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Ok, boomer. 😉 On a related note, it is truly insane to me how many people exclusively get their news from social media or other algorithmic sources these days. I feel like a dinosaur still reading newspapers that I have to pay for!

On a lighter note- on vacation in Naples Florida This week!

My "Dream System" would be to have my hearing restored to what is was when I was 35. 🤫

I agree. The downfall of News came when networks, etc. decided that their News Department needed to be a profit center.

I've owned a bunch of film bodies over the years, including two Canon SLRs. I had a Rebel G in the mid 00s and put a number of rolls of film through it. I got rid of it, but I no longer remember the circumstances. I have to this day a Rebel K2, which is very consumer grade, but it works. Paradoxically, I exposed fewer total frames with the K2, but I worked much harder with it. Last summer I blew the metaphorical and physical dust off the K2 and ran some slide and print film through it. I still haven't developed any of the above, but that's another matter. The first task the Rebel presented me with was cleaning the ...gunk that the soft touch plastic grips had become. I had to do the same thing with the Lecia P&S I stumbled upon as well as my IR-modified PowerShot G2. Soft grips are the devil. When I got rid of the Rebel G, I kept its kit lens, which is a boring 35-80mm zoom. I also still have the K2's kit lens, which is an absolutely abysmal 28-90mm. The 28-90 is so fantastically bad it's kind of amazing. It's not "silly lo-fi lens" bad like the Holga 60mm F/8: The 28-90 is both boring and bad: not very sharp at any aperture, wretched color transmission and very poor contrast. It also has impressive amounts of barrel distortion throughout its zoom range. I'm not one who complains about distortion under normal circumstances. I shot with the infamous EF-S 17-85mm for years, which is a goddamn fisheye at the wide end. Last week I had the bright idea to clean up both the 35-80 and 28-90 and strap them to my 30MP 5D4. I actually haven't shot with the former, but I gave the latter quite a workout and it returned were a frothy mix of bad and boring. Fool that I am, I spent considerable time editing some of the better shots. Morning Glory Farm. F/13 at the wide end. The unedited photo lacked color, most sharpness and contrast. The distortion is present here but largely irrelevant. My back yard. Zoomed almost all the way in (88mm) and wide open (F/5.6). Were I shooting seriously, I'd have bumped up the ISO considerably and stopped way down. I also used a LUT, which helped add some color. Hilariously artificial skies above Sweetened Water Farm. F/14 at the wide end. The most famous little shack on MV. 35mm and F/11. As was true for all of the above images, I spent ages editing this one in Luminar 4 (including applying a LUT to it) and then Photoshop. For this one in particular I went as far as comparing this shot to other photos I'd taken of the same building to correct the barrel distortion as much as I could. I will never shoot with the 28-90 again. I'm thinking about donating it to the local charity shop. I'm going to try out the 35-80 this weekend. It can't be any worse ...can it? I'm going back to my trusty 50mm F/1.8 Mark I once this little experiment finishes.

Couldn’t disagree more. News is the best it has ever been and there has never been more transparency from governmental entities in the US. You have to look for good sources, but they are out there. Usually not on TV.