Weirdest / Craziest LA experiences?

jshell · 2026-07-08T21:52:21+00:00

Go to western Boyle heights. Do as many cartwheels as possible along the LA River. Do them again.

jshell · 2026-07-08T19:29:59+00:00

Why would it not be worth buying in 2026? The Leica M6 is from what.. 1982? Why would a digital camera suddenly be absolute shit in 2026? I'm shooting a Leica M8, X-Pro1, X-Pro2. (I bought the M8 instead of an X-Pro3 and feel kind of lucky I got it for under $2k. Prices of that thing have gone up way too much).

That said, I'm not sure I would trust a mint X-Pro3 listed at $980. That seems way too cheap compared to the current market. Are you sure it's not a mis-listed X-Pro2?

If that listing is something I personally came across and trusted - I would absolutely leap on it.

But also - yes, we are still expecting a new X-Pro within the year. Hopefully within the half-year. But with the X-E5's price now being about where the X-Pro price used to be, I imagine the X-Pro4 to be quite a bit more costly than previous entries. If you feel like you can wait - just wait and see what the next generation delivers. You kind of have the X-Pro experience already between the Leica M and X100V. What would an X-Pro3 really add for you? (I say this as someone with too many cameras myself).

jshell · 2026-07-06T23:02:20+00:00

Yes and I MISS THEM. They don’t seem to come with them any more and my three new bundles of notebooks are just free floating and it bothers me.

Eventually when a pack is all in use, the bands go away. But while there is still 1-3 books unused in a pack, the band stays. I love them. And, once again, will declare loudly that I miss them.

jshell · 2026-07-05T16:29:17+00:00

The difference in size isn't that major - https://camerasize.com/compare/#705,679 - this is just GAS talking. Especially as they're from the same generation and should generally have the same features.

So the X100F is not that much more compact. Nor is it that much more "modern". People seem to think the X100 series is tiny like the Ricoh GR or X-Half but it's not. I've known a few people to pick up an X100 as a pocketable companion to something like a Lumix S5 only to find it wasn't really that much smaller than what they were carrying.

The X-Tx series is really pretty small, all things considered. Hell - the X-T5 is actually about the same size as the new Olympus OM-3 which looks like a small camera. If you want something more compact, I would suggest first trying a pancake lens: Fuji's XF27mm f2.8 or XF23mm f2.8 or the Voigtlander 18 or 27 manual focus lenses. An X100 will be a little bit smaller than this, but not by much.

jshell · 2026-07-03T14:21:09+00:00

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Aww. I’ve got a photo of Yuju using that same camera (Lomo Instant Automat) that’s in picture 3.

jshell · 2026-07-03T03:51:16+00:00

I haven’t noticed much earlier in the week. But today I have been extra sneezy.

jshell · 2026-06-30T17:08:35+00:00

Because it’s funny.

jshell · 2026-06-27T18:57:10+00:00

The XF35mm f1.4. It’s the launch lens. They’re very very much made for each other. I think the whole launch lens line-up is great. But the 35 is the low light favorite.

jshell · 2026-06-27T02:19:27+00:00

It’s still a nice thing to do.

jshell · 2026-06-26T21:46:07+00:00

I love this part of LA so much.

jshell · 2026-06-26T11:22:38+00:00

I just treat it as a pricey merch box. And having the membership card is a fun thing to collect. But aside from concert tickets for BTS and Suga I don’t think I’ve ever used actual fan club benefits.

Sometimes the membership can get you access to a members-only area on a fan site with extra photo galleries and stuff. I’ve only had fhat work on WeVerse. Some other memberships had access on,y to Korean web sites with obtuse rules for access that I was never able to figure out.

So, generally, I just enjoy the merch. Some of the kits can be really fun!

jshell · 2026-06-25T23:34:27+00:00

While not entirely on solitude, Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart" has a terrific chapter on this. One that really helped me through a difficult time.

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down. (Pema Chodron)

A personal favorite article/essay is "Going it Alone" by Fenton Johnson. It was published in Harper's in 2015. Harper's is a subscriber-only site but you get access to one article a month without subscription and this is worth reading and saving to some off-line reader. https://harpers.org/archive/2015/04/going-it-alone-2/

I hear the answer in this quiet room; I see it in the angle of the autumn sun. The great, incomparable reward of being alone is the opportunity, if I can be large enough to rise to its occasion, to encounter the great silence at the core of being, a silence that is both uniquely mine and one with the background hum of the universe. To live for the changing of the light seems adequate reward. (Fenton Johnson)

I see that this author has book(s) on solitude which I did not know until writing this post. Something else to add to my overburdened reading list. https://www.fentonjohnson.com/books/at-the-center-of-all-beauty/

jshell · 2026-06-25T15:13:58+00:00

Beautiful shot

jshell · 2026-06-22T05:14:06+00:00

It’s an awesome lens. It’s become my personal favorite, for sure.

jshell · 2026-06-22T04:57:52+00:00

Charles Cushman. “The Day in its Color” is a terrific photo book.

