A DSLR That Shoots Video

The Nikon D90. Only DSLR that does this at the moment, with all the exposure and depth-of-field control of an SLR camera. About $1300 and I'd say Nikon has the early score against Canon's EOS 50D.

Nice, much?

An analogy: Shopping and Guys

During my short holiday at KL with my friends, all the hours spent walking and strength-training (shopping bags are heavy) made me realise there are some uncanny similarities between shopping and finding guys. Which leads me to write this post...

An analogy: Shopping and Guys

• When shopping, females can spend hours searching and searching, in search for "The One", be it the perfect dress, shoe, bag, top etc., which doesn't always exist. With guys, go figure.

• We may see the signs, "Sale!", "Limited time only" and make a bad buy, tell ourselves "never again" and still end up falling for the trick again some time later.

• Be prepared to walk far, and search high and low; no pain, no gain.

• Sometimes, what you put on in the fitting room may not look as good in the real world.

• Friends can potentially be dangerous, making you buy something which doesn't look good on you, is over your budget or is just not your style.

• Don't be disillusioned into thinking that what looks good on another person or mannequin would look equally good on you.

• We can spend hours drafting up a shopping list, but end up getting something we didn't plan to or even worse, don't really need or want.

• The good thing is, good things can be found in the most unexpected places and most often than not, when you least expect it.

• Don't just buy something for the sake of buying something. You may feel guilty about not buying anything after hours of shopping, but it's worse to feel that you wasted your time and money over something you'll just leave in the back of the wardrobe.

• Going into shops that are out of your league is a sure fire way to make you depressed and turn a few shades greener due to envy.

• Finally, keep your eyes and mind open when shopping, you never know what you may chance upon.

Okay, enough brain straining trying to think of the analogy? Haha. Here again is another one of my posts scattered with half baked ideas. So, do feel free to add more points to this post in the comments. I just know there is more to this list than I can think of at this moment.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

I wonder if anyone remembers the good old days of the first Pokémon on the Game Boy (I was a proud owner of a Game Boy Colour, woohoo!). Mew was coveted because it was the “rarest Pokémon of all” (even though there were so many other one-of-a-kind critters to be found, meaning they’re equally rare… but I digress), and because it could learn ALL FIFTY attacks available from the Technical Machines! Gasp! *eyes grow wide in wonder* Problem was, it only had a capacity for FOUR different attacks. Oh dear. The gamers’ reverence for Mew’s wide range of choices is an accurate mirror of the general society’s desire to be able to make their own choices for everything. And I do mean everything.

I developed a new headache recently after heading down to Karrinyup Shopping Centre, hunting for information to help me choose a bank to join and to choose a mobile phone service provider. (Yes, yes, I’m finally getting a handphone. Now leave me alone!)

Phones galore. Which one to choose?

The number of options is just mind-boggling. I went home with a bagful of brochures and spent the next several hours recharting and comparing the pros and cons of opening a Bankwest Student Account with that of the ANZ Progress Saver account; and the same went into trying to decide between a Vodafone Talk&TXT Contract and an Optus $49 Cap.

Information galore

Ok, so maybe I was being finicky. Few sane people would spend hours and hours and hours poring over a collection of papers to aid them in their shopping. So why do corporations spend precious resources to bring you all this information that can’t even fit into Einstein’s brain? Why do gamers make such a huge fuss about Mew’s outstanding learning capability?

Here’s the thing: People just LOOOVE to be in control. The idea of being able to choose exactly what you want and shape your own life is extremely appealing. Thus, commercialists are presented with a wonderful opportunity to make money.

I’m not crusading against their right to make a profit. What irks me is that they TELL you that you’re in control, put lots of effort into making you feel good, but actually make it *&%#@# difficult to know what you’re getting yourself into. I'm sure everyone knows brochures have a way of providing incomplete infor and tucking away the most crucial bits in the Fine Print, so there you go.

The people who invented fine print obviously never learnt the concept of paragraphing.

Heed my warning, denizens of the mall. Let not your desire for control cloud your judgements. Forget not that your yearnings may lead you down unforseen roads.

Please excuse me now, I need to go decide what to give my Mew Bubblebeam or Flamethrower.