Nacholist

Today, I had some decent nachos at Bar Fly in Safety Harbor with a friend. I wanted, not for the first time, to have a list of places I’d eaten nachos, with notes about my opinion of their nachos.

I don’t eat out a lot, but when I do, I very often order nachos. I’m very disappointed when a place has nachos are obviously so bad that I don’t order them, or are disappointing when I do.

I registered some domain names (.com, .net and .org) to make such a list and share it.

I’m thinking some of the characteristics to track would be:

  • Flavor
  • Chip quality
  • Greasiness (bad)
  • Fake cheese (a huge negative)
  • Chicken quality (I seldom get nachos with any other meat on them.)
  • Price
  • Amount of food
  • Overall perception one value
  • Whether the ingredients are mixed in with the chips
  • Whether the chips can hold their form (not turn to mush) before I get to the bottom of the dish.

18 March 2018 Update: I’m going to keep track of nacho experiences here until I get the dedicated site up.

18 March 2018: Ford’s Garage (a restaurant) has terrific chicken nachos. The jalapeños weren’t even hot, but tasted good. Eating the left-over last half cold this Saturday morning, they’re incredible.

New aspect to track routinely: The morning after. How are the nachos the next day, fridge-cold?

Binoculars

The other day, Amazon had a sale on Bushnell Legend XLT “Bone Collector” 10×42 binoculars. They were okay, but this started me on a small binocular comparison project. I tried the following models:

 

 
Everything I don’t want is boxed up and going back to Amazon tomorrow. Amazon is charging me $16 for the combined shipping, which beats paying about $7 apiece to send each pair of binoculars or each order (a couple binocs per order in some cases) back. I’m keeping:
 
  • Athlon Midas 8×42 //Going to compare them to the Athlon Ares 8×42 which are coming in two days and which I paid less for than these lower-price-point Midases!
  • Athlon Argos 8×34. These are keepers, period. Especially (but not only) at the $85 I paid for them because I scored a fluke Amazon Warehouse deal.
Nothing else. That’s it! I’m looking forward to receiving the Athlon Ares 8×42 in two days. I’ll probably keep those (I have discovered that I  love an open bridge binocular body for the positive grip it affords), but I want to compare them to the Midas 8x42s first. I’ll probably then send back the Midases.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S Lens

I picked up a Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AI-S lens on Amazon last week. Used, reportedly in excellent condition and a deal at $320 + 5 shipping. They’re going for around $400 right now on Amazon and eBay.

It arrived USPS yesterday. I love it. MF is a pain in the rear, but this thing is lovely to look at and to hold.

I don’t really need it, but I plan to keep it. It’s just a heavy little gem.

1 December 2016: A little update. At first I used this lens inside, so I didn’t notice that Auto ISO didn’t work with it on my D600 body. But on Thanksgiving Day, I had overexposure problems outside. What?!? I looked into it and found that Auto ISO was, by design, not working. Bad. I never play with ISO. I’m completely happy with my Nikon’s Auto ISO settings, period. No matter what I’m shooting (of the things I shoot).

This really gave me pause regarding this lens. But I figure I’ll get used to it. Plus, I just bought an AI-S 200mm f/4 Micro non-CPU lens. So I guess I’ll get used to setting ISO. I don’t like it though. I hope the D810 I want to eventually upgrade to (for that fast autofocus, mostly, but also for those gorgeous shoulders) supports Auto ISO with non-CPU lenses. I didn’t find anything about it when I searched online, so I still want to know if it’ll work.

5 December 2016: I just love this thing. I love looking at it. It’s not something I need in order to get good photos. Actually, my X100T is enough for me. My Nikon D600 is really just for telephoto shots (Easter egg hunts, school shows, etc.) But I’m keeping it as I just love the look and feel of it. It’s an art lens and I’ll probably be happy in five or ten years that I hung onto it.