Saturday, December 21, 2013

Last Past Minute

Still haven’t gotten the last of your gifts?

You are a procrastinator. And time is short and before you know it the clock will strike one and those ghosts will start arriving and after that there will be no time for anything but regret and suffering. So throw off that chain and get out and do something about it before you become an annual special on ABC!

Fortunately there are things which can save your bacon or tofu if you are avoiding fats.

The Coos Art Museum has some nifty neat and cool T-shirts with the CAM logo on them and while you are being the height of fashion you can promote the museum and help support it all at the same time.

For those who fear buying the wrong size the museum can still help you out. They also have wonderful etched wine glasses so you can encourage the bad habits of your bestest friends and support the museum too.

Get enough people with bad habits exercising before New Year’s Eve and half of the fund raising goal for fiscal ‘14 can be met and think of how self-righteous you’ll feel.

Don’t forget the Rental Sales Office where you can buy art from the people who really know good art and don’t have to say, “I don’t know art but I know what I like.”

Good art is a lasting investment and think of how silly you’d look with your CD framed and hanging on the living room wall? Think of how many CD’s you’d have to have to fit over that extra long sectional? (And if you have that many CDs why aren’t you a sustaining member of the museum anyway?)

But wait there’s more, catalogues, OCMA posters, fine art prints and a few Fishing T-shirts left over from the fishing show which no one bought because they were not really eye catchers and if you buy them then the museum will have more room to stock stuff that you would like to buy and so you’d be doing a public service.

But wait there’s still more, just not at the museum.

Batteries. I know, it does sound a lot like socks but it isn’t. Just think of how long you could survive without Double A batteries, no remote…that’s a serious crisis, you think government deadlock is a huge problem let the remote go out right before NCIS and see how fast the Long Sufferin takes to kick your tookis out the door for a battery run.

Now be a good boy scout and have a bunch of batteries on hand. I like the Kirkland 48 packs for everyday use. They ain’t Coppertops, but they cost a tenth as much and do pretty well. They’ll keep your remote remoting, the flash light burning, the garage door opener opening and the hand-held adult entertainment device you have hidden in the drawer by the bed  doing…you know exactly what it is doing and aren’t you ashamed but try to get through a week with dead batteries and see how your sense of shame fares against your other needs.

Oh yes, they will power your DSLR I told you you should go online and buy. I carry a set of four when I go out, just in case the power runs out before my trigger finger gets a cramp. Came in handy when I was at Shore Acres, sure enough forty frames in the light went out and I had to call on the Kirkland’s to step up and bring back the light. That or wait until next Christmas to get my shot of the whale.

Now for continued heavy use, nothing beats Duracell. I know what the consumer people say and they are wrong. I’ve been using Coppertops so long the were just a little tan and back then they were called Mallory Duracells and they were still the go to power source for any serious photographic application. Those old Honeywell strobes could suck a house dry just powering up and without Mallory’s you’d be two shots in and staring at the dark.

So Duracells are always the right answer and now they have the Duracell Ultra, let me tell you these guys are the bomb. I loaded my Pentax K-x with a set when I first got my grubby, little hands on it and the ran for 37 days and 288 shots about 25% flash and that is nearly a third longer than they are supposed to last.

Sure it is anecdotal and unsupported by empirical evidence but try it and see if the folks at Consumer Reports are talking out of their hats or if the Ole Trawler is right on the money.

Now if this person you ignored until the last minute has been really, really good get him a set of Sanyo Eneloop Double As and the charger. It will set you back a whole twenty bucks and at this late date you should be glad you can get out of the hole for a double sawbuck.

These are supposed to be according to all of the electronic magazines the very best rechargeable batteries on the market. I can’t confirm or deny but for folks who think Sony, Nikon and Canon are a cut above the rest this is the battery for them. (I’ll let you know how they work for me if I have been good enough for Santa to bring me a set.)

Now I know there is nothing in this list which is glamorous or ritzy, but you did wait until past, the very lat minute so why not give it a try. Then you can salvage something from this year to build on for next year when you will shop early and not be looking for stuff at the very last, past minute and you’ll be able to get that Texting Barbie or the newest Smart Phone or the Windows 14 tablet and be the one everyone talks about for the whole next year.

Or you could just go buy socks.

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