Random Thursday Night Observations....

- I have nooooo guess as to where they got this idea from.....?

But whoever edits PDXguide.com's local Portland page should really open up his or her ears....which is unusual, because The Trib's actually a really decent paper...

When The Red Tube line made its inaugural run out to PDX Airport on September 10th, 2001, there was much fanfare about just how Cascades Station development was literally going to be the stuff of legends!! Shit, the Cascades were supposed to bring much excitement, revenue and renown to NorthEast Portland, and along the way, it was supposed to cure AIDS, World Hunger, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict!!

Five and a half years after the first tube passed thru it, The Cascades is nothing but a vacant Goddamm FIELD!!!! I KNOW this because everytime I take the Red Tube to PDX to fly out, it always stops for one minute at The Cascades station!! Nothing is said on the PA System about it....it's kinda weird: Like, passengers maybe are supposed to offer up one minute of silence in honour of broken dreams of developers???

And how ANYBODY could be against IKEA going there is beyond me....

Now, I've not been to an IKEA in all my life, but I hear organised groups of Portlanders routienly travel the 180 miles to Seattle to go shop at their IKEA!! And with their lefty outlook (Social Responsibility Manager?? HOW MANY companies have one of THOSE???) and with the other perks they give to their employees, how can one NOT help but to welcome them in to NE PDX?

Shit!! Do you prefer NOTHING there at all?? The person mentioned in the piece who wrote to the Portland IndyMedia blog bashing IKEA has no clue and WHY The Trib even quoted her is suspect in itself! Why do I suggest that she has no clue??

As one poster named "Marleen" phrased it on Portland's Indymedia Web site: "Why is Portland simultaneously cheering IKEA and booing Wal-Mart? How Does Portland Spell Hypocrite? I K E A."

You're comparing IKEA to WAL-MART?? Are you serious?? You're kidding....right?? IKEA doesn't try to brainwash its employees, doesn't try to bust unions, doesn't hire bunches of bunches of illegal immigrants to clean their stores, doesn't actively SPY on their employees, and etc. etc. etc. etc. Jesus Christ....I cringe and shudder whenever I remember that I indeed used to shop at Wal-Mart.....

"Who cares if they shave off a bigger sliver of the spoils for their employees," she wrote of Ikea. "IKEA is a suburban car-culture oriented business that just happens to appeal to the condo-set."

"Who cares if they shave off a bigger sliver of the spoils for their employees"? Well, shit!! I DO, for one. Fiscally.....the more money a local employee makes, the more THEY are likely to turn around and spend it at LOCAL merchants, who then (the local merchants) will hire local contractors, repair personnel, etc. etc.!! Friends, in Keynesian terms, it's called "The Money Multiplier Effect", and to say a large store who just popped its latest retail outlet DIRECTLY NEXT TO a tube station is a "suburban car-culture oriented business" really perplexes me! I would much rather see an IKEA there than a Best Buy or a Mega-Lo-Mart (Wal-Mart)......and I'd certainly rather see an IKEA there as opposed to the vast, empty wasteland The Cascades Development has been the past five-and-a-half years!!

And, sorry, Melissa.....but a mom-n-pop clothing store is NOT going to rip up stakes from Hawthorne and relocate to The Cascades Development.....sorry, maybe in YOUR world they do, but not in the real world.....so take whatever we can get......and SO FAR, we got an IKEA!! I'd say: Impressive start!!


The sign I can KINDA see, because I hate large signs (cause landscape pollution) and IKEA's got a HUUUUGGGE undeground following. Come on, if people want it as badly as they say they do, they WILL find it, sign or no sign!!

I join many, many associates, friends and acquaintances in this statement: WELCOME TO PORTLAND, IKEA!

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HURRY.....read this quik......

.....because in less than 8 days, The Buffalo News will take this down and start charging for you to read it.

Holy sheeeiiite! Do you really expect us to actually fall for that rubbish, Byron? This is just one of the funniest stories I'd heard in a while......seriously, I thought that it was The Onion online......

