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Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: Impulse buying, or: never let a geek shop alone 15

Journal by Ethelred Unraed
UPDATE: Yes, I fixed the title...jeez, I proofread the JE, but not the title. I == idjit.

...

Yesterday I was printing out invitations for the Big E's baptism on the ole printer, and -- wouldntchaknowit -- the color cartridge goes bye-bye.

So today I run to the ee-lek-tronix store (the place where they sell all manner of new-fangledness, the place where a true geek sighs, the Geek Nirvana) to buy ink cartridges.

I walk around, spot a nifty speaker set with subwoofer from Creative for only €30. No, I tell myself. No, you're here to get ink cartridges. And nothing else.

I walk some more, spot a nice pre-paid cellphone from Nokia. No, I tell myself. No, you're here to get ink cartridges. And nothing else.

I walk some more (and it starts to dawn on my why they have the ink refills in the far back of the second floor). Oooo, nice keyboard! Hey, Epson color laser printer for only €349! NEC flat CRT monitor for only €249! No, I tell myself. No, you're here to get ink cartridges. And nothing else.

Then I arrive at the ink cartridges. I manage to find the no-name replacements (I'll be damned if I get reamed on the Canon "original" refills -- indeed, this was a sale point on the Canon, that I could get third-party refills, unlike that POS Epson printer I had that died...but I digress).

Then I walk by the specialty paper. Hmm, maybe I should do the cards on cardstock inkjet paper. Grabbed some 200g paper. Kept walking.

Hey, they got Avery labels -- I ran out of mailing labels. Grabbed a box and kept walking.

Came close to getting that monitor, too. (The old Apple CRT is starting to flicker a lot when it's not warmed up for some odd reason.)

Then I walked by the PS2 games. I thought, what the hell, looking doesn't cost anything. Then my eye alights on...

Star Trek: Shattered Universe.

Holy shit. Evil Kirk gets to blow shit up.

I grab the box. Look at the back of it. Ahhh, a Reliant-type ship getting the shit blasted out of it. Photon torpedoes ahoy! At last, a game for Trek the way it was meant to be...lots and lots of battle scenes!

...

KHAAAAAAAAAN!

...

Well, all right, it was only €25, but as tight as money is for us these days...and with Big E around and all...aw, screw it, he'll play it someday, too. ;->

OTOH our tax refund arrived yesterday. So ice cream's on me. *g*

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Impulse buying, or: never let a geek shop alone More

Impulse buying, or: never let a geek shop alone

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  • We love you anyway, snookums.
  • I spent this week about 350€ just by going to the supermarket. My mom bought a digital camera and the PC software *sucks* (thanks Canon, you make nice digicams but your programming lacks!). Yeah, on the iBook it interacts great with iPhoto but that doesn't help my mom. Anyways, tuesday I went there to buy a 25€ CompactFlash reader. Of course, they had a DVD-burner for a mere 95Euro. Took two, one for my parents and one for me. While I was there, ah, I'm spending money... Some music CD's (non
    • Still, I wonder WTF I'm going to do with a DVD burner.

      You bought it to send to me, of course. It's because you're such a great guy.

      • Uhm.... You must be of the same breed as my coworkers. I had those two burners lying on my desk and they turned around my desk like vultures. About every single one wanted to take them.

        Which is quite strange because when I saw that deal at the shop, I actually took the initiative to *call* my coworkers from my (private) cellphone to tell the about the deal and to ask if anyone was interested.

        Guess they all want a free DVD burner in order to get "free" movies. All freeloaders I tell ya! ;-)

        (Note: pos

        • Actually, I'm not sure what I'd do with it either. I don't have any interest in pirating movies, but it would be another cool toy to play with.
          • Yeah, well, the only reason I can see is that I can now fully backup my pr0n.... That will probably take half a disk or one disk, but at least it will be enought to test if the thing works.

            Not to mention the problems I had with Nero. I had a version of Nero for my CD-burner in my machines. Plugged in the burner, start up Nero and the stupid thing tells me that that particular version is tied to the burner and I can't use it with my new DVD. Well, uninstall, use the Nero that comes with the DVD burner..

            • DVD Burners can burn CDs too.

              At least all the ones I've had.

              So you can just swap the CD burner out for the DVD burner, and poof, problem solved. :-P

              Or download the Nero Demo and then nab a serial, which should get it to work for both the CD Burner AND the DVD burner. Is it piracy if you already own 2 copies?

              Oh and copying movies is a PITA, it's not worth taking 2 hours of computer time and $3-$4 of materials to copy a disk and save what amounts to a rental fee.

              PS2 Games on the OTOH....
              • Okay, in my Dual machine I have this really nice and expensive Plextor CD burner, and I would now exchange it for a 95€ DVD-burner??? No way in hell, I will not! ;-)

                The Nero I now installed is for all burners (grabbed a copy on a Fujitsu OEM machine that came with both a DVD-burner and CD-burner and seems to be unbound to hardware). No probs, but it still is quite insane. I don't get this "tied to hardware" thing. It doesn't make any sense: every burner (let it be CD or DVD) comes with Nero, so why

  • I thought the same thing when I saw Dominion Wars in the discount bin. 55 crowns, can't beat that. Trouble is, it was almost impossible to get the damn thing to run to begin with, and it's buggy as all hell and unstable... no matter which side I play I get to a mission I can't get past because it always crashes. :(

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