i had some cd's to deliver to cambridgeport this afternoon but without a car it'd take me an hour round trip and i was too busy to spare that much time. so i called my father and asked him for a favor, if he could drive me down there so i could drop off the package. coming back, i went to go buy a pair of used lenses for the nikon 4500. the guy i was buying from (who also lives in cambridge) was selling a nikon FC-E8 fisheye lens and a nikon WC-E24 wide angle lens. originally they came with an used coolpix 950, but i wasn't interested in the camera and asked if i could just buy the lenses seperately. i made an offer of $100 but he insisted nothing less than $150. i ended up agreeing to his price. i already have a wide angle lens, but it's nice to have a spare. what i really wanted was the fisheye lens. it's more of an expensive novelty lens than something i can use everyday, but the one good thing about the fisheye is i can make 360 degrees panorama with just 6 photos (like the faces of a cube). when i first saw the lens i was shocked how big it was, shaped like a floodlamp light bulb and surprisingly heavy. the guy said he was glad i was buying it because he saw my website and the photos i took. my father brought me back home and i worked through the rest of the day.

my nikon coolpix 4500 has a special setting just for this particular fisheye lens, where the camera zooms in just enough to get rid of the vignetting. it's a bit unwieldly when attached, but it has an amazing wide-angle coverage of 180 degrees, although the images get fuzzier the closer you move to the edges. although it's impossible to attach filters, the lens has a diameter of over 60mm, much wider than my digital SLR as a matter of fact. i went around the house taking photos of the various rooms.

in the evening julie came over. it was my turn to cook, but i was completely devoid of any cooking imagination having worked all day and asked if we could just order wings tonight instead. nevertheless, i cooked up the rest of my wild mushrooms before she came; they were a bit dried but still edible. i played 30 minutes of katamari before julie got here. we watched the winter olympics coverage on NBC, making fun of the male figure skaters. julie went gaga over the set of robotic birds my sister gave me for my birthday and wanted to get some for herself and her cat. i showed her katamari but she wasn't impressed with my rolling.

finally, probably the best valentine's day present ever: the news that tom cruise and katie holmes are breaking up. everytime they mentioned it on the news, i was clapping with joy. i still think it's all a hoax and katie holmes has been wearing a pregnancy suit this whole time.