But Byron's right! FIRST RULE of apprehending a "car thief"!!! ASSUME:

• .......that the thief WILL drive the stolen vehicle around in the vicinity of your house and that he will attempt to return it to you around 7AM the next morning!! Perhaps later if there's been an accident or two.

• .....that the "thief" will also have a key made to especially fit your car or SUV......because this way, he won't actually have to smash out a window and then pop off the steering column to start your SUV........but Mr. Thief will leave it parked within a four minute walk of your residence the next morning! Common Auto Theft tactic....show courtesy to the victim by making them have to walk only five minutes or less to recover their car!!

• DO NOT expect the thief to take an air-bag equipped 2005 or newer model car to a chop-shop! This would actually generate the thief revenue and he'd much rather return it to the rightful owners!

• Finally, ALWAYS get caught on camera walking TOWARDS the victim's house where you stole the vehicle! This is always a good idea.....

Naw, I swear.....this HAS GOT to be taken from The Onion.....this is too strange to believe.....

I'm in town this weekend......I'll blather at you all on Sunday!

-E-

I swear to God they should have a new game show:

“How fucked up is YOUR adopted Celebrity kid gonna grow up to be”?

And these names???????

“Lourdes”

“Suri” (Hebrew for “Go away”)

“Pax” (Latin for “Network that’s in 164th place in the Nielsen ratings”)

……….I mean, Jesus, just HOW fucked up are these kids gonna be when and if they grow up?? I mean, oddly enough I saw an interview with Francis Bean Cobain, and she really seems to have her shit straight, but the rest of these kids…..?? Who can even guess??

Posted the pics from last weekend’s road trip on the pics page….enjoy!

-E-

Random Monday Night Rantings........








Ooooer......





....all right! So......uhhh.....Niagara WASN'T the Second Coming I talked 'em up to be! But still.....Kansas looked AWESOME! I still have Kansas staying true to form and choking and dying in the Sweet 16 in my brackets (which actually don't totally suck this year like they did in years past: 7th place out of 28 so far - usually in years past, after the first round, there is a cleric performing Last Rites on my brackets)......stay tuned!





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Some seriously pissed off grannies.....





Interesting watching the local news footage for the Portland Protests that were held this weekend (alongside San Francisco, Denver, NYC and the big one in Washington, D.C.) to protest the War on Iraq. It seems like a LOT of the protesters are older ladies. And then I remembered a really good article about some Seriously Pissed-Off Grannies (their own words, not mine) who protest on public rights-of-way in front of the U.S. Army Recruitment Office in Portland.......TOO cool......made some great points on WHY more younger people aren't doing this. Even here in The People's Republic of Portlandia, it really displays today's instant-gratification society tells kids to sit on their asses and play with their Wii.





Perhaps, to get kids offa their asses and out in the streets protesting this rubbish, maybe we need Jello to write a sequel: "Holiday in Anbar Province"*





*For those readers who might be too old or too young to recognise this link, these are lyrics to The Dead Kennedys song (Jello Biafra was the lead singer) "Holiday in Cambodia" which suggests that the listener leave their creature comforts and go experience real living in the rice paddies of mid-1970's Cambodia





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Speaking of which.......





......they had these fourth-year anniversary protest things in several cities. Yet I heard nothing about anything in Buffalo! I mean, come on!! There is always at least one shit-stirring hellraiser screaming on the corner of Bidwell and Elmwood about the war! And now the only thing I hear is that a bunch of people are gonna meet inside the Unitarian Church and mumble a lot and go "tch! tch!" about how bad the Goddamm war is???? Come on, go to Goddamm Starbucks if thass all you're gonna do!!! I mean, this is the town where the B.P.D. Gang Suppression Unit was brought out to a bicycle riding event by Critical Mass in 2000.....a town that takes no shit......I'm a bit disappointed!





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I don't haf kids, sooooo.....





