Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Stimulating the Economy, One Obsession at a Time

It's a shame. I'm sure I could stimulate the economy like a fiend if the government wanted to give me more than $600. I could burn through twice that easily. If I had my way, I'd immediately go out and put together a 64-bit machine (all priced out already) so that I could mess around with virtualization, Mac OS X, and Compiz Fusion, among other things.


In the middle of that, I'd take a break and go out to buy some ropes for an outdoor climbing setup. I'm just dying to spend time outside climbing on real rock.

On the way back from that, I'd go out and by one of the impending 3G iPhones. I really dislike AT&T, but then I really dislike all cell phone providers and phone developers, so it's just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, or rather the option that affords me the most fun. If I can't find a phone with a good battery life that I can sync with my Mac for an affordable, I might as well go all out and play with a new toy.

Oh, yeah, then I'd order a Mac Mini with a touch screen LCD and make a car PC, complete with GPS, radio, and an HSDPA data connection for completely mobility. :-) That'd get me Leopard, too, which would be very not bad.

Instead, I have to prevent myself from spending compulsively. I'll probably just choose one from my list when the check arrives. Maybe two, depending. It'll likely be the computer, since I just have so much trouble justifying giving AT&T any more money, and I dislike subscriptions pretty intensely. It pretty much seems these days like subscriptions entail ever-increasing costs and ever-decreasing customer care and service. Comcast blows. AT&T blows. Insurance is a pain in the ass, since you pay somebody to cover your ass and have to fight with them when something goes wrong.

Enough complaining. Time to return to the mold of being a good consumer.

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