Camera + tripod + 2 batteries + charger = WOE.

Is it cheaper to rent equipment or buy your own?

In the case of the videorecording equipment, I think the time saved by not having to lug it to and from school might be worth the extra money.

That's all from me this week.

A short, MESSY post.

A little dab'll do ya?

My apologies to my three blog fans for the late update - apparently there was a misunderstanding between JavaScript and my computer, which has since been rectified.

I've got this horrible cold. And as I bid empty box after empty box of Kleenex adieu, I can't help but wonder if there isn't some better way. What did people do before Kleenex, I thought to myself. The handkerchief! Was this the answer?

I'm not so sure. I'm not sold on carrying the same dirtied square of cloth about in my pocket for re-use, even if I can console myself and my hands with liquid sanitizer afterwards. My other option is to make about 40 of the handkerchiefs for myself. But where would I store them once they were used? Would I need to have a separate Zip-Loc bag just to carry handkerchiefs?

This gets to the underlying question. When you're afraid of both germs and needless spending, what do you do? I have determined that I will at least attempt to befriend the handkerchief - AFTER I'm done with this cold, because right now I am way too busy being tired and dehydrated to actually sew. And of course I'd make my own, I have a bunch of miscellaneous material lying around, and no idea where I'd find a handkerchief today anyway.

Plus, this way I can make mine monogrammed. =D

Facebook vs Twitter?

I had my Twitter account about a month before I got a Facebook account, but after getting Facebook I am rarely on Twitter. The reason? Facebook is so much more interactive. I can read status updates, which are a lot like tweets, but I can do a lot more beyond that. On Facebook I can chat with people in real time, view photos and video content, and reply to other people's posts in a way that's directly linked to the post rather than showing up disjointedly and prefaced by a "@" symbol. I know there are a whole bunch of Twitter "add-ons" out there, but most seem to be intended for an iPhone I don't have. And then there's the unfortunate incident that happened to me the day I got Twitter. A spambot linked to me in a post - about a porn site. That's exactly what I want as part of my online professional presence, Twitter! Thank you so much! (That was sarcasm.)

So I abandoned Twitter. I will post the occasional tweet, but there are mostly virtual tumbleweeds drifting across my page. I feel like its time came and went very quickly, to be perfectly honest. It just doesn't do as much as Facebook does, nor does it offer me any control over who is associated with me and why. Facebook allows me to vet anyone who tries to link to me, and to report them as troublemakers if I don't know them at all. I guess that's the most important thing for me: Facebook allows me control.

Only a few of my non-CreComm friends are on Twitter, anyway. My friend Gareth announced, "I don't like things like character limits, especially when my ideas don't fit them in handy, bite sized pieces."

My friend Darran doesn’t have a Twitter account either. "Why? Should I?" he responded, baffled. I wonder if he, like me, doesn't see anything offered by Twitter that isn't also offered, more safely, by Facebook.

I don't have any non-CreComm female friends that use Twitter, but my friend Bryan uses both Facebook and Twitter. " I use both for different purposes: Facebook is for keeping in touch with my friends and family, a way of easily sharing photos, links, and short status updates/stories," he says.

"I use Twitter to stay on top of things that other people do; most of my Twitter viewing is Twitter feeds from people like Wil Wheaton, Jon Scalzi, and software companies. Twitter is a great way of seeing short ideas brought to life, or of gaining insight into the thoughts of creative people whose work I admire."

So Twitter is for people/things that won't add you on Facebook? Or is Facebook just a longer, more time-consuming yet more informative version of Twitter, the way a video is a longer, more time-consuming yet more informative version of a photograph?

Either way, until I find ways to make 140 characters more interesting, I will still be mostly a Facebook girl.

Eat your (local) vegetables!!

A week's supply of fresh vegetables, grown by local farmers, delivered each week. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? Two years ago, I read about an innovative program in place in California, where urban households paid in advance to receive weekly bundles of veggies from nearby Californian farmers. At first glance, this saves both time and money, since you've paid up front and get a certain share of whatever is grown - and you are also spared some time at the supermarkets, since you know you will be getting the veggies each week.

Yet there are some caveats to the program as well. What if bad weather results in a low crop yield? What if it is a better year for some vegetables than others, so you receive a bumper crop of parsnips but are low on staples like lettuce and tomatoes? Where do you pick up the veggies, and can you take it on good faith that they will arrive as promised?

Furthermore, could such a program work in Winnipeg, where the growing season is so much shorter than in California?

There's a sense of adventure in wondering what random veggies will turn up at your door on Sunday, and what kind of tasty recipes you might discover either in old cookbooks or on the internet to teach an old vegetable new tricks. Having your own personal farmers' market delivered once a week, I think, would have just as many advantages as drawbacks, if not more.