Yet Another New Camera
I took the bus yesterday. While I was at work I learned that my new camera had been delivered to the leasing office late in the morning. It was imperative that I get home by 6pm to collect my new toy. I made my connection in Brookside with only about two minutes to spare, and got off the bus at my home stop at 13th and Wyandotte at about 5:45pm. I arrived at the leasing office with only five minutes remaining before the office would close. I greedily snatched up my package and hobbled off to my apartment to rip open the packaging.

For full reference, the story begins in October, on the heels of the greatest party of all time. As a camera owner with a website, I naturally use my camera on a more-or-less regular basis. On one such occasion, shortly after pulling, resizing, rotating, annotating, and posting the pictures from the party, I got a bug in my ear to take some photographs.

I grabbed the camera and unfortunately, it resisted all attempts to be used. I pressed the power button, and repeatedly, it wouldn't go. Despondent, I put it down, and hoped it could come back some time later and find it working fine. That did not happen.

I decided that I didn't want to spend the money on a new camera right then, so I let the matter sit. The longer I let it sit, the more restless I became. I would be walking around town somewhere and see things that needed to be captured on flash memory, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I got a new phone a short time later that has a camera on it that's about as good as any cameraphone I have ever seen. That is to say, it was god-awful. I couldn't put it off anymore. I have an addiction, I'm sorry to say, and I must feed the monkey. After a bit of research, I determined that the camera that most effectively floated my boat was this guy.

Like all digital cameras, it comes with a completely worthless memory card, with a storage capacity of only 32 megabytes. So I started looking for bundles that didn't completely ruin my chances of a decent deal. I found it in a shady Brooklyn outfit called Sunshine Electronics. I placed a winning bid on an auction for the camera, and completely disregarded the instructions to call them.

The listing said that they accept paypal payments, and with twenty dollar shipping charge, I can see why they don't mind using a service that skims their profit. The item description said that I would have to call them during their business hours and hand over my billing information over the phone. This is unreasonable, when paypal or a secure web form is available. Phone lines are completely unsecured, which means that anyone listening in would get my information.

The reason they want people to call them is so they can use high-pressure sales techniques to try and get you to buy things like extended warranties, useless overpriced accessories, and sometimes, the same camera for a higher price. I replied to every "generated" email they sent me that all I needed from them was an email address to which to send paypal payment, and after about six rounds of this(and a week), they gave up and just gave me the address.

I paid for the camera, and about a week later, it arrived. That's the story. Now go outside.

Rachel had this to say:
That looks beautiful.

5:08 PM, Dec 8, 2006

bahua wants you to know:
I am definitely fond of it.

5:50 PM, Dec 8, 2006

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