Bad video from Sanford’s Rotary speech (my poor camera!)

I’ve got two pieces of bad news. First, Mark Sanford appeared before my Rotary Club today and did not resign. But no shock there, right?

The second is that my reliable Canon PowerShot A95 digital camera, which has served me so well — all my still photos and short video clips of Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Lindsey Graham, Thomas Ravenel, Grady Patterson, Stephen Colbert, Fred Thompson (and Jeri Thompson!), Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Joe Wilson, Ted Sorensen, South Carolina Nazis and unnumbered others — appears to be on its last legs.

I think I’ve about worn it out. Not only is the picture dim, but I get these unwanted stray bands of color across the top of the frame. It comes and goes, but today I just couldn’t get it to go away.

I’ve posted here an unedited three-minute clip to give you a slice from Sanford’s presentation today (the sound still works pretty well), and to show you how bad the camera problem is.

It was pretty much all the stuff he’s been saying. The apology, the pitch to ask the audience to help him make his last 14 months more productive than the past 6.5 years by getting some of his agenda enacted, etc.

I’m really down about my camera… Even if I had the money, they don’t sell ’em like this any more… The great thing about it was that I could use it so unobtrusively. The photo below, which you see as a header on individual posts here on the blog, is perhaps the only photo I have of my camera in use. Note that I could hold it down on the table with my left hand while taking notes with my right. I could hold it in this position — rather than up between the subject and me, thereby disconcerting the subject and making normal conversation difficult — because it has one of those little screens that flips out and rotates in several directions, like the ones you usually find on video cameras. Yes, they still make some still cameras that do this, but they tend to be much larger and more cumbersome than this model. Sigh. All Things Must Pass, the man said…

6 thoughts on “Bad video from Sanford’s Rotary speech (my poor camera!)”

doug_ross October 12, 2009 at 2:44 pm

Mark Sanford: “Where do we go from here?”

Answer: We resign and go home to be with our kids.

Especially when “we” have enough money to quit our day job.

For another take on Sanford’s apology tour, watch the first minute of last Thursday’s NBC show “Parks and Recreation”.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/101147/parks-and-recreation-practice-date

Pretty funny.

If you’re not Sanford.

Reply ↓

kbfenner October 12, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Thanks, Doug. I was beginning to suffer from Markolepsy. Greta clip!

The Governor asked how many of us had people from other states speak to us jealously about the level of services we get for our taxes. I was glad I wasn’t drinking when he asked that. First, of course, that’s hardly what people from other states are talking about when they speak about SC these days; thanks, Mark! Second, a lovely gentleman at our table, and others actually raised their hands. Oh well, so much for that illustration.

Reply ↓