Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

• If you were unable to send out multiple coupons at a time, please perform a hard refresh, and you should be good to go.
• If you redeemed a coupon to upgrade your account and the balance at checkout was $0 instead of $9.95 or $15, this means your upgrade did not go through (nor were you charged). We've straightened this out, so you can now apply your holiday coupon toward the purchase of an annual paid account.
• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
• If the number of holiday coupons you have available suddenly goes up (instead of down), this might be due to recipients declining the coupons, at which point your pool of available coupons will be replenished and, therefore, increase.
• If you need assistance with holiday coupons or pretty much anything else (well, LiveJournal related), please open a support request and we'll be more than happy to help!

Tweaks

• There were some initial glitches displaying results on My Guests, but we've worked them out. We hope you'll check out who's been checking you out!
• Some of you reported formatting issues using the Rich Text Editor (i.e., line breaks were being removed incorrectly). We've implemented a fix! Thanks so much for your patience.

Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

Voigtlander Bessa R, Nikkor-S.C 5cm f1.4 LTM, Ilford HP5+

tonight we had root vegetable tagine and fresh homemade bread for dinner. i love homemade bread and kelly makes the best, in this case a hearty, simple loaf from "artisan bread in five minutes a day". when kelly opened the oven to check on the bread, her glasses fogged up immediately. this is a photo of the second time that it happened, right after i said "hey, do that again, it's my picture of the day!"

Olympus OM2000, Zuiko 50mm f1.8, Ilford HP5+

This is not how you should park your bike.

tonight we went to look at a christmas light display so profuse that it garnered the attention of not only the neighbors but also the local press, who wrote a story about it in the paper and drew crowds of people to see the illuminated spectacle. if you look closely you can see the house itself in the distance; the entire yard is awash in cheery holiday light. the cast of "peanuts" created a nativity scene, synchronized music played on 101.6 FM, and santa himself, looking more televisiony than usual, waved from a window.

Posted via web from firewallender's posterous

Olympus OM2000, Zuiko 50mm f1.8 MiJ
Souped the first role from the OM2000, I’m quite pleasantly surprised by that little 50.

'twas the weekend before christmas, and all through the day / was cleaning and talking and cooking, hooray! / we went grocery shopping at two grocery stores / and made caramel corn, which no one abhors. / now if you zoom in on this small photograph / you'll see a short phrase that made us both laugh. / "champ's mushrooms," proclaimed the boxes in red / "why, that's what we call our baby!" we said.

I returned from South Africa about a week ago and wanted to share a few memories from the trip with you all, so over the next few weeks I’ll be posting some stories and photographs to the blog.

One of my favorite memories of the trip happened early on, the first night of Leadership Camp.

We’d just barely gotten to know these kids over the course of the first day at camp, and it was already getting dark. We corralled them into the hall and commenced with a wrap-up and some singing.

The youth workers got the children started on a Zulu song–Zulu is the first language for most of these kids–and they sang it loud and proud, getting a little louder and prouder with every repetition of the simple chorus. It was a beautiful sound. If you can get American kids to sing, they usually sing on melody and, as they get older, with mumbling and embarassed self-consciousness. The Zulu boys and girls had no such inhibitions. They sang in rich, improvised harmony.

While they sang, I leaned over to one of them and ask them what the song meant. I don’t recall the exact words, but it sounded like something from Revelations, one of those songs sung to God by creatures with eyes and wings. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, who is seated upon the throne–that is the closest I can remember.

After the chorus had run through a few times, the youth workers decided it was time to move on with the program, and so they stopped singing, waiting for the children do the same.

But they didn’t. The kids just kept on singing.

After patiently listening to a few more rounds, the youth workers began actively trying to bring the singing down, shushing and making the universal “sit down and calm down” gesture. It’s the same one you’ve seen American teachers use.

It didn’t work. The kids kept on singing. They were beaming.

We all sort of looked at each other with a “what now” expression. Whistles were blown. The singing got louder. The youth workers shook their heads. By this point our protests were only encouraging the kids, so after a quick huddle, we decided to just walk out on them. We waved goodbye, walked out of the hall into the night, and waited around the corner for the kids to get bored with their game.

