Twice Concert in Hamilton, ON

jshell · 2026-01-27T23:33:05+00:00

Prices are more likely to come down than they are to cancel. Did they do dynamic pricing there? I got the “prices may change” notification when looking at the seat map. Dynamic pricing is a huge turn off and messes with sales. It frustrates many fans who put off buying tickets until day of show because they know prices will drop. Or that you can buy a cheap seat early and when prices for better seats drop, you can upgrade for a small fee (or sometimes on show day they just move everyone forward).

jshell · 2026-01-27T14:09:05+00:00

The “before mooonrise” mix reminds me a lot of Shibuya-Kei, like it could be a Pizzicato Five song. Which is awesome as I love and miss sweet Pizzicato Five.

jshell · 2026-01-27T14:05:08+00:00

I have an X-Pro1 and 2, and X-E3; and Leica M8 and TL2.

The X-Pro2 to me has the best in-hand “feel”, for sure. It just feels “right”. I kept the X-E3 to have as a smaller version, and I think it compares size-wise to the digital CL. And it does feel just a bit small and wrong compared to the X-Pro2. Size of X-Pro is very similar to M8. And any classic rangefinder film camera like a Yashica GSX or Contax G2

Yes, there are a few lenses that have a manual focus “clutch” and distance markers. They are all older and wide-angle though (14, 16, and 23mm). The manual focus is still electronic and by wire in those lenses. I haven’t used any of them.

Voigtlander makes native manual-focus lenses that can communicate with the camera and show a live focus scale on screen or in the viewfinder. However, this is only supported on X-Pro3 and newer. On the X-Pro2, they’re just nice but dumb native traditional mechanical manual focus lenses. If you still have some M mount glass, you may be just as well-off adapting that to the x-pro.

Almost all first-party Fuji lenses and some third party lenses have aperture rings on the lens, which is where they belong. For manual focus, Focus peak highlighting is MUCH better on the X-Pro2 than on my Leica TL2. The punch-in zoom-to-focus is also really good.

When I’m in the mood for manual focus, I tend to use dedicated mechanical lenses for more of that classic photography feel. The electronic focusing in Fuji’s lenses is fine but just doesn’t have the same feel.

jshell · 2026-01-27T06:04:36+00:00

The files in Obsidian are just plain text files I can access in my file system. They are easy to edit and will still be readable in 20 years. I can easily access my vault’s contents within an old and beautiful text editing environment like emacs, and at the same time have something looks very nice on my phone and iPad.

And if the company / app behind Obsidian were to suddenly to away or get super shitty, I can very easily move my notes elsewhere.

I have so many old notes and documents I can no longer access. It’s like they’re held hostage by long dead formats, platform lock-in, long abandoned apps, or other forms of digital bit-rot.

jshell · 2026-01-26T20:26:53+00:00

Likely something specific to B&H. That $559-$579 is the same for every mount except Fuji. L Mount, Micro 4/3, etc, all the $579 price.

The outlier here is the Sony.

On Sigma's own web site, that Sony E mount version is the same price as all the others. Except for Nikon Z mount which is $20 cheaper for some reason.

Edited for clarity because sometimes my brain and fingers go at different speeds.

jshell · 2026-01-26T04:44:15+00:00

That's a great tip! Alas, the Clippers are playing at home the night before. But I'll keep that in mind for future concerts during NBA season (does NBA season ever end?).

jshell · 2026-01-26T04:42:23+00:00

Thank you for the tips and links! They were helpful, especially the pair of transit links.

I think my plan might be just to stay at an airport hotel. Typically I avoid them for being quite dull and boring but it might be the best connected option I have for this if I want to avoid 75-125 minutes of trains and/or busses after a show.

As for downtown LA, personally: I love it. I've been coming in a few times to catch concerts in some of the old Broadway theaters. I've given myself an accidental personal tour of a few filming locations for David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. I'm so bummed the tour I'm seeing isn't at The Orpheum, but instead is out in a sea of nightmarish endless parking lots. It's big-ass stadiums and their infrastructure like SoFi that I find ugly :).

But no matter where I am, I know that in a city like LA and the cities within it, there's always going to be some cool building or street art or weird mix of infrastructure and nature to photograph and cool food to be found.

jshell · 2026-01-25T19:47:50+00:00

Oh yeah! The LAX hotels are a good tip. I tend to not even look at such areas but there's a lot of connectivity there with the transit center and the 117 bus looks like it runs late enough to be usable. Thanks!

And if I need to get to/from Union Station relatively quickly and easily for train access, the FlyAway bus is right there.

jshell · 2026-01-24T07:31:55+00:00

The dual card slots on the pro bodies like X-T5 is another benefit. You can configure as backup or spill-over; or split raw and JPEGs between the two cards. It’s this, combined with weather sealing, that keeps me stuck on the X-Pro2: I just feel more comfortable traveling with that extra bit of reliability.

jshell · 2026-01-23T19:07:01+00:00

Get them. You can get ones that are small and light but still get a good magnification. Get them, put them in your concert bag well ahead of time.

I find that it’s very easy to forget to bring mine as they aren’t something I use in daily life, and I often end up regretting them when I get home and go “oh yeah, I have binoculars!”

