What in the hell are you buying another camera for when all you really need is to be out there shooting pictures with cameras you've got?

It took me over a year to talk myself into buying an F5, another year to buy the second. It took about 30 seconds to buy this F6. Let us hope it's a sign of regenerating economy and temperament and not the last dumb thing you do before you're laid off and left to stew in your own bile.

I still think you'd be better off going out there with the equipment you've got.

Picky, picky. I may have been a dim bulb in my photography classes, but they've gotten me out of my slump and out on the street again. The photograph up top was serendipitous. I may see how it works later in black and white. I've found it hard to get decent shots on the Oakland streets. Chinatown is always crowded, plenty of people around, but my pictures have been crappy and I think it's lack of time and trying on my part. I'm going to spend some hours this coming week and these coming weekends and see what I can shoot.

Still, another camera. How does buying equipment produce better pictures? You own too much equipment as it is.

I tell myself I'll sell the older stuff. There was a reason for two F5's when they were the only two cameras I owned, at least that's what I told myself - a backup camera in case of failure; one camera with black and white, one with color; one with a long lens, one with a short - but now with another SLR and the new digital, two when the D2x becomes available, I can shed the older stuff. Reduce the load. Reduce the insurance premium.

Your site is supposed to be about pictures and you're talking about “stuff“.

I know.

It's not a flattering monologue.

I know.

You're supposed to act smarter when you're sober.

I know.