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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Telephone Book Trick


Last month I went to a wedding. As the groom is getting up to sing karaoke I take out my digital camera that I have had for four months. I turn it on and a message flashes on the screen: "Zoom Error." No big deal. I turn it off, turn it back on: "Zoom Error." I look at John in distress. So I take out the battery, memory card, blow into the empty compartments, try to pry the lens open, hit the menu button and thumb through all of the options. Nothing. "Zoom Error." I was pissed to the point of shedding a tear. John told me not to worry, we will get it fixed when we get back home and to have another beer. Fine. I didn't get to take ANY pictures at the wedding. Sigh.

So we get back home and we Google Fuji Finepix J150w and see what the deal is. We write off to a fix it website only to hear that we have to pay for a subscription blah blah. Yeah right. I give up. I started researching prices for new digital cameras. I was so frustrated and disappointed that this happened. I mean, I had the thing for 4 MONTHS! AND I kept it it's protective case the whole time.... whatever.

So last night I decide to give it one last try. I do the same Google search that I did before adding the words "Zoom Error." This time a different website comes up where people have written in their problems and other people write in and try to help. On my camera, and most Fuji cameras actually, this was a common problem.

One user suggested something that I thought was the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. He called it the "Telephone Book Trick." Meaning that you slam your camera (lens down) repeatedly against a telephone, or other hard object. No way am I going to do this. So I keep searching. One person recommended unscrewing things and basically disassembling the camera and getting a can of air and cleaning the whole thing out. Like I could figure out how to put it back together....

So I go back to the "Telephone Book Trick" that the first guy was talking about. It seemed that 30 or more people on this site eventually tried it as a last resort and it made their cameras work. I thought to self, well I'm going to have to end up buying a new camera anyway since this piece of crap is a piece of crap so I tried it.

First, I slammed it against the coffee table. No luck. Then I slammed it against the kitchen counter. No luck. Then I thought, well this is going to break it... so I slammed it against the ceramic tile. It seemed to want to turn on... I had a visual of something on the screen. So I slammed it on the floor again. A little bit more of a picture on the screen. Then slam, slam, slam, slam, slam against the palm of my hand and THE THING TURNED ON!!!!!!

I'm still in shock. Who knew?

3 comments:

Diana & Orie said...

you're brave...i don't think i could slam mine...glad it works now though :)

Stephanie Jordan said...

Shut the heck up! That's hilarious!

Kate said...

I know!!!! Don't ever buy a Fuji! I only slammed it because it was already a piece... like I said, I was going to have to buy a new one anyway.