A couple weeks ago, we came to the decision to liquidate almost all of my DVDs. There are a couple that I save for myself, but most we kept are movies that Avery will watch in the future. So I spent almost 3 hours one night posting around 120 DVDs on Half.com. I figured this was easier than listing each DVD on ebay and then sending out all the DVDs at once. I was surprised when almost 60 DVD sold in the first two weeks. I'm down to less than 60 DVDs left and majority of these DVDs are listed at $3. I set $3 as the minimum that I would sell a DVD. After a few more weeks, I may see if I can sell the remaining DVDs as one or two lots on Ebay.
With the proceeds of the sales, we decided to get a new digital camera. Our old camera was a hand me down from my dad and it worked fine. The problem that we were running into was that we don't have steady hands so many of the pictures came out blurry. In addition, there was a 1 second delay between when you pressed the button and the camera actually took the picture. With the little guy on the move, it was almost impossible to get the picture we want. Instead of doing my usually internet research for weeks and weeks, I went with the recommendation of my brother. He recently bought a new Canon camera. (As did one of his friends) I was planning on getting the same camera as him, but when I did a little more research I found out that it didn't have the image stabilization feature. I looked around and found a different Canon model that had pretty much the same specs but with the image stabilization. Unfortunately this feature came at an additional cost.
I wanted the camera in a matter of days since we wanted to take the new camera to Vegas so buying online was not an option. I searched to see what local B&M stores had in stock. This included Circuit City, Office Max, Office Depot, and Best Buy. I was surprised to see that Best Buy had the camera I wanted for $50 less than anywhere else. When I saw this I assumed that it was closeout and that local stores would not have it in stock. When I checked the stock online it said that one store nearby had it, so I headed over there one night. I arrived at the store and they had one on display but the was was $50 more than what BestBuy.com listed. I was a little worried because I had read a couple articles online about problems getting the B&M stores to match the .com prices. I asked the sales person if they had any in stock and about the .com price being $50 cheaper. He looked it up and they did have it in stock. In regards to the online price he said that they would match the online price. The first system he looked in still showed the in store price of $349. He then said that he'll need a minute or two to connect to "real internet" site to check the price. Less than a minute later I'm checking out with the lower price.
The camera is awesome. I am very pleased with it and how easy it is to use. I've had to ask Michelle a couple times how to work it and she always laughs at that. Something else that amazes me is how quick it is compared to the other digital cameras I've used. This camera is ready to use less than one second after turning it on. My old camera took around 4 or 5 seconds to be read to take the first picture. Plus there is no lag between pushing the button and taking the picture. The only delay is with the auto focus, but this is with any digital or film camera. We'll continue posting pictures of the little guy on his photo site, so check out the link in the upper right of the main page.