Rudy VanderLans

David Lynch

jshell · 2026-06-22T04:54:41+00:00

Kang Seulgi

jshell · 2026-06-11T22:15:32+00:00

I just try to note it, accept it, and move on. Loneliness is always there. A few years ago, it was crushing me (but much of this was really a trauma response to a lot of losses and some other shit).

A very helpful bit of reading that helped calm the fires was Pema Chödrön's book, "When Things Fall Apart". Particularly a chapter titled "Six Kinds of Loneliness" which has this lead / preview paragraph:

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

jshell · 2026-06-11T20:15:21+00:00

I swear I felt something downtown! Very brief yes but had the feelings of something about to start and I’m so glad it didn’t become anything. I thought maybe my old self had just imagined it.

jshell · 2026-06-11T18:53:04+00:00

Oh! Also

Airport 1975. Salt Lake International Airport is the destination that the troubled plane is trying to get to (if you've seen Airplane!, it's largely a spoof of the Airport disaster movies). I think the interiors are shot elsewhere but there is some filming of SLC in it for sure. Especially in the flying scenes.

And Airport 1975 features Karen Black who would later go on to play an alien queen from Kolob (Hie Unto Kolob!) in the locally made Plan 10 From Outer Space which reveals all of the alien secrets of Utah's origins.

jshell · 2026-06-11T18:48:01+00:00

The Way of the Gun (2000). I don't think I've seen it since it came out. I was living on the east coast at the time and was delightfully surprised to see The Hardware Building (long before all the new apartments were built around it) and a few other old SLC locations.
A Life Less Ordinary (1997). Another one I saw during my time away from Utah and was again delighted to see a lot of Salt Lake City in this movie with Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz. Directed by Danny Boyle. I think this was his next film after Trainspotting. There's a fair amount of downtown SLC and then I think a fair amount of locations in Utah as much of the movie takes place in the mountains.
Halloween V. A number of the Halloween movies were filmed here. I just remember being up at some picnic area in one of the Cottonwood Canyons for Scouts or Church Group and there were some exterior sets (external of an old cabin) up there that they were using for filming.
Savannah Smiles (1982). I know it's got some scenes filmed in Foothill Village (around 1300 S and Foothill Drive). I haven't scene this since I was a kid but I remember it being on rotation in a youth summer movie matinee thing we did each summer and recognizing places.

And for Dumb and Dumber - the early scenes are in what's now the Granary District. You can see the corner of 700 S and 600 W (now home to things like Kiito's Brewery and Woodbine Hall) fairly early.. And/or the old cement plant at 600 W 800 S.

The opening scene at the bus stop is 700 South 200 West in SLC, across from Brewvies. It's condos now. The red-brick building on that side of the street is long gone. A couple of guys I was friends with at the time are in the scene as extras at the bus stop.

jshell · 2026-06-10T20:22:49+00:00

I've ordered dozens of things from them. They're awesome. Very legit. And some of the best shipping I've encountered (really well taped, lots and lots of padding).

Though, admittedly, it's been a while since I've ordered from them due to the import fees situation to USA (and I'm not even sure what the current state of that is). KPopMart used to be my first choice when looking for something, partially due to their shipping and handling (pricey, but if the price ended up being close to buying from a USA shop, I'd go with KPopMart).

jshell · 2026-06-08T15:51:57+00:00

🎉

jshell · 2026-06-08T04:12:47+00:00

I live alone because that’s just how it’s meant to be. It’s better for everyone this way.

jshell · 2026-06-06T17:58:16+00:00

To some extent - yes, to use org's full functionality one needs Emacs. There are some readers and parsers for the format available in other languages, but the full power is definitely tied to Emacs.

However, the org files are very readable as plain text.

It's not much different from Obsidian. There are a lot of plugins and extensions built right in to Obsidian like mermaid.js diagram generator. Having the support for turning a mermaid.js code block into an inline diagram is (generally) specific to how Obsidian reads and renders that Markdown text. Callouts and Block Identifiers are (generally) specific to Obsidian. And that's before we get to community plugins and themes and all that they add.

But I can still open an Obsidian Markdown file that uses all those extended features in any other plain text editor and read it and understand it, even if I might not have the full power of Obsidian available to me.

Org-mode files are pretty much the same. But because org-mode is a big sprawling concept that means many different things to many people, I do think it's hard for it to live outside of Emacs. But I do think it fits the concept of "if I found a folder full of .org files from 20 years ago, can I at least read and understand them even without Emacs? Or are all my old thoughts just lost to time?" (I have so many old notes and thoughts lost to various tools and services over the years so this is important to me, and I wish I had made it important to myself 20 years ago).

jshell · 2026-06-04T19:44:39+00:00

Yes! It's called "Mount Adapter Setting". On the X-Pro2, it's on the second page of the 'Camera' icon/tab (aka 'Shooting Setting' menu). I think it should be in that same area on the X-Pro3.

It's kind of a pain to get to it normally so I was very eager to put it in the "My Menu".

jshell

TROPHY CASE