Droolworthy

Our dogs are lazy.  And I do mean LAZY.  When we're home on the weekends, they're pretty much happy to lay around on the couch all day long, and they're totally excited when we get home from work each day, but only really because we provide access to the beds. 

They can also be a bit disgusting.  I call this picture 'the world's longest drool':

She actually managed to get it to touch the ground and start to form a little pool of wetness before the flash to my camera startled her and she moved her head, breaking the fragile links of drool.  In case anybody's wondering (and I don't blame you if you aren't), that's a 2 1/4 ft dribble of drool. 

This week, I'm going to try to raise all of the couches... see if we can get that drool dribble to three feet!

And here's another thing that's totally droolworthy:

 

I'm wanting to get a fancified digital camera to be able to take more professional looking pictures.  Not that I don't love my camera, I do, but I want to be able to do more manual focusing and mucking around with settings and such.  The camera that I have is awesome... it takes pictures underwater and in the snow (not that I've ever really tried it out in the snow, but the function is there), it can take a drop from several feet... its a trooper.  But I would like something a bit more high-tech to mess around with.  

SO, does anybody out there have any camera recommendations? I'd love to hear which cameras you use.