The New Camera

So Poo-tee-wheet has spent several days trying to figure out if we can get our Kodak digital camera fixed after it was dropped. End result? According to the small mom-and-pop camera store, Kodak Camera itself and several independent large camera dealers, it must be sent back to Kodak, it will not be under warranty, and the cost will be $150 not including shipping and handling and insurance both ways, or any extra costs if it's not what they think it is (I assume it never is). Awful lot of money for a bad shutter, particularly as you can get one off e-bay for around $180. End result? A new CX7530 5-megapixel camera from Best Buy. That way we don't have to wait several weeks while we wait for a used one to show up/not show up/etc. (we had a several month e-bay crash course on getting poker chips that involved shipping insurance and trying to claim it). It's another Kodak because we didn't want to waste the money we spent on a great big memory chip for the last one, but there's a nice list of things you do waste from your last one:

1.) your one-touch docking port doesn't work, even though the new camera "fits most docking ports" and the old LS443 seemed to be one of their more popular models. Even if you wanted to buy a new docking port (which we wouldn't), because the cameras no longer come with them, they're an $80 add on (it's a piece of freaking plastic with a button and a usb port for ****'s sake), and you can't get the new ports anyway because they've all been reconfigured to some new Kodak standard and Best Buy doesn't even have them yet. Anyone who doesn't like the proprietary nature of Microsoft should apparently despise camera dealers as well.
2.) your rechargeable battery doesn't work - they have new kinds of rechargeable batteries - our new model doesn't even take the square ones (which aren't the same size as the old square ones), but AAs, so we had to get a recharge kit.

Poo-tee-wheet will be trying it out tomorrow to see how the outdoor pictures go, but if all goes well, I will soon be posting brand new higher-quality pictures marked down to the same low quality with which you are accustomed to seeing them on NodtoNothing.