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I've had this avatar for over a year, but never had reason to use it. That is, until today. My wife bought me the camera I've been eyeballing for nearly two years. "An early Valentine's gift" she called it. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?

The Canon S3 IS is a point & shoot who thinks its an SLR. It emulates settings of f-stop, shutter speed and film speed. Its lens can accept filters and attachments, and it has one of the best zoom lens on the market for a point & shoot + its IS designation = Image Stability. Incredible, really.

I first ran across this model's predecessor, the S2, some time ago at OfficeMax in Saint Louis. Having only ever used my Minolta X-700 and the camera drax0r gave me - his aging Kodak DX3600, I was not familiar with the brand, outside of just coming off a visit with photogoot and his $10k Canon rig. But it came with Goot's stamp-o-approval, so began my hunt!

The S3 was released at $399 which it remained until the new S5 came out; The time to strike was now! Unfortunately, I found myself caught in that embarrassing time when hourly-wage retailers cannot explain to me why both the S3 and the S5 are the same price thus missing any sale items. The next day they pulled them from the shelves. They were no longer available. (The S5 attains higher resolution via more megapixles, something I do not use since my work is all web-based, and a, "hot-shoe" attachment for an external flash, something else I'm not likely to require. Hence, the S3 is perfect.)

Then, in Wise County, I found a floor model beat all to hell. $299. Not a significant savings, but doable. Alas, the LCD screen was cracked, the attachment ring cover was missing, the viewfinder was filthy and scratched all to hell. I called Goot and he comforted me.

The next month, and for reasons unknown to me, I check the photo department at our local Wal-Mart, and they still have one on display? It's marked $272. And yes, they had a new one in the box!

Thanks babe. Now I'm going to be unbearable!