Things that make me go *drool*

Sometimes it can be tough. From my father, I inherited an insatiable lust to buy new things. The latest bright, shiny toy brings a smile to my face and makes me want to rip out my credit card while shouting "GIMME! GIMME! GIMME! MINE! MINE! MINE!" Holding me back, however, is the better financial sense that my mother instilled in me. This side of me recognizes that if I plunk down $100 on that new eGizmo, it’ll amuse me for a month or so and then will be tossed to the side.

Even if a purchase craving gets past my "financial filter", it encounters another obstacle: my wife. She will gently remind me that I really don’t *need* that doodad and that our money needs to go to a few more important areas like the roof, new car payments, and our Walt Disney World vacation.  While I know she’s right (most of the time, at least), it doesn’t make me want the item any less.

Going on the theory that writing about your feelings helps you work through them, I’m going to list my lastest purchase cravings along with how much they would cost (not counting shipping or tax) and why I "need" them.  (The prices of all of these are from NewEgg.)

Rosewill Black 15.4" Notebook BackPack ($29.99)

Reason I Want It:  I take my work laptop home with me every night and back into work in the morning.  Up until now, I’ve been using the bag that my office bought for me along with my laptop.  However, this bag is about 4 years old and the zipper has broken.  If I don’t zip it up "just so", the top of the bag hangs open as if it weren’t zipped at all.  I thought a backpack would be a better option than a hand-help bag that I currently have because, during rain storms, I wouldn’t have to juggle my umbrella, laptop bag, and ID badge that opens the door to my work.  Plus, we could use this on our Disney World trip to take a laptop with us.  This would primarily be for my office computer, so why not ask if my office would buy one?  Well, with the poor economy, we’ve had a raise freeze.  In addition, my office is pinching pennies left and right.  I’d rather "lay low" and pounce when the raise freeze is lifted than bug my higher-ups to buy me a $30 laptop bag.

EA Sports Active ($56.99)

Reason I Want It:  You might have noticed the lack of updates on my WiiFit workouts.  That’s because I’ve pretty much dropped it.  For all of the sweat I put into my workouts, they generally didn’t seem to result in too much weight loss.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still love WiiFit, but I feel like I’m ready to take it to the next level.  From what I’ve seen, EA Sports Active is this next level.  It looks like the workouts are more cardio than yoga/strength training and more customizeable.  My "Weight Watchers Style" diet has taken me almost to my goal weight.  I would mainly use this to tone my body and keep myself at or near my goal weight.  And while I’d love to get the chance to review this (*hint* *hint*), I’m not going to hold my breath.

iMicro WebCam ($10.99)

Reason I Want It: My parents live in Long Island.  My brother-in-law lives in Buffalo.  Both are long drives from our house and so we don’t see them as often as we’d like.  It’s a shame because I want my kids to talk to and see their relatives more often.  Phone conversations are nice, but a video chat would be so much better.  NHL could show my parents his new drawing.  JSL could see his Cousin S face-to-face.  My grandmother (currently living with my parents) could see how much the kids have grown.

IOGEAR Portable Media Player Enclosure ($99.99) and 250GB Hard Drive ($57.99)

Reason I Want It: We have a lot of DVDs.  The kids like watching TV and enjoy watching movies from time to time.  However, watching a movie means we need to first find the movie in our pile of DVDs, then pop in the disc.  If they want to watch the movie often, the disc and case will be precariously piled on top of the TV where any sudden movement (say, jumping children) can shake them down.  This Portable Media Player would make for a better solution.  I would rip our DVDs to movie files and upload them to the 250GB hard drive.  We would then connect the Portable Media Player (with the hard drive inside it) to the TV.  A few menu choices later and our children would be watching a movie.  We might even be able to take this on trips with us to turn the boring hotel TV selection into tons of free movies.  (Free as in no more $$$ to the hotel, not as in downloaded illegally from the Internet.)  This item, of course, is the most pricey of all of my items ($157.98 total) and thus the least likely to happen.  Still, since it is the most geeky of all of these items, it’s the one I drool over the most.

And there you have it.  My Big 4 wishlist.  I may not be able to run to toss them all in my shopping cart right now (not unless I want to answer some serious questions from B as to the $250+ charge on my credit card), but I can dream can’t I?  Of course, if any of the companies that make these items (or similar items) want to send some my way, I’m more than willing to do some blog reviews.  😉