The Strange World of Axel Fendersson

A few months ago, my camera broke. I had been wearing it attached to my belt more or less permanently, foolishly assuming that the case I had bought with it would be sufficient to protect it in this position. I was wrong. At some point it had evidently been pressed too hard against my side and the screen broke. Having only one third of the screen functional made the camera significantly more difficult to use, but, being as I am, it wasn’t until four weeks ago, on the 5th of August, that actually got around to taking it back to the shop to see if they would fix it under warranty.

The guy in the shop warned me that, although they would send it back to the manufacturer, there was no guarantee that they would agree to fix it, as they might conclude that the damage was caused by a knock that would constitute customer misuse. I hadn’t done anything stupid like dropping it (the usual warranty-voiding cause of damage), but this did not guarantee that they would agree to repair it.

This afternoon, I dropped into the camera shop to see if it had come back yet. Although they had said they would contact me by text message when it arrived and I hadn’t heard anything, they told me it could be up to four weeks, and it had been exactly that long. I was pleased to discover, then, that they did indeed have it back, and that Fuji had repaired it under warranty.

What is odd is that there seem to be more special shooting modes available than I remember there being. There is now a mode for taking pictures of flowers, and one for fireworks, and several others that I don’t remember being there before. It’s possible that those features were there all along and I just didn’t notice them, or have forgotten about them, but it’s also possible that while the camera was in for repairs it was given a firmware upgrade. Or possibly it was just replaced with another camera with a more recent firmware version. Either way, I am quite pleased.

I am, however, slightly less pleased to discover that Space Hulk is now completely sold out online (and it isn’t even out yet). It looks like being at a GW store when it opens on Saturday morning is going to be the only way I can be sure of getting a copy; waiting until Sunday may be too late. This is particularly tiresome since Ducklington are dancing at Bunkfest at mid-day, so that not only I will have to get up early and traipse into Oxford, I’ll then have to go more or less straight to Wallingford.

Also frustrating on the gaming and modelling front is that an order I placed with GW mail order last week has still not been dispatched. I ordered a Reaver Titan and a few spare bases; apparently the Titan is fine but the bases are out of stock, so they are waiting until they’ve got some more. This is frustrating because not only do I have to wait for the Titan itself (and to discover whether the Quake Cannons I scratch-built last week are too big or not), but also to take the weapons off it and put them on the two ‘Beetleback’ Warlord Titans I’ve got from eBay. One of them is waiting for the turbo-lasers, so I can put together a standard configuration Titan (the old plastic Warlords didn’t include turbo-lasers as an option), the other for the rocket launcher (rocket launchers were available for the old model, but I don’t have any).

But I think that overall, I’m more pleased to have my camera back than I am disgruntled by the other things. I’d been borrowing my father’s old compact while mine was being fixed, and it’s definitely not as good for macro work (which I mainly use it for) as mine is. Mine, in turn, isn’t as good as my old one, but never mind.