Tuesday July 29, 2003
Canon A70

The new Canon A70 came in today. Yeehaw!!!

It has been a month and a half since I ordered it. Over that period it was ordered and re-ordered from two online companies (one of which lied about it being in stock) and then I ended up buying it locally from the same place I bought my old Nikon 775. They got a shipment of A70's today and mine was the fourth one sold. Hotcakes.

Too early for thoughts, I need to live with it for a while. It has a solid feel with crisp, logical controls and the user interface is worlds better than the old Nikon. Granted, some of this is pure fluff: do I really need to customize the audio sounds and the splash screen? I did.

Bear with me as I explore and bury the weblog in photos.

Orchid
Plank


Mike Kitchen • 2003-08-04 08:45pm

Jer,

I was perusing your webpage after trying that (first) recipe for ginger beer. The brew is presently fermenting (I hope) in a carbuoy in my kitchen (no pun intended). I (alas) had inferior ginger (you'd think an asian supermarket would sell better, but...), and the recipe was upped to a Canadian Gallon (~4.5 L) from a US Gallon (3.76 L)... LOL. Why does the world need so many bloody gallons?!

Anyway, congrats on your new Canon A70, I own a similar unit (c/w 256 Mb flashcard) and in its two months of use it has taken me several gigabytes of fine photos. Huzzah!

Anyway, thanks for the recipe. I post the results of the brewing on my page (see above) when it's tasted.

Mike Kitchen
Calgary, AB
jerry • 2003-08-04 09:24pm

Hey, good luck with the ginger beer. I've made a few more batches since and am focusing in on the ultimate ginger beer...that is if you have the same tastes as we do. The last batch only used a cup of sugar, which might be just a little on the dry side. I'm still using all of the other spices, sometimes more (juniper berries), and it's tasting pretty good.

Let us know how yours turns out.

Tedhieron • 2003-08-06 09:39am

Better get some naval jelly on that Phillips head screw!
Mike Kitchen • 2003-08-18 07:45pm

Jer, the latest brew made just over 12 litres (about 3 gallons). And it worked quite well. The recipe I used is posted on the web site (the spices --allspice, cinnamon, etc-- are basically those you'd use making Jamaican jerk seasoning). I've found that the quality of the ginger is of primary importance. This latest stuff I got at a Japanese store down the street. Much firmer and juicier, few dried out end bits, wrinkles or (yuck) mold. It's tough to get ginger to stay good with the dry Prairie climate. Anyway, the next batch, I'm going to see if the local Jamaican market will cough up any secrets.
Hmmm, juniper berries, eh? I'll have to try that...not sure how close ginger beer should taste to gin tho. Tried adding bitters (Angostura) to a glass -- interesting flavour, not sure if I'd do a whole 3-gallon batch that way.
Anyway,