“When did we start carrying 15 pounds of electronics with us everywhere we go?” “When we became bloggers!”

Here’s a run down of my gear — digital cameras, laptop, little black boxes all. Note that the links are affiliate links to Amazon — if you buy, I get a little something and there’s no additional cost to you.
MSI Wind Netbook: It’s teeny tiny, weighs about as much as an airplane paperback, and Mr. NEV hacked the RAM so yes, it runs PhotoShop! I’ve used it to edit photos and video, to type up blog posts, and yeah, it does double duty for work, too. Two downsides — the wifi antennae is a little weak and I still tend to activate the mouse pad with my thumbs when I’m typing. The benefits outweigh the disadvantages by far.

Nikon D200: I was way psyched to find myself with enough earnings from ad sales to spring for an almost professional DSLR. I’m not a brand loyalist, my last camera was a Canon Digital Rebel, but since I had to replace my lens, I thought I’d see what happened if I jumped the fence. For the record, I loved the Rebel, it worked like a charm and weighed half what the Nikon weighs. The Nikon D200 is a powerhouse of a camera, though. Don’t take my word for it, though, you’ll see what I get from it in my Flickr stream. Downside? It’s heavy.

Panasonic Lumix: Husband shoots with this camera and does mighty fine work with it. It works beautifully in low light, shoots okay video, and the wide angle shots he makes with it dish up some tasty visual goodness. Sometimes I have camera envy because his fits in a coat pocket and he gets pictures that are easily as nice what I get from the Nikon. This is a first rate pocket camera and at 12x optical zoom and plenty of megapixels, you’re not shortchanged because you don’t have an SLR. I recommend this camera and haven’t heard one bad thing about it.

Olympus Stylus Tough-8000: I wasn’t totally blown away by the pictures I got from this camera, but the problem isn’t with the camera, it’s with my bad vision. I can’t see the controls underwater. Did I mention you can take it underwater? How fun is that? While my pics were just okay, you folks with better vision can probably get pretty decent results. I had a great time taking this little gadget swimming, snorkeling, and on a butt busting speedboat ride. I dropped it on concrete too, by accident, and it lives up to the name. It’s tough. And fun. And shoots video. And really is easy to use when I have my glasses on.

Flip Video Camera: I don’t think there’s a video camera that’s easier to use than the Flip. The sound quality isn’t great, but it’s fine for close range and the images look better than you’d expect for such a simple piece of technology. I loved using the Flip (I had one on loan last summer) and can think of no better starter camera for fooling around with video. It’s a terrific, simple, inexpensive piece of technology that does exactly what you expect it to do.

JVC Everio: Shooting with this camera is teaching me what I don’t know about video. I can tell you a few things, but I’m still learning. The built in mic has surprising pickup, it’s much better than I’d expected. It’s super lightweight — it’s kind of amazing how light it is — and fits nicely in the palm of your hand. The camera is easy to use and the menus make sense. I’m not producing great stuff with it — yet — shooting good video and making a nice little movie are two different things that have nothing to do with hardware. The editing software that comes with it is kind of lame — I use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker instead. It’s an expensive piece of hardware — mine was from JVC’s PR folks so I didn’t pay for it. I honestly don’t know enough to be critical yet so you should read some reviews to find out more.

iPhone: I caved. What can I say that you don’t already know. It’s in my kit, I use it all the damn time for video, snapping photos, mapping my location, finding waffles, listening to podcasts (which I can update over the air, that is amazing), squandering my hard earned free time on Twitter, and oh, yeah, making the occasional phone call. I did consider the Droid but went with the iPhone only because the plan was slightly cheaper. And yes, heaven help me, I love this stupid device. And hate myself because of that. Don’t be a tool like me. Get an iPod Touch and do everything over wifi.