.....someone please tell me what the hell "The Wiggles" are??





I had seen an article from The snOregonian living section posted on the bulletin board at work (as a joke because one of our planners bears a veeeery creepy identical likeness to the "new wiggle" member.....or "the Yellow Wiggle" as others refer to him as) and I had read a teensy bit of the article until I found out that they're playing at The Rose Garden!!!





Now....The ROSE GARDEN? I mean, Jesus.....I'd thought they'd be playing at Joe's Day Care and Termite Removal or some shit like that......wow.....shows you just how out of things I am.....





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Oooooooh.......reeeaaalllly???





Interesting what a recall can tell you. So, with this Gordie pet food manufacturing company that has just issued a recall....if you look at their list of all products recalled, it begs the question: So, HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE is there in your company's manufacturing and composition of, say, Eukanubia or Iams (at, like, $1.29 per tin of wet cat food) versus, say, the manufacturing and composition of Wegman's Brand label or President's Choice (at, like, 39 cents a tin of wet cat food)??





Or do you have a different assembly line for each product name and label?





Or do you just have one assembly line and you suddenly change product content and manufacturing procedures whenever you switch and stop making Iams and start manufacturing Price Chopper Bargain Generic Private Label brand??





Um-hum......NO WONDERS my cats would never eat Iams products!!





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I'll be posting to the pics page a narrative of a road trip I took this weekend on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm feeling rather poorly with a flu or a cold or some shit like that, and I'm gonna try to get some rest....





I haven't even looked at ALL of the pics I took, but I'll leave you with a few fotos during the duration of a sunset I took from my kitchen window in The Hills of Cedar, Oregon.....beware, though, if you click on these pics, they may take a bit to load, as they were at 7+ MegaPixel setting, but still.....I think they're kinda stunning, and not bad for my second batch of pics I've ever taken with a digital camera!









































-E-

Tell me that.....

....you didn't see this one coming!

The Cardinals beat The Cardinal.......no, wait.....they buried them!! TWENTY POINTS!!!

Golly......I called that one (see below).....and it's probably thee only pick I'll nail in my two brackets (except when Kansas chokes early [as per usual] and DOES NOT make it to the Elite Eight)!

Renee........you know far too much about college hoops! An Oregonian was supposed to take YOUR pool.....NOW, you're threatening ours???

And still, after the case I made (below in my last post) as to EXACTLY WHY Stanford "should" be given a free pass to The Big Dance, Niagara and Florida A&M still had to play the "play-in game"??

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I is out for a few days. Gonna hit The High Desert on a long weekend. Golf, hot springs, and nobody around for more than one hundred miles....

....obviously, no Internet. And the laptop's in the shop anyways, so...........

......pictures and long road-trip narratives when I return, like, Wednesday or some shit like that!

-E-

Nice Ca$h Advances your Athletic program

Ya know, if in the past I had made some suggestion that the NCAA is total bullshit by blackmailing the State of Oregon into dropping legalised pro football betting, just so it can make money here and ram it's product down our throats....

.....any aspect of "suggestion" has been removed! It's now official:

The NCAA IS, repeat, IS total bullshit!!!

Case in point, its Men's Basketball "tournament" and HOW EXACTLY the teams that are given the privilege of participating are selected!

Niagara University (OK....homer alert here!) wins it's conference tournament, thus, it should get an automatic bid based on winning that conference tourney into The Dance of 64!

But instead, it gets forced to play this idiotic thing called a "play-in game" where the 64th and 65th seeds have to play to get the 64th spot in the tournament! Florida A&M was in the "play-in game" as well, and THEY TOO won their conference tourney!! Niagara had an RPI (Ratings Percentage Index....a measure of how strong your basketball team is) HIGHER than five other teams in the The Dance of 64!! The M.A.A.C. (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference - the conference Niagara plays in) is ranked 22 in terms of Power Rankings out of 27 conferences!

