As it turns out, my parents have also been considering buying a digital SLR camera.  Together we reviewed some of the literature last night.  (I really like this article: http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/building-a-digital-slr-system)

All in all I am growing increasingly convinced that for a photographer at my level, choosing between Canon and Nikon is almost irrelevant.  It's impossible for me to predict what lens family I will want to be using 10 years down the line, and I find it really hard to predict what kind of advanced features I will want.

But there is one thing I really know that I want to be able to do well.  Low-light photography.

Everything that I've read still indicates that all of the mid-range DSLRs excel at low-light photography, so I'm not too worried.  But my house, as dr_memory would say, is arguably the Kobayashi Maru scenario for indoor photography.  So I need to run some trials.

This is therefore an open invitation to the DSLR aficionados on my friends list to come over to our house, in exchange for lunch or dinner or drinks or dessert, and show me how you achieve those lovely indoor photographs with natural light.  Let me know if you're interested in showing off your equipment (heh heh) and we'll set up a time.

And pls hurry!  I don't know how long I can keep my finger from hitting this "Buy it now!" button!