Holiday shopping Q and A

[nirvana]

I put up the money, my sister gets the ideas.  Plus we get 25% off it anyway.  It's a robot vacuum though, we're supposedly letting her relax and let a machine do the cleaning, at least the vacuuming.

[texasmom]

Originally posted by nirvana
I put up the money, my sister gets the ideas.  Plus we get 25% off it anyway.  It's a robot vacuum though, we're supposedly letting her relax and let a machine do the cleaning, at least the vacuuming.

Well, you can't get any better than that ~ cooperation between sister & brother, no matter what the gift is, usually works out good.  

[Curval]

Bath-fizzles
candlestick w/candle
a book
a cd of her fav. relaxing music.
small box of chocolates
maybe some PJs (nice & comfy ~ it's for her, not dad)


Subsitute Penthouse Forum for the book and a mesh nightie for the PJs and I agree 100%!

[Excel1]

Originally posted by Excel1
real men don't shop.. they buy stuff    

haha... almost forgot, an unlike the deviant retard son of one of my neighbours real men don't go to the shops with their boyfriends only to get caught jerking each other off...true story  

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by tapakeg
 I would also like to get a digital movie camera for the family.  Something under $300 or so.  Do I want one of those mini DVD ones, or do they have memory cards? Any brand better than another.  I will mostly be using it for e mail and web sharing.

Thanks, and keep the questions and answers coming

Tapakeg

When it comes to digital camcorders Canon has the best quality and features dollar per dollar.

That being said, I think most folks would be better off with a pocket point and shoot digital camera’s movie mode than a dedicated camcorder.  They are smaller, cheaper, easier to download* than a mini DV camera and take better/higher resolution clips than most inexpensive dedicated camcorders.  (No tape to rewind or search and no FireWire just cut and paste files) Memory cards are so big and cheap now that they give camcorders a run for their money.  My little Canon SD1000 will take 640x240 resolution clips at 30 fps.  My 4 gig SD card was only $34; I can shoot for 40 to 60 minutes of footage on that card.  I believe most low end camcorders shoot at 320x240 ay 30 fps; that’s fine for YouTube, but the quality is limited.  The greatest advantage of a dedicated camcorder is that they have much better zoom and generally have better image stabilization. Many pocket point and shoot digital camera also have decent image stabilization, however.  Here’s some sample footage from my SD1000 that has been edited/compressed for the web: http://hallbuzz.com/movies/2007/britta_blows_up.wmv  I bought mine for $200, but have seen them on sale recently for $190.  The Canon PowerShot A560 has pretty much the same features, with more zoom, perhaps a better lens and is only $140, but is bigger.

[68ROX]

I highly recomend shopping on the internet.

Example:

The wife & I were at Walmart last night at 5 PM.

It was like 5,000 bridges in the state were missing their trolls, and we found them all in one spot.

Folks with 5 kids in tow yapping on cell phone while they ran over my wife with a shopping cart.  Somehow, a person who WALKED into the store now can't....gets into an electric cart, tootling down the aisle at the speed of dead.  It must have also been illegal alien night, but I didn't get the memo.

I think I'll shop as much as possible on the internet this year...I'm not into crowds.



68ROX

[AWMac]

TxMom

Just outta curiosity, what goes into Daddys Basket?



Mac

[texasmom]

Originally posted by AWMac
TxMom
Just outta curiosity, what goes into Daddys Basket?

Mac

I'm into the 'basket' thing.
I've got a whole bunch of baskets to give TxDad & the kids. I'll post one later. My fav. so far has been the BBQ basket.

[Shuffler]

Hmmm wasn't the Roomba featured in the movie "Batteries Not Included"

[Halo]

Good advice, Esk, on using a good digital camera's movie mode.  I've been very happy with the clips I get from my Canon Digital Elph 400.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Both are your favorite;  but which one is more favorite than the other?

I mean...  one has to be just a little less favorite...  still favorite but just not as much.*




*Reference Brian Regan

I love the little league snow cone bit.

[FiLtH]

My wife and I are going to by a large tv for ourselves. Thats it. No hustle and bustle at 3pm dec 24th for me this year. Ahhh..deck the halls!

[BigGun]

Originally posted by 68ROX
The wife & I were at Walmart last night at 5 PM.

It was like 5,000 bridges in the state were missing their trolls, and we found them all in one spot.

Folks with 5 kids in tow yapping on cell phone while they ran over my wife with a shopping cart.  Somehow, a person who WALKED into the store now can't....gets into an electric cart, tootling down the aisle at the speed of dead.  It must have also been illegal alien night, but I didn't get the memo.

68ROX

I don't go to walmart, no matter what is on sale at what price. Those stores are always disorganized & crowded.

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by Halo
Good advice, Esk, on using a good digital camera's movie mode.  I've been very happy with the clips I get from my Canon Digital Elph 400.

My Elph S400 finally died and that’s why I bought the 1000. I shot a lot of clips with it as well as stills.  The best movie mode was 320x240 15 fps, but I was pretty happy with it.  The newer ones shoot at twice the width, height and frame rate, basically 8X the data.  I think there are some that will shoot at a 1024x768 mode.  I have a Nikon 8400, but it’s almost as big as an SLR.  It has a great 640x480 30fps mode as well, but it’s just too big to slip into my pocket.  Both cameras have great time lapse modes also and I’ve had a lot of fun with them.

One more thing about the SD1000, in good light it will take a picture about one second after being turned on.  The startup time is almost a non-issue.

[Fulmar]

Originally posted by LePaul
Batteries dont seem to last long as they get older.  Mine's red (low) after 30 mins.

Since I work at Batteries Plus for my college part time job, I see Roomba batteries from time to time.  We refer people to buy new batteries off of Amazon for about $50 since we'd charge $100+ to rebuild it.  $50 is a pretty good price actually as our cost on the batteries is about $35-40.

2-3 years of regular use is about what you'd get out of them.  They use either 2700mah or 3000mah sub-c size NiMH cells.  So as anything that is battery operated, the batteries won't last forever and should be an expected maintenance expense (however, OFTEN overlooked).