Man, I can hardly hear myself think over this rain!

Before I go talking about the announcement of the Canon 400D replacement (which is the replacement of my current 350D), I want to talk about something amazing that happened to me at Pep Boys today. Get your popcorn ready folks, but this time, the outcome won't suck like when TO says it. So, it's raining, but I'm really late on my oil change. My last one was on October 1st, and not only has three months gone by, but so has 4,500+ miles. I usually do my oil changes about three months or 3,000 miles, whatever comes first – three months used to always come first cos I never did much driving, but now that I commute down to Santa Monica almost everyday, the miles have gone up. Anyway, I needed to do my oil change – and my folks' too, by the way. I had enough oil in the house, but not enough filters, only one when I obviously needed at least two, one for each car. So what do I do? Head over to Pep Boys. I have only one thing on my mind – oil filters. PL14459 is the serial number. As soon as I enter Pep Boys (the one on Reseda between Saticoy and Sherman Way, right near that Mobil/Chevron where PTA shot one of the final scenes in Magnolia), the first thing I see is this annoying employee. I ignored him. The second thing I see is this tall blonde guy, a famous guy, way off on the other side of the store. I at once recognize him, but I think to myself, there's no way he'd be here! Pep Boys, on a rainy day? So what do I do? Not go over to the filters, that's for sure. I head over to the paint polish isle to my left which gives me a better look of the back of his head. I nose around there for a little bit, toppling bottles over because I'm so nervous. After I get a better look of the guy, who I now think even more is who I think it is, from that isle, I decide to head on over to the oil filters – but I take the long route, you know, just to make sure this guy is who I think it is. I pass by, and sure enough, it is! So I get over to the oil filter area, and without hesitation pick up the PL14459 filters. I wanted three, but I settled with two because that's all the store had. Ah well. I stand there for a sec, and now I have a side-view of the blonde guy with long hair. I think to myself, no one's going to believe me when I tell them (especially Imadul, he always tells me to "take a pic"), so I better whip out my phone and shoot him. So I do. But I'm soo far away! The shot comes out horrible! Click here to see it.

So I'm thinking to myself, there's no way anyone will believe me. But before I can take a better one, he heads over to the cashier. After I realize this, I pick up my filters and head off to the cashier too! What else! I want to get as close to this famous person as I want! So I'm standing right next to the guy, and there's no question it's who I think it is. He's freaking tall, has to be almost seven feet tall, but he doesn't look as good as he's supposed to look – probably cos he's at Pep Boys, I think to myself. He has four wiper blades on the counter and is paying the cashier. I get a look at his wallet. It's huge! A bunch of credit cards! He signs for what he buys and I try to get a look at his signature, it's kind of circular, but masculine at the same time – this guy is built. It turns out, his black 2001 Chevy truck that's sitting right outside needs some new wiper blades and the guy gave him the wrong ones when he was here before, so that's why there are four, two he's buying, two he's returning. The lady calls another employee over to return the blades, and while he goes to do that, the famous guy moves to the side to let me pay for my filters. He was very nice, the famous guy was. Before I continue, let me preface with how star-struck I can get. I get very, very star-struck, even with this guy. I get all nervous and shaky. It's really strange because it never happens any other time. So, I give the lady the two filters, and a twenty dollar bill, and she rings me up. As she's doing that, I gather up all the courage I can and to talk to the famous guy. I turn a little to my right, and as soon as I do, I notice how close he is to me. He has to be about two feet away from me and almost a foot taller than me. So I'm looking straight up like he's a skyscraper. I could feel the force field around him pushing me away, like the opposite of gravity. That's how built this guy was. So even if I didn't have enough courage, I had no choice but to ask, I asked the famous guy...