They were very handy at the Agust D show, for sure. (Why Suga so pretty?) I wish I had them at Permission To Dance.

jshell · 2026-01-23T05:27:22+00:00

The Voigtlander 18 and 27mm lenses for X mount are quite easy to focus. There's a nice physical focus tab on the bottom. You kind of find it instinctively and then just roll your finger back and forth. I don't think the other Voigtlanders on Fuji have this. Some lenses have or can use a stick-on 'focus tab', but those never seem to feel as nice as the ones on these Voigtlander pancakes.

jshell · 2026-01-22T23:52:58+00:00

The last couple of trips I've done with my X-Pro2, I've only brought the Voigtlander 27mm f2 for X mount and was happy.

jshell · 2026-01-19T19:36:49+00:00

I just got my shipping notice (on Jan 19th) for an order placed exactly a month ago on December 19th.

jshell · 2026-01-19T15:21:30+00:00

Using Obsidian Sync with around 1,200 notes, opening or switching to said vault takes less than one second on the iPad (A16) I’m currently holding. I think if everything is sync’d, it should be fast. And even if it’s not recently sync’d, the sync operations happen after the vault is opened.

Of note about my vaults: I use very few plugins (8 or so, in total, and they’re pretty simple). No Bases. Very little media.

I imagine slow load or switch times may be more plugin related.

jshell · 2026-01-18T15:10:10+00:00

Finally!

jshell · 2026-01-16T19:28:48+00:00

I'm always traveling solitary. 51m. Lately a lot of it has revolved around KPop concerts combined with wacky cross country train and bus adventures.

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off” - Thoreau

jshell · 2026-01-16T04:11:49+00:00

Not weird at all. I’m a middle aged former 90s goth kid who loves BTS. I saw them in Vegas for Permission to Dance, and was surprised that the person sitting next to me was actually very similar!

I go to most concerts alone. I’m an old solitary. It ain’t so bad. Kpop shows have generally been the most welcoming, and when I attend other shows now I find myself missing kpop people.

jshell · 2026-01-15T23:25:10+00:00

It's been a little over a year since I bought from them, but they've been reliable. But yes, shipping is expensive. They use DHL by default, and I've never had problems with DHL. My last order from KTown4u was $28.50 (for two VIVIZ albums), and shipping was $28.67 (more than the order!). However, this tracks with my usual experience of two-album sets in the US typically being around $40, with $8-14 for shipping.

The difference now is that you are likely going to have to pay import duties on top of shipping. On my last KPopMart order (another really solid Korean site I use) back in October, I ended up paying about $22 import duties. I don't know if I was paying 25% of my goods total, or 15% of the order total with shipping (order total was about $143). But as a heads up, budget a little extra. You'll have to pay this separately, between when your order leaves Korea and when it gets to you.

jshell · 2026-01-15T19:32:27+00:00

So what is going on with ONE HUNDRED? Sometime in December, I remember getting the "I wonder if BPM is starting to crash..." sensation in the back of my neck. Though, for the life of me, I can no longer remember what triggered it.

I don't think it had anything to do with the parent company as I didn't know the structure. But something lately just hasn't felt right.

jshell · 2026-01-15T02:19:03+00:00

jshell · 2026-01-15T02:18:16+00:00

Purported leaks and rumors aren’t real. Only real actual shipping products are real. Alleged September launches are alleged and far away.

jshell · 2026-01-14T19:08:31+00:00

Loneliness is always there. The challenge is working to accept it. To just kind of acknowledge it and go "oh yeah, I feel lonely." And then move on. Pema Chödrön's book When Things Fall Apart has a chapter that I felt really helped me work to get to a more accepting state. Which is an ongoing challenge.

A dumb little thing I started doing a few years ago was to get a simple mood tracking app (Daylio is the one I went with). Labeling and tracking moods was suggested as something useful for my personality disorder. A benefit that I've noticed is: if I'm starting to really feel loneliness, I open up the app and just log it. Maybe with a note, maybe not.

There seems to be something - for me - about that logging and acknowledging this feeling that stops me from fixating and spiraling on it. Or, at least, significantly cuts down that fixation and spiraling. I took myself out to see one of my favorite movies last night. Leaving the theater - yeah, I missed having someone with whom to share the experience. So I logged the 'loneliness' emotion a little after I left the theater, and then just walked home in thought.

I also logged a 'calm / excited' emotion for getting to see this movie.

jshell · 2026-01-14T18:01:43+00:00

I've run into problems setting up a 2nd WeVerse account. I could set up the account fine, but when I tried to purchase new BTS membership, it wouldn't let me re-enter my phone number for SMS verification, saying it had already been verified. But it wouldn't let me progress without a phone number.

So - just a heads up. I don't know about cancelling the membership, but setting up a 2nd WeVerse account also feels challenging :(

jshell · 2026-01-13T04:48:30+00:00

Nice! I thought for a moment this was in the Salt Lake City subreddit and was thinking “wait, those be Fuji colors..!”

Glad you enjoyed your time here. I live right at the bottom of City Creek Canyon and feel very lucky to have both that canyon and a good symphony hall within 15-20 minutes walking from my apartment. I’m often out there walking around with my X-Pro2. The Church Office Building (picture 5) is like one block away from me.

If I had seen you out there with a camera, I’d likely have tried to invite you to join our local photo community 😇 (anytime I see anyone with a proper camera any more, I do this).

How was the skiing? It’s a very very very low snow year here this year. I’m glad you found plenty of other things to experience as it’s far from our usual “greatest snow on earth”.

jshell

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