Quest completed

Well I did it! I ventured forth on the horrible hideous quest. I met up with Bob, a local wise man, for guidance and wisdom. I weighed all my options again and again. I created mental pie-graphs and other crisp mental charts. I fought the urge to dramatically over-spend based on some mystical future “need” we might discover later. I valiantly tested model after model.

And I returned with a new camera. There was cheering. Hats might have been thrown into the air. Stace might have swooned with joy — I didn’t notice as I was too busy jumping around the living room with the camera held over my head like Rocky after he runs up those stairs.

We opened up the box and ohhh’ed and ahhh’ed at the textured black finish. We were all prepared to be awed and inspired. We carefully attached the neck strap. We inserted the tiny little 2G external memory card, turned it on and snapped a pic. We took the lens cover off and snapped another pic. Wow! What a sharp image! We tried another shot with the flash on this time.

“WRITE ERROR”

“What the hell? Try again.”

“WRITE ERROR”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

This is why we’ve been avoiding this quest for five years. Holy-Grail-Camera wouldn’t save any pictures taken with the flash on. Flash off — ok. Flash on — screw you. It worked just fine with only the internal memory, but the internal memory is tiny. And requires a USB cord to transfer pictures to The Baby (stunningly beautiful much-beloved Dell XPS). Besides, this is a 5-year quest and by god I want spoils that write flash-photography to the external memory card!

Called camera manufacturer in the morning only to hear that they only like a particular brand of SD card. Of course I had gotten a different brand. Buckled on the armour again and headed back out. Returned home with suggested brand of SD card. Inserted it with trembling fingers. Snapped pic. <sounds of angels in background> No errors. Holy-Grail-Camera works.

Now we only have to figure out how to use it.