Lust, Consumerism and Electronics

Lately I have become obsessed with acquiring more technology; little home electronic devices to make my life more enjoyable.  Actually I think I am just more interested in spending money.  Maybe spending is an addiction, and having spent before Christmas I am still on a spending high.

The unfortunate part about me spending is that both the wife and I are trying to have 2006 be the year the mortgage disappears.  This is very ambitious for us, while technically possible I am not sure it is feasible, but we are going to make a dedicated effort to beat it to a pulp. We have also talked about having a pool installed in the next year or two; a pool that comes with a landscaped back yard and a lovely interlocked patio. This is something we will not borrow for, but rather save until we can pay cash for it.

So spending money and our goals for the year are contradictory. This does not mean I cannot dream about it.  So here is my list of expenditures I would make in 2006 if I had unlimited money

1) DELL 20.1-inch wide screen LCD
Of all the things I want my new Dell LCD is still on the top of the list. Technically I have a beautiful high quality 19 inch CRT at home. There is nothing wrong with it and replacing it is not required. I do have to say the widescreen LCD is a sexy as hell.  It usually retails in the 750.00 range, but over the Christmas holiday it is around $500 – $550.00. I have even considered just ordering and facing the wrath at home later.  How long can she really stay mad at me?

2) PVR
For some reason I have become obsessed with the Idea of owning a Personal Video Recorder.  The weirdest part, I don’t even watch TV more than and hour or 2 a week. I would not use this and my technology-angsty wife would never use it.

3) Digital Receiver and TV
With Santa bringing the boys an Xbox for Christmas this year, I have officially run out of component inputs on my Digital Receiver. If you can believe this I have to run the Xbox through the component input on the VCR and then pipe it into the receiver. How archaic is that.  Besides our existing digital receiver does not support High Def and the Xbox does.  Of course does one really need to play Lego Star Wars in hi-def?

4) MP3 Player
I blame this on my brother-in-law. In the days before Christmas he became a little obsessed dropping hints about wanting a new I-Pod.  Based on his idea I picked up a low-end mp3 player for my eldest son and a better one for my wife.  Now I don’t have one and I would like one; not just any one but a nice shiny 30gig iPod.  Mind you I sit at my computer desk at work all day. All my music is already in mp3 format on my computer, and I have headphones… so the mp3player is for what?

5) Computer upgrade part 1
My wife’s home PC just does not cut the mustard anymore. It needs to be upgraded. She refuses to accept my old one, so she really needs a new one of her own.

6) Computer upgrade part 2.
All my gaming friends are updating their video cards.  This is making me twitchy.  My system could use another gig of ram; it could also use a new high end AGP video card so that I can run 3 million polygons at 60 frames per second. Really I need that.

7) Satellite or digital TV.
Yeah like I need 182 channels to watch 2 hours of TV a week.


So much lust for things I don’t need.  I think I will just concentrate on the new Dell monitor.  My Birthday is only a couple of months away so any relatives thinking about buying me a gift it sure would be nice if you coordinated it with each other ;-)