Sunday, March 19, 2006

Isn't that just typical!

Ten days after the warranty stopped being in effect, my Kodak digital camera (an Easyshare DX6340) literally died on me. TEN days! No warning whatsoever. It just stopped working. I almost panicked. I need a camera!

It happened on Friday the 10th and, of course, on Saturday and Sunday we had the most awesome weather condition with blistering cold and thick fog. All the trees and bushes had this beautiful frosty white crust on them and I wanted so much to share it with my fellow bloggers. Especially on Sunday as the sun showed itself without melting the frost.

Anyway, when I bought the Kodak I had to make a decision between that camera and a Konica Minolta Z3. The Minolta's price tag was almost three times the one on the Kodak so the choice wasn't all that difficult since the Minolta represented a month's rent. In my heart I wanted the Minolta but my sense of reality took over. The Kodak has served me faithfully for the past two years but I never really liked it all that much and it ate batteries like hell.

Now, RedHead wanted a new cell phone since she didn't like the one she had. I don't know how she does it, but every cell phone she buys for herself seems to fail her in one way or another. She doesn't find her way through the menues or something else seems to be wrong with them. I bought her a brand spanking new Sony Ericsson T300 a couple of years ago and hadn't she dropped it on numerous occasions, it would probably still work. That's the only cell phone she really liked but it's not available anymore. It costed me a small fortune.

She's tried a couple of other brands, Nokia, Samsung and Siemens but she just can't handle them and pushes the wrong buttons all the time. Six months ago I bought her a brand new Sony Ericsson 300j, which is a cheap but stylish phone. After dropping it a couple of times it, of course, stopped working. So I gave her my Siemens C60, also a cheap phone. Of course she's been complaining about it, but so far she hasn't dropped it but that's just a question of time.

I visited Tradera, an auction site like Ebay, last Thursday and found a Sony Ericsson Z1010. No one had been bidding and since the "Buy now-price" was quite reasonable I bought it, without telling RedHead. Pretty pleased with myself I started looking for a digital camera. I found a couple of Minoltas but they all had a hefty price tag. They are quite popular.

I had almost given up and left Tradera. Just for the fun of it I visited Pricerunner. Lo and behold, a couple of stores had my camera, brand new and at 50 per cent retail! They were even cheaper than the used ones at Tradera! Yes, I bought one. It arrives on Monday. I can hardly wait...


Last Wednesday I took a new test in Social studies. I have a feeling it didn't go well. I felt tired, had a headache and felt "strange", a bit nauesous and even somewhat dizzy. As I looked at the questions I really felt like just putting down my pencil and go home. If I had done that, I would have got another chance to do the test but, as the stubborn ass I am, I started to answer the questions. As I finally turned in my paper it didn't feel good at all. Strangely, I know how the Swedish government works and can describe it in detail but if you ask me about specifics, my mind seems to go all blank. That's exactly what happened at the test. I even forgot the name of one of our fundamental laws in the Constitution, the most important one. That's really bad. My only hope is that the test went so bad that I'm allowed to do it again.

The good news is that I seem to have this thing with algebra. I understand that much better than I understand fractions. That's nice. No, that's really nice. Gives me hope for my next test.

This Wednesday there's a test in Biology coming up. The day after that, I have to turn in a paper on my personal thoughts on the energy sources of the future. One things for sure, we won't be using oil anymore. The teacher also emphasized the importance that our thoughts should NOT concentrate on the negative side on todays energy sources but the positive sides of what we think will happen in the next hundred years or so. On Thursday I also have to present a short (10 to 15 minutes) lecture on coal.

I almost forgot that tomorrow I'm turning in a short summary (no more than 200 words) on a newspaper article on tattoos in Swedish class and then I'm supposed to write an inquiry on an still unknown subject during the week. Sadly my fellow students in Swedish class think our teacher is too demanding. I think she's great. She pushes us forward, which in my opinion is exactly what she's supposed to do.


Now I realize that I've spent a lot of time updating you on what's happened and is going to happen. At the same time I've been helping RazorTongue with her homework on Turkey. She was bit lazy last Fall but seems to have got her act together this semester. I hope it continues that way.

And now I'm going back to my paper on coal...

5 comments:

Virginia Gal said...

A talent with alegbra, oh you are so lucky my friend, so lucky!

As for the warranty thing, that is ALWAYS the case, never fails. Murphy's law, If there is a possibility of something bad happening it will happen.

JoeinVegas said...

Coal - does Sweden have any coal mines? In 20 words or less . .

Susan D. said...

Congrats on your bargain shopping! Sounds like RedHead is going to owe you a little gratitude, if you know what I mean! (Read the comments to the "I bought myself a present" post on my blog for an American's thoughts on how to repay one's husband appropriately for a nice gift...) I'll be looking forward to more pics of exotic Sweden taken with your fancy new camera.

PissedOffPencil said...

Virginia Gal: I think it's because there's letters in algebra. I've always been a wiz on spelling... ;o)

Well, on the other hand, our microwave lasted fourteen years of daily use and abuse. My mother's micro is still running after nineteen years of service. Some things seem to have quality. :)

JoeinVegas: Sweden, or rather Scania, had working coal mines up until 1962.

Susan D.: Ah yes, my new camera... I'm in love... :)

Molly Malone said...

i'm all about windpower. more windmills! more turbines! and what with all the hot air the Bush administration blows, certainly that'd be enough to fuel us for years!