In the last 6 or 7 years, a few new inventions or technological advances have truly improved my life. I'd like to tell you about them. 

First, there is the digital camera. Oh my God. Before the digital camera, picture-taking was downright mysterious. A roll of film would be good for 24 or 36 pictures, which seems like a good number, but in practice, it was never the right amount. I'd take 8 or 10 photos at a birthday party, or take a shot if Mike dyed his hair, but the roll would still have a dozen unused exposures on it. I would always end up saving those shots for the next birthday party or trip to San Francisco. Finally, by the time I had the roll developed, most of the photos would be eight months old. And, because of this long delay, when seven shots of blurry, dark garbage came back, I'd never remember what I had been doing wrong.

Simple cameras were $50, film was $6 and getting a roll developed was another $6. It wasn't expensive, but it added up. 

I am probably the biggest fan of digital cameras. They are expensive, but man, are they fun.

You shoot pictures, and BANG, you can see what you caught right on the camera. Is it blurry? Shoot it again. Is it dark? Shoot it again. Did you cut off Mark's head? Shoot it again. As soon as you get home, you can load them onto your computer and see them blown up in all their glory. You can email them to your friends, or print them out, or just keep them for blackmail archiving. 

The best part is that they are FREE! They are FREE! Shoot a thousand pictures a week if you like! Doesn't matter! Take pictures of your toothpaste! Photograph your silverware drawer! photograph the bottom of your shoes! Snap pictures of your neighbor's roof! It is FREE!

1000 pictures of Ambur

To the right, witness 12 photos I shot of a dead fly on the sidewalk outside of my house.

FREE!

Digital cameras are particularly valuable to me, because I've made a reputation for myself posting inane photos and documenting just about anything I find interesting.

I started off with a little Panasonic PV-DC1580 digital camera in August of 1998. It was $500, and I loved it of it, in its 1 megapixel glory. I took thousands of pictures with it.

After about a year, the tiny video display started scrolling,  it also began to have other little problems.

In May 2001, I bought a 2 megapixel Canon PowerShot S300. After almost 35 thousand photos with that one. The flash started malfunctioning.

Stacy and I were just weeks from getting married, so I upgraded again to a 4 megapixel Powershot SD300. I'm at 18,000 pictures with this one and I haven't even worn off the icons yet.

I take a lot of pictures, a ton of them, and I just love digital cameras.