In need of a new Digital camera

I'm pretty P.O'd. I went to Watkins Glen this weekend and had an excellent time. Had my digital camera, a Panasonic DMC-LC33 that I bought in the summer of 2003. Took 80+ pics, and had it in my pocket. It has a sleep feature where it turns off after a minute or two, but would not come back out of it. Even with new batteries. Trying to figure out what happened, I took the memory card out and forgot to put it back in (I Know, I'm an idiot). So, I'm pretty sure that was cleaned up with the garbage, so not only did I lose 90+ pics. I need a new dig. camera. Preferably in the $300 range, I'm looking for the best in that range but am not a pro. Any suggestions?

 

Haha, but will they be able to zoom in on hotties?

Update: Turns out the warranty is still valid, so I'm sending it to them to be fixed. If that fails, I get a nice credit for a new one to the store.