Thursday, September 17

Music from heaven....

Well it's not actually from heaven, it's from sky.

We had our sky TV installed this morning. Russ already had a sky package and got an offer through to have a sky HD box if we took up multi-room sky. As Russ already pays for the package, all it will cost us is £10 per month plus the £30 installation fee.

So the engineer came this morning, took 3/4's of an hour to install it and off he went. A quick flick for me, straight to the music channels.

Ahhhh I'd forgotten how good music is.

Music has always been a very important part of my life. As a teenager I had to sacrifice my love of rock music a bit because all my friends were New Romantics. I did tend to sway towards the darker new romantic stuff such as the Bahaus and Sisters of Mercy, but of course, when you're 14 you have to fit in with your peers. Once I realised I could actually make my own mind up about what I listened to, it's generally been rock, and quite heavy rock at that.

So I was scanning through the music channels and came across a heavy rock channel.. oh yes! joh of all joys! Rock music to my ears and loads of it. Not only that, I can record it and watch/listen to it as and when I please. It's heaven. It wasn't until I was listening to it all that I realised just how much I've missed it!

Bring it on!! and Rock onnnnnn!!!

I've bought a new camera!!

At long last the wait and indecision is over!

Exactly a month ago today, my 20D Camera got run over and died.

I managed to haul together £320 and started looking on ebay for a replacement. The 30D is the next camera up followed by a 40D and 50D. The 50D is the most recent release and is still selling for around £1,000 on ebay. I've been watching prices of both the 40D and 30D. 40D's were selling for between £450 and £500. 30D's were selling for around £300 to £370. What to do?

Do I opt for the 30D and have my own camera back, or do I wait it out trying to haul some more money together for the 40D? The money was there, ready to be spent and my patience was starting to wear very thin. Mark tried to convince me to wait it out and save some more, but the niggles about not having my own camera were getting louder in my little head. I know I have the use of a 5D (biiig camera costing biiiig money) but as daft as it sounds, I really didn't like to use it. It's not my camera. I am forever indebted to the person that loaned it to me, but I also didn't want to take advantage of the loan.

I had several cameras on my ebay watch list and they were finishing soon. A 30D was sitting at £165 with an hour to go. eek.. what to do, what to do! I decided to go for it. As long as it didn't go to high on the price, I could save what money I had left over to buy a new lens. I really do need to replace my macro lens. It only manual focusses (which isn't a problem because I manually focus with it anyway) but it's falling to pieces. I keep having to glue the front back on, and it's only a matter of time before it gives up completely. OR.. I really do quite like the thought of getting a 28-200mm lens. This would be great for all purpose walking around without having the wrong lens on. The 28-200mm is relatively cheap (in lens terms).

Anyway, the auction for a 'MINT' 30D with only 10k actuations (it has an actuation life of 100000) finished at 8.30pm. I got Isabelle to bed started to get anxious. I HAD to have this camera, I'd decided. I paced like a caged tiger waiting for 8.30 to tick around. By 8.15 the price had risen to £171. This was looking good. I decided that the most I was prepared to splash out was £260. I have no idea why really, especially as I had £320. I had a second page open on my browser with my bid in place (I decided on £261.71 for some bizarre reason LOL). The seconds were ticking down and the price was rising. 2 minutes to go and it went up to £240. I waited until 6 seconds to go before clicking to submit my bid. I was the highest bidder with 2 seconds to go.... oh please don't let there be another bid.. please.. noooo don't bid! I won the camera for my full bid.. £261.71!! The bid below mine was for £260. I'm so glad I put the quirky extra £1.71 on top. So my camera should arrive on Friday and I have £60 left over to put towards my macro or 28-200mm lens (of which I have several on my watch list right now)

Life is good again :D I'll be a photographer again come Friday LOL.