Yet The Purple Eagles still were forced to do the goddamm "play-in game"?? How does THAT make any sense whatsoever, given the figures mentioned above? (DON'T forget Florida A&M, who played a hell of a game under some of thee most grueling circumstances.....I mean, they got screwed over, too!!!!!!)

Ooooooooh........oooops, that's right! Niagara University doesn't make the NCAA shitloads of marketing money. Oh yeah, that's right: You won't see kids in the igloos of Barrow, Alaska, or in the streets of Juarez, Mexico and everywhere in between, wearing Purple Eagles jerseys! Naw, but you WILL see 'em wearing a Syracuse or Duke or Notre Dame basketball jersey (actually, people in Western New York don't even wear Purple Eagles Jerseys).

Niagara has trouble selling out games in it's own area!!!! Put a UCLA, a North Carolina, a University of Kansas or a University of Arizona basketball team in a game in the middle of Saskatchewan, and they'll sell it out!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhh..............buxx............$$$$$$. OK, NOW it makes sense to me why Niagara had all those numbers going for them......yet had to do the "play-in game"!!!

And also why Stanford had been given an at-large free pass to The Dance of 64 and a #11 seeding in the South bracket of 16 teams, and they didn't even come anywhere near winning their PAC-10 conference tournament!!

Where did they finish in the PAC-10 conference regular season?? Try sixth-fucking-place!!!!

How many games overall did The Cardinal lose?? Try twelve games!!


Jesus!! I mean, when you look at the bottom of the Associated Press Men's College Basketball top 25, you'll see in small print "Other teams receiving votes" and there is like 22 additional teams listed there (like, Villanova received three votes, and were at the end of the "Other teams receiving votes" list)

Stanford is not only NOT ranked in the top 25 teams nationally....but they DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE "OTHER TEAMS RECEIVING VOTES" LIST!!!!

That takes skill, and you still get selected for the Dance of 64????? And PLEASE, do NOT give me the dreaded "Hey!! It's a tough conference" rubbish.....heard THAT excuse millions of times now......

Now......based on the two teams stats, WHY wasn't Stanford, not Niagara nor Florida A&M, relegated to the "play-in game"???

Wait....whoa.....actually, why is Stanford even IN the thing????

Oh yeah.....Stanford's a FAR bigger drawing card......more money for the NCAA!! Do you really think they (the NCAA) want a big-draw school like Stanford getting killed by #1 Kansas in the first round??

Still....it's just so fucking wrong.......

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If you is a bettin' man (or woman), take Oregon, Georgetown, Memphis and Kansas in the Final Four!! Memphis will beat The Ducks in overtime to take the National Championship!

If you actually follow this advice, seek professional help immediately!!!

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My brother was recalling a near-death experience he, my friend V and myself had in 1996 at a place called Sheep Mountain Table in the South Dakota Badlands. As you can see in the fotograff in the link, it is significantly easier to go down INTO The Badlands then it is to climb back up and OUT OF The Badlands!

This little fact apparently was lost on the three of us........

Anyways, we barely get out of there with our lives. My brother last night was reminiscing about that trip to The Badlands, telling me how he still tells people that he cares about, that when he walks on, how he wants his ashes scattered on The Badlands.

"What about scattering them along Elmwood or something??"

"Naw, you can scatter my urine there, if you like......"

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An astute reader of this page in the D.C. area E-Mailed me and told me that the 2008 race for the White House just got a little more interesting.

If you look at his page, this guy is interesting (though his grammar and spelling and punctuation are all fairly atrocious - "MEDICAL CARE AT A FAIR PRICE. Americans work to hard, to have to worry about the raising cost of medical insurance and cost.), but he kinda creeps me out in that I'm wondering where all of this money the Federal Government pays individual Indians is (see #13 of the "13 great points to make our great nation greaterer and make much benefit for glorious nation of U.S.A.")! I checked under all of the couch cushions at The Capitol, the penny jar at The White House........everywhere! No dice!! Couldn't find the purse that contains all of the free money Injuins receive from the United States Federal Government..........


