Show me yours, I'll show you mine.

OK, so the camera finally arrived. Curiously, it came via the U.S. Postal Service who had taken it from FedEx after it's strange journey from New York to Edison, NJ to Pottstown, Pennsylvania. What is strange (among other things) is that it took 5 days to go the 116 miles from NYC to Pottstown and only 2 days to go the 75 miles from Pottstown to my workplace in southern New Jersey. I still wonder why they would ship it via FedEx if FedEx was only going to hand it off to the USPS. Mine is not to question why.

It's a Nikon Coolpix S570. It's a nice little camera. It takes 12 megapixel photos which are way too large (5.5 megabytes) to post here, so I had to shrink one down to post. Of course, it's my goofy cat in repose. Nikon says that the images are capable of enlargements up to 20" x 30". We'll see. One of these days I'll take it out for a run and have one blown up.

On a lighter note...

In response to my friend from Canada who recently posted an image of his desktop, I submit my own. I have a 21" Dell monitor, 1280 x 768 pixels.

I prefer to keep a clean desktop with as few icons as I can use. The rest I can get from the Windows menu which, for now, I can say is still Windows XP. Besides, I don't want to mar an otherwise nice photo with a lot of junk.

The latest minor news story around here involves Dave Spadaro, a shill for the Philadelphia Eagles. He runs their web site and strangely enough, shows up at press conferences to ask questions of the coach. The Eagles are playing the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday in the first round of the playoffs, and there is no more hated team around here than the Cowboys. Spadaro took it upon himself to video tape himself spitting on the big star at the middle of the Cowboys field and posted the video on the Eagles web site with something he calls Spudcam. I don't know why.

Since doing that, he was forced by the Eagles to issue an apology. The story is fascinating to me on several levels:
First, even though we have been dealing with this Internet thing for over a decade, there are still people like Spadaro who fail to understand its impact on modern society. They make videos, tweet, Facebook or otherwise expose their odd behavior to the masses and then apologize for it, seemingly because they didn't want to offend anyone, but they did anyway. You'll never catch me apologizing for anything I write here.

Second, the apology is always the same: "If I offended anyone, I apologize." That's a typical half-hearted apology. As if to say, if I didn't offend you, I don't apologize. Either what you did was wrong or it wasn't. Apparently, he thought he was doing the right thing until his employer told him he wasn't. He should have stood his ground, but he backed down and apologized because he likes his job. That's kind of weasely.

Third, I'll never understand why people think that what they do somehow influences games or events. So he spit on the big star. What is that supposed to prove? Does it somehow bond him with the fans? No, because most of us know he's a shill and kind of a dork (which is probably why it's called Spudcam) and no effort on his part will change how people think.

I suppose he defiled some symbol or other, but what is it really? It's a logo of a franchise that just built a billion-dollar stadium with a 60-yard hi-definition TV in the middle of the field. Some people are making it sound like he spat on the flag or something. It's a football field, folks. Get a grip. The stupid things you do have no influence on the events that will take place on Saturday. It's time to get over your God complex and just sit and watch the game.

Dallas sucks. OK, we get it. If they beat the Eagles for the third time this season on Saturday I don't want to hear it anymore. Think of something else to say like, maybe the Eagles aren't that good.