SlashChick's Journal: I am such a bum!!

I am such a bum!!

So I got great news last week... I'm getting over $5000 back on my tax return. This means I can finally pay off all (er, most) of this crazy debt I've built up. I am pretty excited about the prospect of there actually being money in my checking account!

So what did I do today but open Slashdot and see the story about the Game Boy Advance SP... *sigh* I used to have a GBA, but I sold it and my original Game Boy (the big honkin' gray plastic one) to my ex-boyfriend for $165. This included ALL of my original games like Chu Chu Rocket and Tetris! :( (I miss Chu Chu Rocket. I will have to buy it on eBay.)

Anyway, as you can see here, I've purchased my new Game Boy and am pretty excited about it. It's charging on top of my (huge) printer right now. (My printer would double as a coffee table or an ottoman if I ever needed to use it as one.)

Anyway, I'm pretty excited. I haven't purchased anything else for so long, and I knew that I wanted one when I first heard about the new release in November or so. And, as you can see from the picture, they are tiny! I bought the Yoshi game with it, so I'll let you guys know how well I like that one.

Did any of you impulse-buy this as quickly as I did? Do you have a favorite game that you would recommend? (I'd certainly recommend Chu Chu Rocket to any of you who like Tetris, and the Mario Kart game is high on my list of games to buy as well.) Let me know!

Free loan to Uncle Sugar

[Safety Cap]

If you're getting that much back, perhaps it is time to find a new accountant.

You'd get a better return if you took fewer withholdings and dumped the extra $$$ into a money market or some other "safe" investment (slumlord [uni-giessen.de] springs to mind)... :)

Re:Free loan to Uncle Sugar

[SlashChick]

I actually took two withholdings back when I was salaried... but I quit my job in May. Between May and December I only had about $7000 of reported income. I also had my own business and the business wrote off $8000 worth of expenses for 2002. Lo and behold, a freakin' ton of money back.

I totally agree with you on the withholding thing. In fact, for 2001, when I was salaried all year, I actually ended up owing $400... which was okay with me because that meant I had a lot more money to invest... and I didn't

Pics

[NaveWeiss]

I downloaded all the pictures in your user dir, and was disappointed to see that most of them were server pictures (is that for the insurance?) and only 3 of were your pics. But there were street pics too, and I wondered where did you take them from. Are they from SF and LA?

Re:Pics

[ces]

As someone said in one of SlashChick's other JE's "nice rack!" ;-)

(and slashchick isn't bad looking either)

Advance Wars

[nob]

My all time favorite GBA game is Gameboy Advance Wars [ign.com]. It's a great turn-based war strategy game. It actually got a 9.9 out of 10 on Pocket IGN.

Your printer

[Surak]

What's up with the HP Color LaserJet 4500? It's a nice printer, don't get me wrong. But, it's a little slow for a laser printer (IMHO), and, quite honestly, any of HP's color inkjets blow it away in terms of color output, especially for photos.

The only thing I can figure is that you do graphic design for a living, because not many other people would spend $2500 on a color laser printer instead of $100-$500 on a color inkjet.

Just curious. :)

Re:Your printer

[SlashChick]

Well, the reason I bought it was because I got an astounding deal on it. The printer has about 10,000 pages on it, and I got it for $600.

I guess there are a couple of things you should know before I go further.

1. I hate buying inkjet cartridges. I think they are a complete waste of money.
2. $600 rocks for that printer. I haven't yet seen one cheaper.
3. I am a graphic designer, and I require color accuracy for printouts. There's no way you could spend less than $500 on an inkjet and get better color quality. I

Re:Your printer

[Surak]

At $600, I would've bought it instantly, I have to admit, considering it retails for $2500. ;)

And yes, that's why I said you must be a graphic designer -- only a graphic designer would have the need for the color matching ability and high-volume output capability.

I'm sticking with inkjets for now as the only thing I need a printer for is to printout webpages, e-mail, and presentations and papers for my master's program.

As for color output, inkjets can't match lasers for color accuracy, but for nice photo

geek

[synx]

you ... are ... such ... a ... huge ... geek.

But thats ok.