As many of you know, earlier this month, my digital camera broke and I had to buy a new one. Many of you also know that it broke while I was taking photos of a product I was planning to review.

Um, that last part was a lie. It actually broke while I was taking photos of myself.

Why was I taking photos of myself? I needed self-portraits for the online dating service I’m planning to sign up for.

Although I’m scared to try an online dating service, because who knows what kind of freaky-deeky girl I might end up on a date with? But then again, freaky-deeky sounds pretty good…because I’m desperate.

Anyway, the new digital camera I bought was the Canon PowerShot A85. I actually wanted the $200 3.2-megapixel Canon PowerShot A75, but NOBODY had it in stock, so I had to buy the more expensive, 4-megapixel PowerShot A85.

While researching digital cameras, I had to read a lot of reviews. These reviews got pretty boring because they explained things like aperture, ISO, exposure, blah, blah, blah. See it’s pretty boring.

Here at the Impulsive Buy, we’re not going to bore you with stuff like that, instead we will ask hypothetical questions that include scenarios most people would use a camera for and find out if the PowerShot A85 would do a good job in each of these scenarios.

Question #1

“I just gave birth to my daughter, her name is Melody, and I want to take pictures of all the important moments of her young life, like her first steps, her first tooth, and her appearance in the possible future movie Baby Geniuses 3, but I’m not knowledgeable about photography. Is it easy to take photos with this camera?”

Yes. There’s an Auto Mode that lets the camera do almost all the work, like figuring out the appropriate aperture and shutter speed. All you have to do is point and shoot. The Auto Mode takes great pictures and those pictures will help psychiatrists understand why Melody doesn’t like you for forcing her to be in what will probably be, if they make it, one of the worst movies EVER.

Question #2

“I’m 70-years-old, technophobic, and don’t own a computer. Is this camera good for taking photos of my beautiful, but bratty grandchildren?”

No. I’ve learned that elderly people with technophobia and digital cameras don’t mix. It’s like sticking a gun in the hands of the Dalai Lama.

As for the lack of a computer, you might be fine there because this camera allows direct printing from the camera to special Canon printers.

On second thought, the technophobia will definitely come into play here because if you can’t set the time on your VCR, you probably won’t be able to figure out how to print your grandchildren’s photos from your camera.

Question #3

“Is this camera good for when I go to Mardi Gras and take pictures of women flashing their boobs?”

Yes. When a woman flashes her boobs, make sure the camera is set to the Fast Shutter option. This allows you to take better photos of those shy women who show their boobs really fast, without the risk of blurred photos. Also, make sure you have a lot of bead necklaces.

Question #4

“I read that the PowerShot A85 allows me to take video clips. Would this be a good option for finding out if my significant other is cheating on me by hiding the camera in the bedroom?”

No. The video quality for digital still cameras isn’t as good as it would be for real video cameras. Video quality is important in these circumstances because I’m sure you would like to know who your significant other is cheating with so you can hunt that person down. Also, depending on the size of your memory card, the camera can’t take very long clips.

Question #5

“I’m planning to sign up for one of those online dating services and I need to take a picture of myself. I’m not very good looking and when I tried to take a self-portrait of myself, the digital camera I was using broke down on me. Will this camera break if I take a picture of myself?”

Yes AND No. Are you wearing a paper bag over your head when you take the picture? If you are, the camera won’t break. If you aren’t wearing one, I highly suggest you do NOT take a self-portrait because the camera will break.

Also, if you’re extremely claustrophobic and you might suffocate with a paper bag on your head, a big sheet of paper in front of your face can be used instead of a paper bag.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked this camera. It takes great shots and has a great battery life, since it takes four AA batteries to power it. The PowerShot A85 is great for those who just want to point and shoot or for those control freaks that like manual options.

It’s a great camera for almost any scenario you may face.

Editor’s Note: For more product reviews go check out our friends at the Message Whore.

Item: Canon Powershot A85
Purchase Price: $279.99
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Great for taking pictures of flashing boobs. Allows direct printing from camera to special Canon printers. Won’t break when ugly people take self-portraits with a paper bag over their head.
Cons: Video option isn’t good for trying to catch your significant other cheating on you. Too complex for elderly, technophobic people.

Three weeks ago, I was a cell phone virgin.

I didn’t own a cell phone because I didn’t have a use for one, I didn’t want a possible brain tumor, and I enjoy being uncool.

Well today, I’m a cell phone whore. Okay, not really a whore, because I hardly use my phone.

So what made me change my mind?

