Something Fishy

Man, do I have a funny story to tell.. This will crack you up. 

 Today I bought a fisheye lens. Get it? No? 

 I actually don't have a camera to connect it yet. Drum roll please and cymbal crash. Funny huh? 

 I have been thinking for quite a while now to get a SLR camera to document the interesting sights of Tokyo. 

 Crazy as it might be, I love the fisheye effect on photos and this was my primary motivation. And dang, I need a hobby in this place. Any other excuse to procrastinate, I will find it! 

 If it keeps me away from the evil UFO catchers it will pay for itself.

 Another day off, another day in Akihabara. 

 I don't know why I gravitate here. I'm eternally in search of my inner geek. I like looking in electronic stores, touching all the shiny toys and yes, the catchers here are always interesting, but I didn't play any of them today. 

 Google Earth is really coming in handy. It must have been hell to find addresses before internet maps were available. With the help of my GPS phone, I found the places painlessly. 

 I got the secondhand lens in Sofmap. Yes it's used, but it's in good condition I think. I think I annoyed the salesperson in english a bit, making sure the lens wasn't scratched (it had just a smudge). He must've thought I'd try to bring the price down further. He looked a little surprised when I said I'd take it. 

 The original price for the lens was 63,800 yen and it had a 10% off sticker bringing it down to 57,420 yen (about $600). I know that's a lot, but in Australia it costs about $1100! So, I suppose if I ever get bored of it, I should be able to sell it for the same price I hope. 

 I was feeling guilty buying it (That's from my mother by the way. Thanks mama). I still had in mind to buy a memory card mainly for my phone, but it looks like it will be doing double duty for photos as well. I thought to get an 8GB card, but they're 10,500 yen. I settled on a 4GB one for 4000 yen. The bigger card will be half the price in a few months anyway. 

 So now I'm going to look for a well priced Nikon SLR. Either the D40 or D80 is on the cards. Only the later will auto focus with this lens, but I have to see how much I'm willing to spend. I don't want to spend too much on this new "hobby". 

 Stay tuned. 

 Oh. I picked up my watch yesterday by the way. The clerk said a whole lot of words in Japanese ("we didn't do anything"?) I just said, "watch ok?" and he said it was. That's good enough for me. So far so good. I'm going to be treating it with kid gloves from now on. I'm sick of bothering them, and I'm sure they are sick of seeing me too. 

 The cheese is also now finished finally. It was growing an beautiful exotic green mould so I made the decision to make a super size omelette with about 500 grams of cheese. All I can say it was cheesy all right. The salami helped too of course. 

 The gf isn't back yet. I can't wait to tell her about my new purchase. She will be so happy for me.