electron zoo

I was powerless on vacation in Washington last week — well actually, it was just my camera. Too prophetic that I posted about double-checking on my chargers just last week, huh?

But let’s say you’re on a week-long vacation and you leave the charger for your super-cool, ultra-portable, beloved digital camera at home. If you need help deciding whether to simply purchase a new charger while you’re out of town, I can help.

Just review this easy-to-follow questionnaire:

1. Do you have lots of unneeded money ($20-80 US) to spend on something you already have at home?
2. Would you like to spend a half a day of your short holiday bouncing around an unknown town in order to locate a rather obscure, proprietary device that is not likely to be in stock at most retailers?
3. Do you happen to be an a burgeoning metropolis that boasts multiple well-stocked electronics or digital camera stores?
4. After you’ve located a charger for your digital camera, would you like to spend a few hours indoor juicing up your camera?
5. Are you totally friggin nuts?

Did you answer “yes” to all of the above questions? Great, then I suggest you go out and get a new charger for your digital camera right now. But why take a vacation in the first place? Couldn’t you have just as much fun sitting around your darkened geek lair installing new software on your Palm OS wristwatch or something? (Okay, maybe that’s not fair. You could just be wholesomely watching TV on your wristwatch instead, you nerd.)

Since I failed my own simple five-point survey, I just smacked myself in the head a few times when I realized I’d forgotten my charger. Damn. Just thinking about it made me smack myself again. Damn.

So I went to the five ‘n’ dime and got me one of those old-timey disposable film cameras. Cost me a whoppin’ four bucks, it did. Whoo-wee. Now I can get my pictures developed onto shiny paper and I can send ‘em to my kin using an envelope and a stamp.

Or, I can send the camera to be developed at a service like Snapfish, which will put the photos on the web and send me prints. It’s a good option, but they also charge you if you want to download hi-res prints. And if you use their site to send photos to folks, they have to register for a free account on Snapfish — but is giving away one’s email address really “free”?

But instead, now that I’m home and have been reunited with my good ol’ digital camera charger, I’m taking care of my photos the real old-fashioned way: I haven’t had the film developed at all, and I probably won’t for weeks. And probably, just like the good ol’ days, it won’t bother me a bit.