If you haven't noticed yet, there's a big "new" trend going on with Generation Y that I don't think is being milked by corporate America as much as it could ... And no, I'm not talking about MySpace or Facebook b/c believe me, that's being milked. I'm talking about college kids taking pictures of themselves and their friends and posting them online. The majority of my friends have a collection of their pictures somewhere on the Internet ... On Web Shots, on Facebook, on MySpace, or even on all three. Look closely and you'll observe something that all of these picture galleries have in common with each other. Have any guesses?


Answer : Everybody is drunk in the pictures! It's not too subtle either b/c for some reason people have the natural instinct to raise their beer brand of choice at the camera when posing for a picture. (I do it too) Chances are, the person taking the pictures is the drunkest one out of everyone! So what's my point? How isn't it being milked? Every major web site is already offering it's visitors free picture galleries so they can sell ad space on them. No, what I'm talking about is the actual camera manufacturers ... Sony, Kodak, Toshiba, ETC. These cameras that they're putting out are NOT drunk-proof. A college kid's camera is bound to be dropped on the ground, stepped on, dropped in a drink, whatever. I've already gone through two cameras in less than a year and honestly they only took a few drops. (as far as I can remember)

What I'm looking for is a crush-proof, water-proof, and all around party-proof camera. I want a camera that can handle a few drops ... And by a few, I mean a few every hour that it's in use. I want a camera that can go underwater with me when my friends throw me in the pool. I need for my camera to be as durable as I am. Because let's face it, not all customers are buying cameras for nice family vacations at Sea World. There's also a fairly large and growing market who is buying your camera so that they'll have some way of remembering what happened at the bar last night or maybe even their entire week in Mexico.

And you know what really grinds my gears ...

I pay $5 every month for phone insurance and I've never broken my cell phone that I carry in my pocket every day, every night. I probably bring a camera out with me a few times a month and I've destroyed two of them in a year. And you can't buy insurance on a camera - only an extended limited warranty that won't do a thing for you. (I tried) Are these cameras just made cheaper than cell phones? I used to work in a cell phone store and I would take our trade-in phones from customers who upgraded and just to find out how tough they were, I would smash the old phones against the wall, drop them in cups of water, etc, and you would be surprised how durable most of those phones were. So, what's the deal with these digital cameras?

If anyone has seen an extra durable camera out there, let me know ... I'm in the market for one.