Goat Meat, LDMU, and The Real Reason Film Will Always Be More Fun Than Digital

[NickTrop]

Doling lumps of bony goat meat on to my plate today, in a eureka moment, I realized why film is wonderful, why I love it, why I shoot it... And digital? Not so much. Bear with my rant...

People!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! By noon I want to jump out the window. Too much love. I'm in a people-y job. The reason is I'm an intriguing person who can pretend to be a good listener and "seem" non-judgmental and can build instant rapport with people. Men and women adore me. I have to shoo people away because if I didn't they would hang out with me all day on account of I'm so happenin'. This applies to young female cuties to greazy overweight sweaty old guys. I can relate to anyone and develop strong rapport easily. I do very little in the way of actual work, but I would never get fired because I'm too well-liked. But after a time people annoy and/or bore me. If they're attractive women they might last another 10 minutes depending what they're wearing before I mentally gong them. Guys follow me to the urinal to ask my insights. I get no peace. It's a power, really. But I'm too lazy to use it for purposes that would make me money or give me powah... It's been this way since I was a kid.

By noon, even though it would save me dough to brown bag, I go out to eat. I need to get away. I eat alone often. Jerkily, sometimes, I decline lunch offers because "I'm busy"... so I can go later myself, eat alone, and clear my head... I do not mind eating alone. I adore myself and it's time alone with me, in reverend self-adoration without being distracted with annoying and banal conversation with others.

Where to go? Many times, it's the all you can eat Indian lunch buffet. There are several where I work. South Indian all vegetarian. And another that serves vegetarian along with chicken and goat. In Wall Street, Michael Douglas said, "Greed is good". I say, "goat is good". And, I'm probably the only Westerner who eats far more goat meat on any given day than fried beef patties.

So, this all you can eat buffet has great spicy veggie dishes and goat. I load my plate up first - chick peas, eggplant, rice, goat. I'm stuffed after the first plate. I go for seconds. A little more goat. Maybe some more chick peas but they make me gazzy and I have a daily 3:00 pm meetin' where farting is generally frowned upon...

But after my second plate of goat? That it!!! Bleh! Phatooy! I don't even want to look at another stinkin' goat. A third goat plate - even though its one set price, and I can eat goat meat all the live long day, and it wouldn't cost me another stinkin' dime... The idea of another morsel of stinkin' goat makes me nauseous. Why is that?, I thought to myself today...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... It's due to the law of diminishing marginal utility.

A law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product - while keeping consumption of other products constant - there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp

And it's this law of diminishing marginal utility that is the true reason that we thinking people will never abandon film for digital cameras... find film so much more fun, engaging, creative, entertaining...

I've bored myself with my own thread... I'll continue this later.

To be continued...

[SolaresLarrave]

Nick... you have too much time in your hands. :)

[MikeL]

Keep it going Nick, so far it's way better than the lumps of Goat8.2 and Dentist-meat we've been subjected to recently.

[Al Patterson]

Great, now I have this craving for curried goat. Fortunately, there is a Jamaican place around the corner from work...

[photogdave]

Roger Ebert basically said the same thing about movie sequels.

[Morca007]

I have no idea what you just said.

But I love goat tacos.

[amateriat]

Goat doesn't float my boat.

But, lamb...that's a plan. ;)


- Barrett

[maddoc]

Goat, Yagi ... !!! Very tasty as raw meat with Shoyu (Soja) and Shoga (ginger) :D BTW, what was your original idea ?

[Dave Wilkinson]

.......allways thought he was full of sh*t.....now it's confirmed!! ;)

[Chris101]

I dunno Nick, this magnetism thing - it must be smell based pheromones, cause I'm hating you already. ;) But are you saying that cause it hard to shoot, process and print a good film image, while with digital it's just snap, snap, snap and they're all good (or we can make that way), so film images are more valuable? I'm down with that.

[manfromh]

Never eaten goat, but had a taste of deer once.

[Pherdinand]

Nick...you sound like Fanshaw. Ever read the closed room of paul auster? :D

[antistatic]

Mmmmmm.... goat. Had goat curry last night. Gotta love the goat.

Sounds like your charisma could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

David

[Nh3]

I like this sort of stream-of-consciousness writing.


Yes, film is a lot more fun. For example I can shoot film just for the sake of film and its subsequent processing.

With digital unless I don't have an interesting subject I can't just shoot for fun.

