Category Archives: christmas

the new camera

05 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by in christmas, gadgets, home, life stuff, photos, retail therapy

≈ 9 Comments

casio_exilim.jpg

f_holly.gifChristmas came early today at casa azf_holly.gif

After looking at several different cameras within a certain price range we stumbled upon this one last night and then went back this morning for a better look. And frankly, it has everything we want and need and the discounted price included a leather case and a 1 giga memory card, so what the heck. We bought it.

On our way home we stopped at Ay Maricrú! for a pre-lunch drink, and also to start playing with our new toy. Nog was in charge of reading the instructions, I was in charge of pressing all the buttons and going – “oh this is so cool!”. And when Carlos showed up with another round of drinks I said – “Look at our new camera! It’s our Christmas present for each other”, and Carlos winked at Nog and said – “So when do you get to enjoy it?”. Well ha. He gets to enjoy all the photos, doesn’t he???

Anyhow, just charging up the battery now and looking forward to taking our new gorgeous baby out for a trial run this evening. And we’re also looking for a name … thought about using one of the muses but they don’t really seem to fit. Any ideas?

Here are the specs.

[update: new camera name is Holly]

more temptation…

01 Saturday Dec 2007

Posted by in christmas, gizmos, home, photos, retail therapy

≈ 8 Comments

fuji-z10-front-view.jpg fuji-z10-back-view.jpg

The other day I talked about seeing this gorgeous Sony camera with a 3″ viewing screen, blah blah blah. And so today Nog & I went to have a closer look at one. I asked the salesclerk if I could actually see one ‘in action’ but she said none of the cameras on display were charged up. It was only when we said ‘okay, we’ll take it’ that she got one out of stock, opened it up, put in the battery and showed us how the 3″ touchpad screen worked. And guess what??? It was what I’d suspected … the menu icons run up both sides of the screen so the image you actually see is 2.5″. What a scam! Especially as all the promotional stuff I’ve come across shows a full 3″ screen with just an image. Pah! f_cross.gif

Then on the way out of the shop I saw these cute Fuji cameras I’d noticed at another place. And I thought … hmmm, it has almost the same specs, it also doesn’t have an inny-outy zoom lens, it’s darn cute and about 2/3 the price of the Sony one. Which right now means something to us, having just spent 150 euros on special catfood and meds. So spending 175 euros instead of 300 almost cancels out the vet bill (if you think about it that way), and we’ll still get a new camera that should work much better than the one we have now.

So the next question is … which colour? Just look at ’em all. There isn’t a silver option and so I’m leaning towards either the metallic red or lime green. What do you think?

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temptation . . .

28 Wednesday Nov 2007

Posted by in christmas, nablopomo, photos, retail therapy, trips

≈ 5 Comments

sony-t70.jpg

Gorgeous, innit?

And here are the specs.

I have to admit that a couple of the features (face detection, smile shutter) seem both silly and insulting, but the thing I love best about this baby is the 3″ viewing screen. And another big difference is that the one I have now has a lens that goes in and out, which I’ve been having trouble with for the past year or so. Unless the batteries are almost fully charged the camera keeps shutting itself off when I try to take a photo, though I can still view the pics on the memory card. So I thought having a camera with fewer moving parts might be a good idea. But mostly I’d like a bigger viewing screen as the one I have now is only a measly 1.5″ (about 4 months after Nog & I bought it the new models came out, all with standard 2 or 2.5″ screens. Grrr… )

I mentioned over here that I was hoping Santa would bring me a new digital camera with a 3″ screen, but after checking out prices Nog & I decided that it’s too expensive for a Christmas pressy, so we’re going to go halfers on it and maybe also give each other a weekend in Granada over the holidays (we’d be getting a ride there & back so we would only have to pay for the hotel and meals).

Last time we went to Granada I was still using my crappy old snapshot camera, so the photos should be much better next time. 🙂

los reyes magos

05 Friday Jan 2007

Posted by in christmas, holidays, religion

≈ 6 Comments

  los-reyes-magos.jpg

Tonight’s the night!

Tomorrow is Epiphany, also known in Spain as Los Reyes Magos – the magic kings.

Of course referring to the three wise men – the three kings – who visited the baby Jesus bearing gifts. The tradition of gift giving in Spain during the Christmas season focuses on this day and, instead of writing letters to Santa, children here write to Los Reyes Magos.

And on the eve of Los Reyes (January 5th) there is a huge parade held in most towns, cities and villages called the Cabalgata, with floats pulled by small tractors – each one depicting the characters from various fairy tales and traditional stories for children.

The last float carries Los Reyes Magos – meanwhile, all of the floats have lots of children on them who toss out sweets to everyone waiting along the parade route. After the parade has passed the streets are sticky with broken candies and melted sugar …

Another tradition of Reyes is to eat roscon – a somewhat gross looking pastry filled with whipped cream and topped with candied fruit and toasted almonds. I’ve never tried this myself but this morning I convinced Nog that he had to go for it, as our favourite brekky bar serves slabs of this stuff during the festive season. He said he liked it but couldn’t see himself eating mass quantities of it . . . typically vague 😉