Well I was talking to an old friend and I told him I didn’t have a cell phone. He said he felt sorry for me. Then I asked him why I would need a cell phone and he came up with an excellent and simple answer: Booty calls.

I thought about that for a second and decided that he may have a point. What if some woman out there wanted to give me a booty call and I was out and about? Without a cell phone, she wouldn’t be able to reach me and I wouldn’t get any booty.

Sure there’s a 99 percent chance of me NOT getting a booty call, but still, there’s that one percent.

So based on that one percent chance, I gave in and got a cell phone.

After shopping around and checking out online the various cell phone providers, I decided on T-Mobile, which a lot of my friends here on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean subscribe to.

Next I had to decide on a phone and I chose the Motorola V180. The only reason why I chose it was because it was free (with service activation).

While doing my cell phone provider research, it seemed like EVERY company was offering this phone for free (with service activation). It seemed like they wanted to get rid of them like it was Anna Nicole Smith’s drunken, pre-Trimspa, hidden home sex tape.

However, I don’t know why they would offer the phone for free because the Motorola V180 seems like a good phone. The talk and standby time is excellent; it has a color screen; and it’s small and light. Plus, it helps me get one percent closer to receiving a booty call.

If there was one thing I didn’t like about the phone, it was the lack of a camera on it. But I figured I really didn’t need a camera on my phone, because I’d probably only use it to take voyeuristic photos of hot women.

(Wait, did I just admit that? I should take that out, so don’t seem creepy. Eh, I’ll just leave it in for now. I can always delete it later.)

Item: Motorola V180
Purchase Price: FREE (with service activation)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Free (with service activation). Full color screen. Long talk and standby time. I now have a one percent chance of getting a booty call.
Cons: No camera to take voyeuristic photos. Ugh…Images of a drunken, pre-Trimspa Anna Nicole Smith in my head.

Oh if only my 900 Mhz cordless phone could talk, imagine the stories it could tell.

All the telemarketers trying to sign me up for credit cards, companies asking me to take a survey that they say ONLY takes 15 minutes (but takes 45 minutes), arguments with my parents about getting a job, 1-900 numbers I found on various restroom walls, and the wrong numbers I got from the girls I’ve met at bars, nightclubs, and bookstores.

Unfortunately, that phone died the other week, after five long years. I think it was it’s time to go, but I also think it was probably tired of hearing me utter the words, “What are you wearing, baby doll?”

So I needed a new phone, but I didn’t want something fancy (i.e. expensive). I just needed a cordless phone that can handle the rigors of excessive $3.50-for-the-first-minute-and-$1.50-for-each-additional-minute phone calls.

To find that phone I went to everyone’s favorite small-business-destroying everyday-low-prices behemoth (shudder) and came out with the V-Tech 5821 Phone With 5.8 Ghz Technology, which has to be the most unappealing name for a product ever.

Okay, not as unappealing as Anna Nicole Smith’s Fat Drunken Trailer Trash Whore Kit (Now With 25% More Skank).

So what’s so special about a 5.8 Ghz phone? I could go into detail using whatever words “smart science people” use, but I’d be boring you with big words like “spectrum,” “frequency,” and “wavelength.”

Instead, I’m just going to say that the “smart science people” state that 5.8 Ghz phone technology will increase sound quality, enhanced range, and heightened security.

One of the best things about the V-Tech phone is the speakerphone on the handset. It comes in pretty handy when you REALLY don’t want to listen to someone talk.

Just place the handset on the table and let them ramble about how their boyfriend/girlfriend sucks, how crazy the shopping malls are, how they’re addicted to every CSI show, and how Scott Peterson should be put in the electric chair, while being given a lethal injection in a gas chamber with flesh-eating beetles.

While they jibber jabber, do whatever you want (eat, watch television, read blogs, or play with your Anna Nicole Smith’s Fat Drunken Trailer Trash Whore Kit), but just remember to say every so often any of the following phrases. “Yes.” “Uh huh.” “Okay.” “That’s funny.” “Say what?” “No way.” “That bitch.” “What are you wearing, baby doll?”

Despite other great things about the phone, like the LCD screen and the buttons that light up, there were a few things that bothered me about it. For starters, the battery gets really warm while charging. Also, the sound quality isn’t that great because those who I talked to say I sound like I’m in a hallway.

Plus, there’s no speed dial. Instead there’s a phone book feature that allows you to scroll through the various numbers saved on the phone. This has been proven to be a pain when quickly scrolling through the phone book and accidentally dialing 1-900-BIG-BLND, when I really wanted 1-900-BIG-BRUN.