[oftheherd]

I read and re-read. Nothing really made sense to me.

Then I substituted duck. Now I understand.

[oscroft]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... It's due to the law of diminishing marginal utility
The marginal utility of a shot taken on a 36-exp film vs the marginal utility of the last one out of a session of many hundreds (or thousands) done on a digital thing, I presume?

That could be it. It really could.

[Thardy]

In college many years ago a friend of mine and I went to restaurant that had "all you can eat" catfish.

As B Bunny says, they don't know me very well do they?

After the 5th or 6th round they brought out less and less until we got the point and left.

I don't we could have stomached goat. But then we were starving students.

[kevin m]

Michael Douglas said, "Greed is good". I say, "goat is good".

Thanks for one of the funniest bits of writing I've seen here. :D

[chikne]

Well, your posts are always entertaining.....

[nikon_sam]

Finally, someone in here has gone into some deep, deep thought before poking at the letters before him...but goat??? Would you have had these thoughts if you had opted for Lamb???

[Pablito]

<-----Pablito LOVES goat, any kind of goat. Why do you think he's grinning so? He had his picture taken after eating a big plate of stewed goat!!!

[Al Kaplan]

I lived with a Jamaican woman for about ten years. When I first met her she was thrilled to discover that I liked goat. It seems that most white Americans won't touch it! Anyway, Vivette made the best curried goat that I ever tasted. I miss it almost as much as I miss her. Now what this has to do with film is the big mystery ;-)

[Al Kaplan]

Now you got me to thinking. Maybe 35 years ago I had a sun bleached goat skull complete with horns hanging in the living room. I have no idea as to what became of it. One of the mysteries of life.

The goat had been a pet belonging to Spencer Tiger when he still lived on the Miccosukee Indian Reservation about 1976. It died of "natural causes".

[brachal]

I'll always remember eating bar-b-q goat sandwiches at the Otha Turner Blues picnic in Sentobia Mississippi a couple of days after hurricane Katrina. We were completely crazy with stress, but figured we might as well be crazy at the blues picnic instead of just at the hotel, which is what we had been doing for the previous few days. When the food ladies realized we were from New Orleans, they wouldn't take our money anymore ... just gave us as much bar-b-q goat as we could eat. It felt good.

[ferider]

If you like goat, try horse sometime.

[NickTrop]

Now what this has to do with film is the big mystery ;-)

Okay... back to what I was saying earlier... and what Goat curry and film have to do with each other...

To recap... Love self, people gravitate toward me, I secretly find then annoying, to clear head I often go to this cheap (but very good) Indian buffet for lunch several times a week. $7.50 all you can eat... Lovin' all their dishes, especially the goat. So, why don't I eat 15 plate of goat? I could you know. If the owner complained, I'd get the FTC(?) on him... Actually I wouldn't, Amar's a nice guy...

But anyway, I don't because of the "economiopsychological" concept of the "law of diminishing marginal utility". Inna nutshell, the more you have of something, the less you like it. That first plate of goat curry? Yuummmmmmmmm... Second? Good, not as good as the first... I don't think I've ever gone for a third. Familiar with that old classic WB cartoon? Two mice get into a warehouse full of cheese. They eat all they want. Cheese now disgusts then, so the try to off themselves by allowing the cat to catch them... Cat freaks, loses mind, hilarity ensues...

Same concept with newspaper vending machines... You put your $0.50 in, the door opens, you could take every paper. You don't (well, you did once as a kid, but felt guilty about it)... Again, because of the law of diminishing marginal utility...

If you ate a chocolate chip cookie, and rated on a 1-10 scale how much you like it on a piece of paper it would be a 9. Second, 9, third 8, fourth 6, ... 30th - 0!

Digital cameras take the fun out of photography because they're "all you can eat buffets"... First picture great, 10,000th jpeg of your cat on a window cill?

Because you have no constraint on the number of frames you shoot, each shot becomes less fun or enjoyable due to the law of diminishing marginal utility.

Unlike film, in digital the frame loses its significance. We want indeed need this constraint of a very finite number of frames to enjoy using them. We don't want to "waste" a shot because we're on 16 of a 24 frame roll. Even moreso, frame 9 of 6x6 loaded in your TLR. Each frame is precious. What should I shoot? How should I frame this for max impact? All of this adds to the level of engagement and therefore enjoyment.