Shit, if you find it, let me know!!!! I want some of it.......

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Traveling for a few days this weekend.....hopefully on my skooter.....I won't have a laptop (DELL's factory is ripping my laptop apart as I type this, trying to figure out JUST WHY Dell Inspiron 1150s suck sooooooooooooo badly and why they were so poorly put-together), so no new posts......but I will have some stunning fotograffs on the Blog Pics page when I return......... promise........

-E-

Engrish 101......


I love it when Chinese manufacturers refuse to shell out the bucks and get a Brit or an American who knows Chinese to do the translating on the instructions for a Chinese manufactured product. Rather, they save many dollars and hire their buddy's kid outta the University, who kinda sorta speaks English!

One of these kids did the English translations on the outside box on my smokeless whale ashtray that I ordered a few years back. On the box, it talked about something (noun, verb.....??? I didn't know what the fuck this word was) called "inhaust".....


....to the best estimation that I could come up with, "inhaust" is the state of not breathing, that oxygen-less moment between when one's lungs inhale and when they exhaust!







So, I was mailed these instructions for a WebCam I bought that was made in China using the same economising translation technique:

Now, I'm always a big fan of something that would make my life more colourful......and what is "35ten thousand"? 350,000??

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Disaster and unexpected make computer can not work?? Hell, that happened to my laptop last week! Computer can not work, it was unexpected, and it was a major disaster! I almost committed sewieside, as my Niece would say, without my computer!! So no matter what you purchase, PLEASE always read The Notice Thing

Please send products with effective receipt back to the sellers. Right!!! 'Cause, if there's one thing that really pisses me off, it's those Goddamm ineffective receipts! Good for nothing, lazy, and generally just not worth it!!!

If you are really find any problems with our products......LOVE that one. No, REALLY.....I mean, like, really now.....real trouble! THEN take it back to the store.....none of this fake shit......

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Hippies under the bridge.....

Saw a fun band last weekend at the Portland Saturday Hippie Market. They were these, like, eleven folks who were playing what appeared to be Xylophones.......but they had this weird sound to 'em......literally almost sounding like an organ, and they sang in a totally foreign language......

They were called Boka Marimba, and these people sing in something referred to as the Shona language, sound like they're playing an organ because below their marimbas (what I mistakenly thought were Xylophones), they have these lengths of plastique PVC pipe each wrapped in cellophane (WTF????) and it ends up making this weird, haunting noise.......like a buzzing organ! And everybody in this 11-piece band are white, and there are even a couple native-born Oregonians in it (you can always easily spot a native-born Oregonian: They are thee only human beings on Earth who possess the physical properties and attributes that enable them to scare the fuck out of Casper The Friendly Ghost!!!!! If you've never come across a native-born Oregonian, in this pic, an anti-gambling poster put out by The Oregon Lottery, there is an excellent example of a native-born Oregon girl who was just fondled and molested by a member of the Blue Man Group)......but no Bruthas in this band!! Weird.....and yet they actually had some talent.......

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New entry to the dictionary -

'Spanned (as in to be/to get 'Spanned): The term for the entire sequence of events where one who was mislead into a false sense of success through bizarre stories and antics, a feeling of confidence suddenly washed away when the organizer dissipates, (normally with all monies contributed in the form of labor, cash, or goodwill).

e. g. A- "He comes in with his girlfriend, sits down with us, and they each order, like, three Grey Goose double martinis, and then they say how they really have to get running and they're late and stuff.......and they leave a five dollar bill on the table! Jesus, man....we just got '$panned!!!!"

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e.g. B- "Hey whaasup??"

"Not much, you?"

Nothing new.....hey, meant ta ask ya: Your paycheque clear???

No....how'd YOU know??

'Cause mine didn't either!!! Goddamm, I'm soooooo sick and tired of getting 'Spanned by this company!!

