So check THIS out. Rick & I are exchanging presents and first of all – hilariously we got eachother the same DVD. We both knew we’d love it as we both think the Tenacious D CD is hilarious, and we saw School of Rock together. I even TIVO’d the episode* where Jack Black had a camio on Will & Grace and saved it to show Rick. Did you see it? It was hilarious!!

* God LOVE the internet – it’s right here for you to watch! Scroll down to the bottom of the page & you’ll see two WMP links – click the one that says “Karen visits Dr. Hershberg.” (Jack Black plays the Dr.) And be sure to watch the whole thing – it gets good about 1/2 way through. :)

So, as I’m opening my next prezzie – I see the box and hardly think anything of it – cuz there’s no way he actually…

… oh wait…

….opening the box…

….seeing the manuals… oh my gawd!

Yes, that’s right. He bought me this beautiful new toy:

Isn’t it AWESOME!?!? You may know this camera from it’s impressive boast of actually being “so small it fits in an Altoid tin”!! Check it out!

So talk about a guy who listens – aren’t I a lucky girl!? I had been telling Rick since I met him that I wanted a smaller camera to take out w/ me to parties & shows. Here after months of hanging out with me, Rick had only seen my camera (the awesome Nikon 5700) like once or twice since I barely brought it out. It’s just too big & expensive to risk dropping it, losing it or getting it stolen. So, low and behold – Rick surprises me with this Pentax OptioS4!!

And it’s AWESOME! So small that I just LOVE that I can take it anywhere with me. And it’s got some incredibly kick ass features for how small it is!! Here’s some highlights:

• Smaller than the size of an average credit card and just over 3/4-inch thick. Weighs just 3.5 ounces!
• 4 megapixel(!) with a built in 3x Pentax zoom lens (which delightfully retracts into the slim body when camera is off)
• Records up to 60 secs of video with audio – AND has a speaker to play it back!! This is actually one of the coolest features – cuz not only can you watch the movie back – but it records the movie data really fast – and pulls it up to play really fast… and then acts as a little mini VCR where you can actually pause and scan rewind/fast forward! So cool!!

I love it & have snapped a gazillion photos over the last week with it. Wanna see? (I’ll post videos some time in the next week)

Here’s some other reviews & photos of the camera, too, if you’re curious:

• Steve’s Digicam’s Review
• DP Review’s review
• Imaging-Resource Review

Anyway – I better start getting ready for tonite… and yup, you guess it – I’ll be snappin a few photos with my new camera! wahoo!!!

Happy New Year everybody!!