TravisD, the messing with your stomach is probably the acidity. Some coffee can be downright nasty (battery acid nasty), while some can be super super mild. The region, the quality and the type of bean... all can come into that situation.

For my personal tastes... there are a few that I like (several ex-g/f's and the current one too have been VERY sensitive to the acidity in coffee). I have found that for my tastes and budget... eastern african coffee works well for me (Kenya and Tanzania). As well, Blue Mountain coffee either from Jamaica, or Mexico are pretty decent too. Stick with the medium roast if you can. The biggest thing is just to try a bunch of coffee, and find which one works for you. I have both a drip machine (a thermal carafe one so the burner on the bottom doesn't bake the snot out of my coffee and evaporate all the water after its made), and an espresso machine... both can make good coffee, or americano (given the machine)... but my grinder was the best investment I made.... it always makes my coffee better than it used to be when I had that little blade piece of crap.

Experiment! :)

Hmm... no... I think that comment covered it. 'awesome sony sensors'. Really... didn't mention design at all. Good reading comprehension.

I've been dealing on KEH.com now for a bit for some used Minolta glass.. there's some good things out there. I have had a a200 for a year and a bit now, and have filled out lens selection to phase out the use of the kit lens (its ok... but nothing great). Minolta auto-focus glass works great on the a200 (focuses a little faster on the a700 from all reports that I've seen).

Get the a200... save the $$$ that the Canon / Nikon would have cost you... ignore all those people talking about the poor range from Sony... because you can use all that great Minolta glass, and if you score big on the $$$ somehow... you can get some Zeiss glass that they just DREAM they could have. When they say buy into the system... and use that as a diss for Sony, its generally because they don't have a clue that the Minolta stuff works on there (or that companies like Tamron, Sigma and others support the Sony format as well... I believe I heard a rumour a bit back that Tokina is going to throw in a range too).

Get an ok body... bulk on glass for your needs, grab a flash maybe... experiment and enjoy.

you sir have not obviously priced out serious speaker / amp setups let alone room acoustic dampening materials... headphones are MUCH more affordable (yes... even at this price point).

So subjective... really hard to answer.

I like the $$$/performance that Logitech offers, but Creative and Altec Lansing have some decent $$$/performance stuff too.
Klipsch is good on the high end of the $$$, and BOSE is well... BOSE... avoid at all cost. ;)

Best solution is to do as with home speakers... listen to lots of different ones, and ideally to the music you want to listen to, and make your decision based on that. Testing inside a store, or a big box place would actually be not bad for simulating an office experience.... all that back ground noise and crappy acoustics. ;)

this could become the pocketable point and shoot sized camera for camera buffs!

Going out for a quick bite to eat, don't feel like lugging the SLR with a few lens' and a flash.... just pop this baby in the pocket and you're set!

Me want too!

excuse me Ian... have you ever looked at a Sony alpha dSLR? I'm guessing not. They used CompactFlash cards (memory stick only with a CF --> MS adapter).

maybe its because i have a crap load of CF cards sitting next to me... but I for one prefer the CF's.
Maybe its just me, and the cards I've bought... but I've found the CF cards a LOT faster for transfers too... so me... I'm sticking with CF.
Too bad Sony didn't stick with it in their new intro-models (hopefully they stick with it in the a700-900's successors).

I went the route last year of getting the intro model (Sony a200), and then pouring money into the accessories. I got a nice 50mm f/1.4, a steal of a deal on a 55-300 that I wasn't even really looking for, and last years model mid-high flash (again... damn good deal).

Any future stuff purchased would be some replacements for the kit lens (I'm thinking the 18-70 f/2.8 from Sigma), and a replacement for the 55-300 (more f/2.8 glass for sure).

And with all of that... it'll still come out slightly under a 2 kit lens Nikon or Canon pack in the mid range.

My a200 does great work in RAW mode (the Sony in body jpg is really pretty nasty), and gets me good quality work.

You don't have to go the Canon/Nikon route... I really do like having built-in stabilization. Means I can pick up older Minolta AF lenses and still get stabilization (maybe I can find a great deal on a near-mint 'beercan'). ;)
I like Olympus and Pentax's latest models too... some good lookers (and again... TONS of glass out there... no matter what the Canon/Nikon people say).

Get a decent camera in your range... and snap pictures. Along the way... you might find a comfort spot to getting good pictures (that is the trick... and very camera independant).

snap snap! :)

because goodness knows the CompactFlash cards their other dSLR's were using are so proprietary.... *eye roll*

If I want to use a Memory Stick in my a200 I'd have to use an adapter... a CF to MemStick adapter that is.

Sony is pretty evil in general... but these are pretty much Minolta's with a Sony nametag on it.