They didn’t. They laughed and kept singing the chorus, over and over.

Then they began to walk, almost marching, out of the hall, still singing the chorus. They walked themselves out of the hall and they marched past us, toward the cabins. The music finally died down as they spread out across the camp.

The display amazed me. These kids have nothing. Many don’t have parents, or regular food, or even a safe place to sleep. Yet I couldn’t remember the last time I saw children having so much fun or singing with so much joy.

We were all pretty quiet after they left.

“Let’s start with a song tomorrow night,” suggested one of the youth workers.

Originally published at Oatmeal for Breakfast. You can comment here or there.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000, Contax Planar 50mm f1.4 T* MM

The Plastic Fantastic is a simple pair of SLR’s made by Cosina in a number of variations for a number of different companies since the early 1980’s. The first version was the Yashica FX-3/FX-7 (Same camera, two colours), a plastic body over die-cast metal frame mechanical SLR with minimal features but quite nice handling overall. The Ricoh KR-5 was also a version of this camera and the original version would also be sold as a Vivitar. It would later be updated to add a 1/2000 shutter speed and it’s Aperture-Priority twin and later a variation with ergonomic grip and even some cosmetic tweaking. Build quality would steadily improve from the rather flimsy FX-3 body to the quite well build penultimate variant, the Olympus OM2000. Nikon would sell the mechanical version as the FM10 (which remains in production) and the aperture priority version as the short-lived FE10, while the earlier EM, FG and FG-20 were likely related predecessors from Cosina to Nikon designs. Canon would sell the mechanical version as the T60, the last of the FD cameras and it would also crop up as the Voigtlander V3000 in K mount (complete with updated cosmetics and ergonomics) and the Bessaflex TM, the last ever production M42 camera, with two different sets of retro styling (A pseudo-Topcon silver version and a traditional pointy-prism black version) and improved build quality, the Bessaflex TM would be the sole variant with metal top-plate, bottom-plate and back. It would also be the only version to support a winder (the Bessa trigger-winder for the Bessa Rangefinders). The basic platform would also be used for the Voigtander Bessa rangefinders, the Rollei 35S rangefinder and further developed and upgraded into the Zeiss Ikon rangefinder and Zeiss Ikon SW cameras.

The basic design uses a vertical-travel metal shutter, typically with a 1/125 sync and 1/1000 max shutter on older versions and newer version get 1/2000 max shutter. ISO range is typically ISO 20-3200 with a EV2-19 metering range, there is a self-timer and usually no extra features. The mechanical version has LED metering and is otherwise battery independent. The aperture priority version gets match-needle metering and is entirely battery dependent. The viewfinder is a either a 95% or 92% coverage, 0.84x magnification pentaprism and a fixed focusing screen, usually a matte screen with a split-prism and an additional ring of microprisms around the split-prism. Late versions with the large shutter release also usually have a shutter lock via a tab on the rewind lever (when it’s pushed in, the shutter is locked, pull it out to the stand-off position and the shutter is unlocked). The Nikon versions get a DoF preview lever, the Bessaflex TM gets a stop-down switch a la the Spotmatic, the only other version with DoF preview is the OM2000 which gets DoF preview due to it being implemented on the lens rather than the body in the OM mount spec. Metering is standard 60/40 centre-weighted and the OM2000 gets a selectable spot meter as well, of which it’s one of only two mechanical SLR’s with that feature (the OM3(T) being the other). The flash shoe is a standard ISO shoe with a centre contact. No TTL flash or indeed any flash integration and no PC Sync. All versions use 2 S76 or SR44 batteries or one CR1/3 Lithium battery.

The bodies are surprisingly reliable and tough given the light build of the shell. There’s really only 3 weak points of the design. The first is shutter jamming, which can be fixed easily by removing the bottom cap and unjamming the mechanism, but this problem is rare on the SLR, it’s actually more common on the Bessa R and R2 rangefinders. The second issue is the weak wind-lever, although this is more of a problem on early versions of the body (and all FX-3’s as they never got the shutter release/wind-lever upgrades). and the last problem is the weak plastic meter coupling rings/tabs. This is mostly an issue with Nikon or K mount versions as they have a tab which sticks up and can be broken if you aren’t careful in mounting the lens. The meter coupling on OM and Yashica versions isn’t susceptible to this problem although the coupling system remains fragile.

