Video recording, sony-style

How pretty is this little beauty? The SONY DCR-SR42.

The skinny from the NY Times:

The DCR-SR42, available now at www.sonystyle.com and from electronics retailers, is the 30-gigabyte version and sells for less than $600. Despite the large amount of disk space, the SR42 is compact and weighs only 11 ounces.
Sony says the hard drive can hold 20 hours of video if you shoot at the lowest resolution. At the highest quality, that drops to 7 hours. The supplied battery lets you shoot continuously for just over an hour and a half, while an optional lithium-ion battery ($160) will last up to 10 hours.

This is the "low end" model. Take a look at all available harddisk camcorder models at sonystyle.com.

Artoo-Detoo, where are you??

That is the question Chris and i sought to answer (he'll say mainly me, but he's just insecure about admitting the truth)—where in Chinatown was R2-D2?

R2-D2?? Yes, R2-D2. to help celebrate STAR WARS' 30th year anniversary, the USPS has dressed up some mail boxes as R2 (and is also planning to release some commemorative stamps).

so, Wednesday of last week, we ventured to the corner of Bayard and Mott in Chinatown, and there he (yes, i'm referring to R2-D2 with the pronoun "he") was! i'm not sure what was stranger, the fact that we had to look around before spotting him, or the fact that he was actually there.

what definitely was strange was how everyone else barely noticed him. as if he fit in perfectly next to the Chinatown souvenir shop and across from the Häagen-Dazs.

to be fair, here's Chris' account of our journey.

New York, NY 10021

A little social-welfare piece for those who've fared well socially: An Elite ZIP Code Becomes Harder to Crack (NYTimes)

For those less familiar with NY's social hierarchy, 10021 is the zip code of NY's Upper East Side (UES). It now runs roughly from East 60th Street up to East 80th Street. It has long been a sought-after zip code (the wealthy have different concerns than you or i), although in recent times, many of the upper-crust have been reported to have ventured away from the UES, especially to the West Village.

The people getting screwed over, um, reassigned will fall into one of two categories. The new breakdown for the old 10021 is as follows:

• 10065 - 60th to south side of 69th Street (from Fifth Ave to East River)
• 10021 - north side of 69th Street to south side of East 76th Street
• 10075 - south side of East 76th Street to East 80th Street

Kinda sucks for those on the south side of 69th and the north side of 76th. It's like the "wrong side of the tracks" for rich people. I wonder if a notable difference in value will emerge because of this change.

My personal favorite zip code I ever had was for a brief 3 months while interning in NY. Living at 34th and 6th Ave gave me the very awesome zip code of 10001. Awesome, right? (is that a "who cares?" i hear?)

Lastly, what about the kids? I remember being confused enough about why zip codes existed when I was a kid. Good thing they never changed mine on me while still living in the same place...