I hate Labor Day Weekend. Because there are sales. And it makes me spend money.

The weekend was pretty insane from a mundane point of view. Friday night started with a local high-school football game. Saturday brought some time on the pistol range. Although I took both my CZ40 and Ruger P90, car issues only allowed me time to shoot the former. Afterwards, we headed off to see Babylon AD (a 3 out of 5 stars for me). I had time thereafter to squeeze in a brief appearance at a small get-together before I headed off for an even smaller birthday celebration at a Japanese restaurant. Sunday was spent predominantly at home, with dinner and the movie Traitor (4 out of 5 stars). Monday was the rigorous physical day, with 2.5 hours of tennis and Legs and Triceps thereafter at the gym. Dinner at Outback Steakhouse and some shopping ensued afterwards.

Which brings me to money and things electronic. I downloaded the remainder of Season 5 of the Surreal Life from the XBox Live Video Marketplace (ok, so everything that I do is not necessarily cool). I also grabbed 4 episodes of the History Channel Specials series, which I am really looking forward to. A few of them were also in HD, sucking up more space on my hard drive, which I can foresee needing a second one of before the XBox 720/Xbox 360 Squared comes out. The Video Marketplace is really kicking when it comes to downloadable TV Shows. Not so much with the movie rentals. NetFlix will be a welcome addition, but it is still better than the Playstation Store offerings.

I did meander by the PlayStation Store, and it is better than it used to be. It is now icon driven, instead of the inane web-browser-with-a-joystick interface that it used to sport. I did not get a chance to investigate all of the content, though. I am not sure if that is that much better organized. I have to eat some crow on that topic, but I am not yet certain how much. I'll probably check it out more this week, since I have The Assassination of Jesse James in from NetFlix on Blu-Ray (along with Goldfinger on DVD).

Later Friday, I dumped the big bucks on a new digital camera. I have been jonesing for a dSLR for a long time, and finally pulled the trigger this weekend. I initially was planning on jumping in at the $500 price point for a Sony Alpha a200. But during the day I found out what LiveView was and came to understand that the a200 doesn't have it. LiveView on a dSLR is what allows you to see exactly what you are about to snap via the LCD, without having to look through the viewfinder. Entry-level dSLRs at the low-end do not have this feature, only allowing you see shots you have already taken via the LCD, and requiring you look through the viewfinder for shots in progress. Since a lot of my shots are self-photos while I'm out hiking or pictures of electronics taken from weird angles, I decided it was worth the extra $100 to jump to the Alpha a300, the mid-line model. Of course, when I got to Circuit City they wouldn't have it. I then, over the next hour-and-a-half, considered the Nikon D60, Canon Rebel XSi, Olympus 410, 420, 510, and 520. The elimination went as follows:

1. Nikon D60 - eliminated due to it being the $100 more than the a300, but still not having LiveView
2. Canon Rebel XSi - eliminated due to it being the same price as the high-end Alpha a350, but being a lower resolution
3. Olympus 410 and 510 - eliminated due to being last year's camera models. I insisted that if I was going to drop the coin on a dSLR I wanted a recently released model
4. Olympus 420 - eliminated because I did not like the build construction of the body, and it was the same price as the a300, but did not have image stabilization and did not have as a large a magnification zoom lens in the kit
5. Olympus 520 - also eliminated due to the body construction, and not having as nice a zoom lens. The Olympus' also were eliminated because they used SD cards, which would have required me to buy a new flash-card, which I had to figure into the price.

In the end I up sold myself into the high-end of the Alpha series, the Sony Alpha a350, which if you read reviews on Sony's product positioning of this camera line, is exactly what they want to happen to you in the store. Then I up sold myself even more. There was a good chance of rain at the football game, which I thought I would be able to take the camera to. I also hate the idea of buying expensive electronics and putting them in crap bags. There was a lone Sony Alpha case available, though it didn't have a price tag on it. When they ran the price, it was ridiculously expensive. When I asked them to confirm it, I realized that it was both the case and a spare battery, each of which retail for $80 bucks apiece. They were in a bundle for $99. Now I was at $900, and remembered the ad on the display for a bundle consisting of the camera kit, the case and battery, and an extra 75-300mm Zoom Lens for $950. What's an extra $50 bucks?

So that's the new kit: the camera, a case, a spare battery, and two zoom lenses. I had some serious buyer's remorse walking out of the store. But, I knew that I was buying a camera set that I would not be looking to replace until it broke. This was also the main reason I chose not to go with lower-end, less expensive cameras that were missing features, because I knew I would then want to upgrade later. I did not get a chance to use the camera this weekend due to all of the other running around, but hopefully I will in the weeks coming.

My final error of the weekend was going into Sears with my buddy and his wife on Labor Day. (sale?). He recently got an Xbox 360 and does not have many people on his Friends List. Although I have not enjoyed Tiger Woods on a console, because of how much I do enjoy it on the PC, when he picked up his copy, I obliged him by buying my own copy so we could get some golf going online. It was money well spent, though, if I can convince him to play that instead of our marathon tennis outings.

Good thing there are no other gadgets I am jonesing for. Anyway, it's that time of the year when I get assaulted by everyone else's birthday and Christmas, and receive very few gifts in return. September is my only month off from the Bday/Xmas bum rush that begins in August each year, so grabbing a few things for me maybe isn't all that bad. That's a halfway decent rationalization anyway, don't you think?

Take care, and game on.

- Vr/Zeux.>