After head banging for a few weeks trying to figure out how I can get my item, I finally managed to get an order to process. And I'm delighted that Amazon put the order through, at a slightly cheaper price as well.
And... unexpectedly it arrived today! I'm feeling that giddy kid feeling inside, I've waited so long for this item. Up until now I had refrained from mentioning what the item was, for fear that someone would see it and swipe it away from me under my feet. But as mine has arrived, now I can tell you what it is.
The item is a Tokina Cinema Vista 18mm lens in EF mount. The Tokina Cine Vista line of lens are known for their build quality, speed and weight. They're also hard to come by, as they're quite expensive and your average jo-blow can't really afford them for hobby photography. This lens will be used on my film camera rig, no DSLRing here.
A number of pieces of software I'm building are to be used for film and animation image generation. This lens coupled with my film camera should give me some pretty good plates to work with. And with some of the software in development, I'm hoping to be able to make some neat short stories with it. There's still quite a bit of work going on behind the scenes to make this all happen, but it's great to have one of the big ticket items I've been waiting for, and for so long, finally arrive.
I'll finish off with a final shout out to Amazon. I don't think they'll read my posts, they probably wouldn't care, but without Amazon something like this would be really hard for me to get. So feeling grateful that my order went through, and that my item has finally arrived. Thanks Amazon. Can't wait to use it!