These cameras were typically bundled with a mediocre at best 35-70 f3.5-4.8 zoom and often also with an equally poor 70-210 f4.5-5.6 zoom in a two-lens kit. Both lenses are not worth bothering with. Toss them and get some good glass instead.

I’ve owned 3 of these cameras over the years. The first was the Ricoh KR-5sv, my first K-mount SLR (and still one of my favourites, although K mount is not oversupplied with bodies I like). The KR-5sv was the fifth and last version of the long-lived KR-5 line, Ricoh’s basic mechanical SLR line, with pretty much all the options included except DoF preview. It was a great handling little camera and I quite enjoyed using it until it expired from a carelessly mounted M42 lens on a K mount adapter, snapping the meter coupling tab and rendering the camera mostly useless. The second was a Yashica FX-3 Super 2000, which was enjoyed more than the other Contax or Yashica bodies I had but it got sold as I found it less satisfying to use than the Ricoh, mostly due to it lacking some of the later updates that other versions got like the large shutter release with a shutter lock, the improved wind lever and the higher-quality top/bottom covers. The third one is a recently acquired OM2000 which is probably the most capable version of this camera ever made, as it offers all of the upgrades that were done to the rebranded versions (Upgraded shutter release, ergonomic grips, upgraded wind lever, multi-exposure lever, high-quality plastic top/bottom caps) and then adds selectable spot metering to the mix, an nearly-unique feature in a mechanical SLR.

I’d long found certain aspects of the OM system interesting, particularly the small, relatively inexpensive and relatively fast lenses which are known for usually superb optics. However I’d avoided the system as I found the OM-1 and OM-2 to be on the small side for my tastes and their finders were somewhat oversupplied with magnification and undersupplied with eye relief. Like the Pentax LX, they really need a bolt-on grip to handle well. So finding an OM2000 for a good price, along with a late-production 50/1.8 made it a must-have, especially since I had a lens which I was considering selling due to lack of use (it had been loaned out and not much missed for about 6 months. The Nikkor 105/2.5 is a superb lens but a little too long, I’m not really comfortable with lenses longer than about 85mm and even 85’s a little long for my tastes). So I snagged it on a trade (along with some film, I’ve got 3 rolls of the new Kentmere 400 to try).

So expect to see some stuff from the OM in the near future. And maybe some Nikon or Pentax stuff for sale if the system grows on me.

today we knocked out the lion's share of our christmas shopping, and we took kelly's grandfather out to dinner. then we went to ron and linda's and made peanut brittle, an old family recipe that includes a secret ingredient. then ron gave us this ham, but not before using it to give his best impression of a pregnant lady. (it needs work.)

It’s Christmasy because it’s red and green, right?  Since it looks so festive and I thought you might like it, here is one of our favorite recipes of late, matchstick pasta:

Matchstick Pasta

You can find the recipe here. If I’m honest, I think Jonathan’s photo is better than Heidi’s, but I’m probably biased. This meal is filling and an excellent balance between the salty goodness of pistachios, the crispness of the kale and the sweetness of the pomegranate seeds.

Here are some tips/hints from the McPhersons:

• We buy the bag of pomegranate seeds from Trader Joe’s. I know, it’s cheating, but it’s such a time saver! 
• I initially put a dollop of the sauce on the pasta and send it through the salad spinner as directed, but once I transfer everything to a bowl, I dump the rest of the sauce in and mix it all up. It’s the perfect amount of sauce for us.
• I try to use more like 10 or 12 ounces of pasta when we make this because pasta is cheap and I’m cheap too-helps the dish to go farther.
• This is delicious for leftovers at lunch or dinner the next day!
• Please note, kale is one of the “dirty dozen” so you’ll want to get these greens in the organic section of the grocery store. It’s still only $1.99 (cheaper than beef). I’ll admit it hurt just a little to buy this at the store since we’ve been feasting on kale from the root connection until now.

Here’s one more beauty shot, courtesy of Jonathan: 

Delicious!

Originally published at Oatmeal for Breakfast. You can comment here or there.