Related: see movie Kingpin - "you pulled a Munson"

Origins: believed to be named after Jason Greenspan of Colorado.....former proprietor of H.D.M.C. and D.M.E.

More pics on the http://ernie-pics.blogpot.com page as soon as I take 'em!! Probably in a week or two!!!!! Thanx for your patience.....

-E-

Random Tuesday Night Blatherings.....



Cool.....thanks to Mary, now, I've got FOUR known readers to this blog! Keep it up, and this might be on the Technorati top ten.......although, I've looked at it, and nothing on it seems terribly fascinating! There are about two blogs that I'll look at every so often: http://www.sivacracy.net/ and http://www.preemptivekarma.com/ .......both well worth your time.....

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That is, like, so gay.......


Interesting that Ann Coulter said "You Have To Go Into Rehab If You Use The Word ‘Faggot'"

This comes out of the throat of a "woman" who possesses an Adam's apple....




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.....mmmmm-kay........

......right.....

So John Edwards turns this around and uses it as an opportunity to request that you send money to his campaign!

Speaking of opportunists......I'd like to see Barrak Obama win the Democratic nod......not big on anyone whose religion influences their political decisions.....but he smokes! And I'd rather have decisions with national implications made in a smoke-filled room than at an altar........

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CAN'T git this Goddamm song outta my head.......

FUN stuff from some people my sister went to college with. Who stole the kishka??

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Speaking of Old Eastern Europa.......this post brought to you by HE'BREW!

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Not great.....but not bad!! Purchased mostly for the novelty effect........

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Other dronings.....

Just saw a good flick - Idiocracy....by Mike Judge of Office Space as well as Beavis and Butt-Head fame......remember, this could be our children's future.....if it isn't here already.....

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Random dull pics are now available on the foto-blog http://ernie-pics.blogspot.com/

The few first pics with the new camera.......try to enjoy!!

-E-

The Five Civilised Tribes????



As fucking if!!!!



This is just embarrassing!! I mean, it's not any question of reparations.....it's doing just what is morally and ethically RIGHT!!



Apparently, The Cherokee Nation just lost sight of what IS right.



Is THIS what Sherman Alexie meant in Smoke Signals when he penned this line into the script: "It's a good day to be indigenous"???



Maybe it is to The Cherokee Nation......



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On a happier note, an alma mater of this blog just got a bit of an early Easter present! Jerry Glanville put the blinders on and conveniently ignored that a school as Lefty as Portland State University, who could literally give a shit less about ANYTHING AT ALL having to do with school athletics, put out a good con job and enticed him to take the head coaching job for the football team.



I'd always been a fan of Jerry Glanville....going back to his days with The Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans) and can't believe a man of his caliber took a look at the athletic facilities at Portland State and said: "This'll do.....I'll take the job!"



Must like a challenge, I guess.....



Still though, I think now I'll actually go see a game or two this fall.......



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Laid out a fair amount of money (well, for my socio-economic status, 200 clams is a fair amount of money) and got my first ever digital camera today!

Apparently, this thing came out about five minutes ago and even cNet hasn't had a chance to look at it yet........but from what very few reviews I'd seen about this thing, apparently, for what little it costs, it has the capability to launch space shuttles.....cool......

YAY!!! No more pirating pics offa Google Image search and plus, if I see something neat On The Road, it'll be posted immediately.....no more waiting for Walgreen's to pop the pics onto a CD-ROM and THEN get 'em to the blog.....



.....I mean, yeah, it's a lotta money, but if I figure for EACH disposable camera, to avoid taking total shit pictures that literally are unable to be processed, I hafta drop ten+ bucks on the specific Kodak HQ High-Definition camera (see below), THEN another ten on developing it onto a CD-ROM plus three days!



















Way I see it, it'll pay for itself after about eight disposable cameras time.....

Sooooo.....I'll be re-activating the photo-blog http://ernie-pics.blogspot.com/ shortly......soon as I see something interesting.....

-E-