Bad Ankle, Good Camera

Second week in a row I've missed football due to this damn ankle. I really, really almost made it out today, but when I tried, yesterday, to jog half a block as a test (Not run...jog...) I was a wincing mess and the whole ankle/foot area went into re-swelling aggravation mode, so it would have been stupid and painful. And I would have sucked, which would be worse. It is best to suck without excuse, chin up, leaning stalwartly into your own inadequacy.

This has taken me out of my weekly Sunday routine, which means I have also neglected to make my football pool picks for the second week in a row. Not that it matters. I started the damn thing, I run the damn thing, and I have never won a single week. Ridiculous.

A quick note here: Is it just me or do the steady stream of commercials touting luxury cars as great Christmas gifts make everyone just a little bit thirstier for the Class War? I know, intellectually, those beautiful, successful people in the ads are in reality beautiful, struggling actor/models who spend more time standing in front of nightclubs with clipboards than driving Lexus stocking stuffers, but in my heart, I wonder if that will be enough to save them from the guillotine, or if I even care...

The cool part is that at the present pace of worker indignation, the Class War will take place so far in the future the guillotine will be all Laseriffic and the proceedings will be emceed by Richard Dawson's reanimated head in an anti-gravity jar.

But I digress...

I know many of you are looking around for Christmas gifts around now, and that digital cameras are a popular choice, so let me make a plug here for my camera the Canon PowerShot SD110 Digital Elph . I'm not sure you can get it anymore, but they are selling another one on amazon, which I think is the next generation.

I got mine at what I now realize was a ridiculously low sale price on amazon of $130.00 or something like that and have been extremely happy with it. Like I always say on this site, unless you plan on printing out 8x10 glossies, 3 megapixels is way, way enough. Most people use their digital cameras to take snapshots and send them over the net, and for that, you'll find yourself dialing down the default settings on the camera because they contain too much info to be downloaded conveniently.

So why this camera? My main bragging point used to be that it was small enough to be taken to every party, whatever, without a great deal of effort. It is about the size of a pack of smokes. But now, having had the screen go blank on me after 11 months, I have a new perspective. The Amazon/Canon combo worked amazingly for me, Mr. DIsorganized. I was well on my way to just buying a new camera when I figured I would do the hopelessly Naive and look into having my camera serviced. I went to the Canon website and in about 20 seconds was at a screen where I had entered my model and info and needed to enter my receipt info for date of purchase. I opened the Amazon site in another window and found that they actually keep track of everything you've purchased there. I was able to find my purchase date, which was 11 months and 2 weeks back. Entering that info at the Canon site, they told me I was still under warranty as long as I got it there within the next two weeks (one year) and that the repairs were free. Two days later I Priority Mailed the camera and I got it back less than 5 business days later.

Is this a boring story? Yes. But in my experience it is a very unusual one. They even replaced the outer shell, so it looks brand new. After being taken to many jobsites it was pretty worn, but I never thought about it.

I was absolutely shocked at how good the customer service was, so I feel they deserve a plug.

And speaking of my newly returned camera, how about we gussy things up around here with some gratuitous photos!

(See the actual photos at my former/photo blog)