With digital - the image capture "all you can eat (shoot)" buffet, the act of consumption loses its value. Film is the excitement of the NFL. Each game means something - there's only 16. As opposed to the NHL, where you wait until the real season starts, the playoffs where there is a constraint and every game most certainly matters.

Digital photography is less enjoyable because there is no psychological significance to shooting a frame because it's a bottomless pit. You're not engaged trying to get the best out of the frame because you can shoot 1,000 more if you don't get it right. It's like being a hunter shooting at a bird on the tree... one shot, miss it, that's it. The bird flys away. In digital another bird lands immediately in the same spot. Who cares if you miss it? It is the very constraint of having a limited number of frames, that makes film far more fun than digital shooting due to the law of diminishing marginal utility.

Next I will disuss - as recent brain images would support, for many there is a tactile pleasure in dominance over small mechanical objects that border on a sexual experience with similar brain responses, frequencies, and mapping. People who like manual transmissions, watches, manual film cameras have a tactile fetish in what appears to be akin to a sexual experience. (Note the number of men vs. women who post here...)
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[NickTrop]

(Note - the law of marginal utility does not apply to beer, salted peanuts, or potato chips)

[JeffGreene]

Quod Erat Dumbonstrondum! Thanks, Nick! I need that! :D

[photogdave]

A well-thought out theory!

[Steveh]

Next I will disuss - as recent brain images would support, for many there is a tactile pleasure in dominance over small mechanical objects that border on a sexual experience with similar brain responses, frequencies, and mapping. People who like manual transmissions, watches, manual film cameras have a tactile fetish in what appears to be akin to a sexual experience. (Note the number of men vs. women who post here...)
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I'm looking forward to this part - "fondlers" unmasked :D!

I'm sure you're onto something in all of this though Nick - at a rational level I know my digital cameras produce superior results (most of the time) to what I can do with film, but at another level I just don't like using them - there is a real tactile pleasure in using an M6 or an Olympus OM that you just don't get as the owner of a digital "wonderbrick". And I agree with your marginal utility theory as well.

Good work!

[antistatic]

Where is your reference to the neuroimaging of "fondlers" as I would love to read it? Now, if you will excuse me, I need to be alone with my Leica and my Omegas.

[blw]

Haha....Nick, I've enjoyed many of your posts over the past couple years, but these 2 take the prize.

Perhaps you and I could get together over coffee and discuss it further sometime?

And yes, the same rule does NOT apply to alcoholic beverages in general.

[MikeL]

(Note - the law of marginal utility does not apply to beer, salted peanuts, or potato chips)

....and bacon.

Nick, do you think your experience would change if one were to only use the 16 mb card that comes with some digital cameras?

You could start a recycling program (since they otherwise get thrown in the trash), and then resell them for the 'film-like' experience. And package them with the fondling research papers, Tri-X simulator, and beer nuts (the beer nuts simulate that experience of a RFF meet where people handle cameras, eat beer nuts, and drink beer). You heard it here first.

[NickTrop]

Haha....Nick, I've enjoyed many of your posts over the past couple years, but these 2 take the prize.

Perhaps you and I could get together over coffee and discuss it further sometime?

And yes, the same rule does NOT apply to alcoholic beverages in general.

The "cover" if you're a male is you pay for my drinks. Upscale but not stuffy bars, no coffee shops. I usually stick to micro or imports draft or Belgium ale bottles... Piraate is my favorite beer and if it's served, I will stay a little longer depending on if I can stand you or not. You can also buy some bar food pickies... my choice. I'm okay with anything but chicken wings, should I arrive late.

I will meet only with women who are attractive (it's not that I'm gonna "try anything" but realize I will be seen in public with you, and I might bump into someone I know...), any age, in which case it's Dutch, but I will accept a beer if its offered (only one, as beyond that I don't want to feel obligated to you or anything... And women try to get me lickied up sometimes to have their way with me...)

As stated earlier in my post, people tend to annoy me. Up front, I will find you annoying quickly and only pretend to be interested. It's often said that "active listening" is an important skill. I say, that's incorrect. Pretending to actively listen is the thing. Nearly everyone is totally self absorbed in their pathetically boring existence and think their miserable lives are somehow "fascinating" and others give a s---t. I don't, not at all... but am good at pretending to, but really I'm not even listening and am mentally "looking at my watch". I always leave abruptly - figure 45 minutes to an hour...

If you can deal with this, it's cool.
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