I ask him: "Are you Fabio?", and sure enough he replies with a smile, "Yes, I am". I had no idea what to say next, so all I said, in a mumble, was, "Yah, cos I saw you back there and I thought, that's Fabio! haha", and I laughed and chuckled. I probably sounded kind of nuts. But he was nice! He laughed! He had something in his right hand, he moved it to the left and stuck his hand out... and I shook it. I shook Fabio's hand. I shook it and he said, "Nice to meet you". I was still pretty shocked that I just shook Fabio's hand so I was still mumbling and I said something that probably resembled, "you too", haha. Then I got my change and left. It was real crazy. I got to my car, and took this photo. Also horrible, but man, was I going nuts. I got in my car, and let out the most intense, full laugh I've ever let out. I get real star-struck!

Wow, that story took longer than I thought it would. All I really wanted to talk about was the new Canon camera, Phil Jackson on PTI today, and the rerun of Conan last night with Dave Chappelle - but it drastically changed after I went to Pep Boys! So, quickly, on with the other topics. I currently own a Canon 350D, and I love it. I bought it about a year after it was released, February 2006 (almost two years old!). About six months later, it's replacement was released, the 400D. It wasn't that great, only a partial upgrade. Canon usually updates its models every 18 months, so if you do the math, August 2006 plus 18 months equals February 2008, and here we are almost. So the update is here! The Canon 450D, and this one has a lot of improvements! First of all, and most obviously for me, is the design change. Hot damn is it curvaceous! Very much like the higher-end models like the 1D and 5Ds, very nice! Then, on the back (not shown in the graphic) is the huge 3" screen, which now shows the scene with live view mode, something that dSLRs are just now starting to get, and something that many people, like Imadul, have been complaining about for a very long time. Also physically, the viewfinder size has increased – something that I am very excited about! Not only because I spend most of my time with my eye against the camera, but also because with the extra room, they also have an ISO display! That made me scream when I first read it. The ISO is now shown in the camera's viewfinder. Oh so many times did I find myself shooting at ISO 1600 outdoors or with flash, haha. I hated that. And now, the ISO button is on the top of the camera near the shutter so we can press it without picking our heads up off the viewfinder. It's a very revolutionary update. The sensor also gets a boost, it now captures 12MP, compared to my current 8MP – but remember, more megapixels doesn't always mean better quality photos. The largest card I currently have is an 8GB (I don't believe those people who say that larger cards are more dangerous because if they go corrupt you're screwed, I don't want to live my life scared like that) and I can usually get over 2,000 photos on the card. But that was with 8MP, now with 12MP I'll definitely get less. But guess what, I can't use my old CF card anymore. That's right, the new 450D only accepts SD (or SDHC) cards! What a bummer! But memory is so cheap now, so I guess I shouldn't really be complaining. No word on price or official release date, but it'll probably be about $700 with a release date mid-February. Probably not on my birthday because it falls on a Saturday this year while Canon has been dropping this low-end Rebel line on Thursdays. I'm thinking a Valentine's Day release, but no final word of course. I'm thinking about upgrading too!

I added two videos as well. Last night, Conan showed up without a beard. Not because he shaved it, but because this week is reruns. The whole week, besides Monday, is from Chicago in May 2006. Last night, they aired the episode when Dave Chappelle was on. Well I captured it and added it to the site, so you can download it if you like here. Or you can watch its stream below or at the page linked a second ago. Also, Phil Jackson was on PTI earlier today. He talked about losing to the Spurs last night (about which I had a heated conversation with Lauren earlier today in a parking structure), Kobe, Kwame, and the Laker team as a whole. I very fun interview, as is almost all things on PTI. Download it here or watch its streamed version below or from its page just linked. I also put up that 60 Minutes Musharraf interview from a while back up, and streaming, here, for anyone interested. That's pretty much all I wanted to talk about – long post! Probably the longest! Just want to give a Happy Birthday wish to the most annoying Office character, Andy, but without whom the episode The Return (one of the best episodes of the serious!) would be very boring. So Happy 34th Birthday, Ed. That's all I have for you guys. Watch out for the Laker game tomorrow night at 5:30, in Dallas facing the Mavericks. KCAL9 coverage starts at 5! It's going to be a huge deal! Take care everyone, and stay dry. There's some intense rain outside! see u.