Seeking a new camera

Nearly a year ago I pledged to take a bit more care of this blog and keep my notebook, camera, and iPhone at the ready to document anything that I thought might be interesting. I think I've done a decent job over the past year, with a few real gems of places to go and things to do in London.

On my last adventure, I reached into my bag for my HP Photosmart R742 and switched the camera on, only to see this staring back at me

My heart literally dropped. This was a Christmas present from my Ma about 5 years ago and it's green because it's her favourite colour.  It's seriously been around the world and back with me on some of my greatest trips abroad and at home.  Before getting my iPhone when I moved to England, this bad boy was in my bag all the time (which makes it harder to wrap my head around how it's somehow broken now) - now I only bring it out for certain nights.  The camera still works, but the screen obviously doesn't and there isn't a viewfinder so it's a bit of a guessing game when I take pics. 

I've been stuck using my iPhone 3GS which I'm realising has a crap camera and not having flash just doesn't work for me.

I'm sure this isn't the end of the world but I need your help!

1. Who/where/how do I get an LCD screen replaced
2. Is the camera any better on the iPhone 4 or is it time to make the HTC switch? This review doesn't make it seem like there's a difference but according to this video, their camera works wonders

A bit of structure for the ramblings

I think the first rule of writing, as cliche as it sounds, is to write about what you know. Unfortunately, I have learning schizophrenia so it's pretty hard to pick one thing to write about. I'm still going to write about things that I love; politics, music, gigs, food/cooking, festivals, dancing etc. - but the things that I know right now are pretty precise.

To do this, I now have a trusty gear of writing items:

MacBook, iPhone 3GS and blank paged book from Paperchase

And photo taking thing:

HP R742

I'm hoping this helps me to track all of the things that I want to write about more (so long as I have it on me at all times). I have to get in the habit of using them, and that can be pretty hard when you haven't been doing or caring about it on a regular basis for a while.

Anyhow, structure is the name of the game, so I've had to decide what it is exactly that I know about and feel comfortable writing.  I love and know social media, I am pretty much the poster child for all things on the interwebs, so it shouldn't be too hard for me to write about that when it comes up. I love living in London, and I've always wanted to live abroad. Granted, I wanted to be on a beach in warm weather but I suppose the British Isles is as close as I will get to that. I also love people, in particular people watching and I tell you some of the best people to judge watch are those that live around where I do in North London.  So, I've decided I'm going to focus on the people, places and things in the area where I live - because it's what I know best.

I can go on for ages about why I love this bit of North London, but to be honest it all comes down to one thing: it reminds me of home. And by home I mean the place where I spent 8 years of my adult life on my own without my family, not the city where I just went to kindergarten - high school.  Even more, North London reminds me a lot of The Short North but bigger, and well, in London, England rather than Columbus, Ohio - which makes this a glorious place.

Since moving to Upper Holloway and out of bumfuck-nearly-Essex-Leytonstone I've been able to take the bus home which is a nice 20-ish minute ride rather than the 40 minute Tube ride.  On the bus I pass through some of my favourite places which will be the bits that I'll discover while living here and hopefully inspire me to write on the bloggy space.  Things you can expect, or at least the places that have caught my eye on the bus ride home: 

Camden Town

• The Camden Head
• World's End
• Camden Rock and figuring out that giant Sainsbury's next to it!

The Camden Town/Kentish Town bridge

Kentish Town

• Jews for Jesus - yes, this is a place and a real thing
• Abbey Tavern
• The Oxford
• The Kentish Town bridge over the tracks
• This place that calls itself Delicious
• Junction Tavern and all things 'Junction Road'-ish (I want to know the history of this bit)

Tufnell Park to Archway - once you get here everything looks a lot more local, i.e. there's the butcher, there's the guy that fixes your bike, there's the baker, etc

• Tea Pot House
• Rustique literary cafe
• Shaolin Temple
• Junction Cafe

Hornsey Road

I'm really interested in learning more about this area and seeing what it was like 50 years ago. It reminds me a bit of Lorain Avenue back in Cleveland. I also like how church steeples seem to depict the separation of the old villages.  Looking at the layout of cities/towns here, it's interesting to think how they could have been.  Today, everyone's rocking their Arsenal kit as they walk around North London, but you can see the history of the town beneath the modernity of its residents.  I've always liked the idea of local shops and cafes over chains so I'm really excited to learn more!!

Plus heaps more locations of course, as there are plenty of other places to discover in these areas as well as the walk from Upper Holloway through Islington to Angel! I love it, I love it, I love it so much over here and I want to make the most of it while I can.

And so, I leave you with a few cool photos from my daily scenery of Upper Holloway

The church at the end of my road

The view towards Archway

More of the church at the end of my road

Bridge over the tracks to my close

Artwork on the bridge

Artwork on the bridge, i suppose inspired by the train below the bridge