+ photos on a charge) it's really easy.

Our friend kenjallen got an F30 (as did sohitpithurts.) Ken brought it down on a visit and since then I've been jonesing for one. There are some new features, improved software, but the lens/sensor combo is the same in all of the cameras so I'm not risking losing what I like so much.

I had sold a bunch of old camera stuff and had PayPal funds that I could use so I started to do some research. I decided to go for the F31fd because it is basically the F30 but with facial detection software - we'll see how well it works but it is supposed to locate faces in the photo and ensure they're in focus and properly exposed. Also because the best price on the F31 wasn't that much higher than the F30. And the F31 was in stock. And I had to one-up at least a little.

While I was researching I looked at the F20. It's a "stripped down" F30 but in one of those weird marketing decisions Fuji took away a few minor features (aperture and shutter priority, for example, which my F10 doesn't have and I've gotten around using the modes and the spotmeter) and drastically reduced the price.

Amazon is selling them for $149. Add in a 1G xD picture card (type H) for $25 and it's an amazing deal.

I was a happy baby

But a VERY ( fat baby. )

I met Gene Roddenberry