There’s a big difference, you know.

Item: V-Tech 5821 Phone With 5.8 Ghz Technology
Purchase Price: $53.72 (Everyday Low Price)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Speakerphone on handset. LCD screen. Buttons that light up.
Cons: Battery gets warm when charging. When talking, it sounds like I’m in a hallway. No speed dial.

You would think if they called something a sock, you’d be able to wear it on your feet. This was not the case with Apple iPod Socks, unless you’re a baby or a midget.

I wanted to put one on a baby’s foot, but I couldn’t get my hands on a baby.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to find at the last minute a baby to use as a test subject. Even with $50,000 through the Black Market, our sources said it would’ve taken at least a couple of days.

The iPod Socks come in a six-pack, with each box containing a gray, pink, blue, green, purple, and orange two-toned sock. They are supposed to be used as cases for the popular iPod.

Being a manly man, I will not be caught using the pink iPod Sock. I don’t care if pink is the new black. I had a horrible experience with wearing the color pink.

The last time I wore pink was to a junior prom. My date wore a pink and white dress and wanted to match, so she suggested made me wear a white tuxedo with a pink tie and cummerbund. I can’t believe I did that just so I could go to the junior prom as a sophomore.

When we went to the prom, it turned out that I was the ONLY guy in a white tuxedo. The only way I could’ve stood out more was if I wore a pink and white top hat with a neon sign that said, “Look at me! I’M LAME.”

The iPod Sock fits nicely over my third generation iPod, which will keep it nice and warm during these cold winter months. However, when I’m using an iPod Sock I don’t have access to the controls, which is a problem when I desperately don’t want to listen to my ex-girlfriend’s Backstreet Boys and New Age music that I’m too lazy to remove from my iTunes library.

Despite making wonderful iPod warmers, the iPod Socks are one-dimensional. I can’t use them as actual socks on my feet, but I did try them on other body parts to see if they would fit and be able to keep those body parts warm.

Ears…Yup.

Nose…Nope.

Fingers…Four of them.

Tongue…Yes.

Um…Heh, heh…Need a MUCH bigger sock for that.

Okay, not really.

Item: Apple iPod Socks
Purchase Price: $29.00
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Six colorful socks. Fits any iPod. Keeps iPod warm.
Cons: Very pricey. Can’t use on my feet. No access to iPod controls.

There has been a lot of talk about the recently released final version of the web browser Firefox 1.0.

Much of the talk has been about how it compares to Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), how it’s safer, how it’s faster, blah, blah, blah. Here at the Impulsive Buy, we decided to review Firefox in a way that’s really helpful for some of you. We decided to review Firefox in relation to viewing corn.

That’s right, you heard us and we’re not ashamed to admit it. We like to view corn on our computers.

Whether it’s white corn, or black corn, or any other kind of corn, we really like corn. Because there is so much corn out there to view, we needed a browser that makes it easier to look at corn. We think we’ve found it in Firefox 1.0.

The biggest thing that really helped with our excessive corn viewing was tabbed browsing, which allows us to open many corn sites with one window. There’s also a feature that allows us to open a group of bookmarks at the same time in separate tabs, which is great when we want to open all of our asian corn sites at the same time.

IE doesn’t have tabs and because it doesn’t have tabs we were getting caught viewing corn. With IE, we had to open each corn site in a separate window and when we heard someone coming we had to scramble to hide all the windows, which is a very time consuming process. Now with tabs, all we have to hide is one window.

Brilliant!

We think the developers of Firefox had corn viewers in mind when they came up with tabbed browsing.

Another important feature is the pop-up blocker. When viewing the many corn sites there are tons of pop-up windows, which mostly ask us if we want more hot corn. These pop-ups drive us insane, but with Firefox we can stop pop-ups with a click of a button.

The last feature we will talk about are the extensions you can install for Firefox. Our favorite is a music controller, because we can listen to 70’s corn music while viewing corn. Bow chica. Bow chica.

There’s also an extension that allows web surfers to easily control Firefox using only mouse gestures, which is very useful for corn viewers, who always surf with only one hand.

If you haven’t downloaded Firefox, we highly recommend you do. The tabs alone make it worthwhile, whether you like corn or not.

Item: Firefox 1.0
Purchase Price: FREE
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Tabbed windows. Pop-up blocker. Google search field. Makes it easier to view corn.
Cons: Still has some kinks, which maybe good if you’re kinky.