Gadget Paralysis

The most disturbing thing happened to me today... I had a few checks to cash and some time to kill (slow day at work), so I walked out of the bank with a little over $200 in my pocket and had a little mini-debate with myself in the bank parking lot. As a married, responsible adult with a mortgage and a new Snotmobile, there are probably a million things that I should do with the money. But I've been pretty good about spending lately and didn't have any pressing needs, so I decided to take a trip to Best Buy.

One other strong motivating factor: I was hungry for deep-fried lumps of chicken, and the local Best Buy is down the street from Chick-fil-A. Clearly, this was a trip I was fated to make. Not that an avowed gadget junkie like myself needs a whole lot of prompting.

On the short drive over I tried to figure out what to get; I had the cash, and was even willing to break out the old credit card if necessary. Would it be a video game? I'd been itching to play Dark Sector despite less-than-stellar reviews. How about some DVDs? The wife wants to add Enchanted to her (horrifying) library of movies to watch when she wanted me to make myself scarce, and I have a weakness for buying old kung fu movies and westerns that I haven't even seen. Perhaps a computer or stereo peripheral that I didn't even know I needed yet? I even toyed with the idea of buying a PlayStation 3 now that Blu-ray has won the format war.

So after 30 minutes of browsing the aisles, what did I proudly carry to the check-out? A whole fat lot of nothing. I talked myself out of every single item on my list. Video games? I've got three that I've barely started, let alone finished, and Grand Theft Auto IV is looming. DVDs? They wanted 20 bucks for Enchanted, and none of the kung fu flicks caught my eye. Computer toys? Eh. PlayStation 3? I hear there's a price cut coming soon, and there aren't any must-have games out for it yet.

The only thing that really made my techie heart race were the televisions... 46" 1080p LCD HDTVs for $1,500, oh my! I spent five minutes staring at one until I actually said to myself, "Get out of here before you do something really stupid" and slinked out the door feeling responsible, but totally unfulfilled. I know that the toys people crave get expensive as they get older, but I thought I had a few years to go before mine reached the $1,500 mark. Does this mean I'll be in full mid-life crisis mode in a few short years, eyeing power boats and sports cars, at the tender age of 30? Man, I feel old today.

Disclaimer: yeah, I know I suck. There are people with real financial problems out there, people losing their houses in the mortgage crisis, and I'm bitching about not being able to figure out which gratuitous toys to buy in order to get my hit off the consumerist crack pipe. Boo freakin' hoo.

Disclaimer to the disclaimer: most of the people caught in the ARM housing crunch are idiots. "Interest rates are at all-time record lows! Let's base our financial planning on the idea that they'll stay there or get lower for the next 20-30 years! Wheeeeee!"

One final, unrelated note: if I look out the east-facing windows of my house, it's sunny and inviting, without a cloud in the sky. Out the west windows, it's overcast and snowing. I'm going to take the dog for a walk and try and figure out if some dimensional rift has opened above my garage.