SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

SAD (AS IN PATHETIC) BLOG POST NO. 3

My camera is dead. Long live my camera.

She served me well, she did. Lasted less than a year, but took more than 5,000 shots during that time. I pushed it to the limit of the battery and electronic memory frontier. And then it pushed back.

It was the camera that took almost all the photos for The Mullet Project, The Hulk Hands Project, The Sombrero Project (and its subsequent parts (Dos, Tres and Quatro),and The King Project. It was held by Sammy Hagar - before he went back to Van Halen. It went to Tampa Bay Lightning games and a New York Yankees spring training game. It went to Buccaneers games and garage sales and the Plant City Strawberry Festival. Twice.

it's been to engagement parties, promotion parties and, of course, sombrero parties.

We lived a lifetime of photos together.

Damn thing yesterday wouldn't recognize the memory card format. Then it wouldn't talk with my computer. Then it kept shutting off and quitting and requesting that I input the date and time every time I turned it on.

That's far too much nursing for it to be fun.

So I took it back to Costco and got an upgrade:

I've heard great things about Canon's Elph line. Friends have been suggesting them for years.

All of which means that for the first time in about a year and a half, I'm without a camera. That's a blessing to the people who have to live and work in my vicinity, but a curse for me. Random, stupid and meaningless photography of everyday activities - and some that aren't so ordinary - is my heroin.

But I have a temporary methadone fix. I just bought a new Sprint camera phone. (My last one was stolen. I swear.)

As you can see, it doesn't take the best pics, but it gets me by:



This was a 70-pound pig being cooked on a spit at a party I went to last night. Not great color in the photo, but what do you expect? It's a phone! And a voice recorder. And game console. And calendar keeper. And... you get the point.



This is Chef Bobby, cooker of said pig. Bobby roasts a mean pig.



This sow's had better days.