Weighing The Options (Part One)

Today might be a day associated with romance, but despite the warmth and sunshine we had here in NoVA – which were offset by all of the snow on the ground – spring still seems far away, so it’s not quite time for a young man’s fancy to lightly turn to thoughts of love.  However, we do find ourselves in that season in which a Jon’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of buying stuff.
Which is to say tax refund and bonus season.
It’s still the early days of that season; I’ve received my refunds, but my bonus is still a couple of weeks away.  Even so, that means that at present my bank account is rather larger than usual.*
I don’t have to buy anything, of course, and I have gotten through this season in the past without making any major purchases, but I always feel as though I ought to buy something.
The alternative to buying something, of course, beyond simply not buying anything, is to put the money away into savings or some other investment.
It’s likely that I will do that – I already have put away a fair amount into savings – but still, the odds are that I’ll make some sort of purchase that requires spending at least a bit more money than I would normally.
It’s just a question of what I’ll be spending that money on, and that has been a rather difficult one to answer.
For example, I’ve been considering picking up a Surface Pro 2 to replace my current Windows tablet, the Samsung Series 7 Slate.
There are a variety of reasons I’ve been considering this option.
The Surface Pro 2 has better battery life, a faster processor, higher resolution and a better screen, and unlike my Slate, which originally ran Windows 7, the Surface Pro 2 was designed to work with the latest OS from Redmond.
Which leads me to the other advantage.  While the Slate has a Wacom digitizer – which was the primary appeal back when I bought it – Samsung has not provided a Windows 8 driver that I can install, so I’m forced to use the generic driver from Wacom, which is…not great.  It’s impossible to calibrate properly, it’s laggy, and palm rejection is spotty at best.
However, the Surface Pro 2 also has a Wacom digitizer, and in playing around with it at Best Buy, I’ve found it to be fantastic in comparison to the Slate.  Almost better than my Cintiq, actually (about which more later).
Beyond that, the Surface Pro 2 also has multiple accessories, such as the snap-on keyboard covers and a docking station.
So why not buy one?
Well, while it doesn’t offer all of the same advantages, I’ve also been considering the Nokia Lumia 2520.  Sure, it’s Windows RT rather than full Windows, and it doesn’t have an active digitizer, but it does support 4G/LTE, so I have the possibility of being always connected, and it has a lot of features for working cooperatively with my Nokia Windows Phone.
Plus, it’s a lot cheaper (setting aside the cost of the data plan, at any rate).
I’m not really considering that one too seriously, but it is somewhat tempting.
The other problem is that there are multiple options as far as the Surfrace Pro 2.  The cheapest has a 64GB SSD, with increasing storage options – and prices – going up to 512GB.
I’m not overly concerned about storage, given the expandability provided by the microSD slot and USB port, but the 256GB and 512GB versions come with 8GB of RAM, as opposed to the 4GB of RAM in the lower-capacity models.  In my estimation, the 256GB version offers the best balance of price and performance.
You may be thinking, ”So just shut up and buy it, already!”
Well, unfortunately, none of the brick-and-mortar stores around here that carry the Surface Pro 2 carry anything above the 128GB version, and the 256GB version is out of stock online.
Besides, the odds are that at some point soon Microsoft will do a refresh of the line with a faster CPU.  Of course, by that time it might be worth waiting to pick up the Surface Pro 3…
And then there’s yet another tablet option in the form of the Cintiq Companion.
As good as the Wacom digitizer is on the Surface Pro 2, one has to assume that it’s even better on a tablet that was built by Wacom itself.  Given my love for Wacom products, and the fact that this is a tablet designed specifically for artists, one would think that buying this would be a no-brainer.
Except…
The battery life is actually worse than that of my Slate.  It’s heavier and thicker than my Slate or the Surface Pro 2.  It’s using a previous generation Intel processor (which is part of the reason it has lousy battery life).
And it’s expensive.  The 256GB model – on sale – costs as much as the 512GB Surface Pro 2.
Even the Hybrid version – which I would have less use for – running Android is more expensive than the Surface Pro 2.
Besides, if I’m going to give a bunch of money to Wacom, there’s always this.
Then there are other computer-related purchases that I could make.
For example, I’ve been toying with the notion of getting a new, general-purpose desktop, which would allow me to turn my current desktop into a dedicated graphics workstation.  One such option would be this tablet-like desktop from Dell.
So I find myself uncertain how to proceed, which is, much like the annual buying frenzy, not terribly unusual.  That, more than simply weighing the pros and cons of my assorted options, is rather the point of this multi-part set of posts.  In the next installment I’ll look at some of my other options, and start diving into the underlying issue at the core of my indecisiveness.

*This is despite the fact that when I went to pay my mortgage online via my checking account I accidentally selected the wrong payee.  A payee to whom I didn't owe anything, resulting in my having a rather large credit added to that account, an account that isn't terribly useful to me.  I called them to straighten it out, and they're mailing me a check, but in the meantime, my account is one extra mortgage payment smaller than it could be.

ALL The Hats

(On Wednesday)
Me:  We should get some kind of expensive food tomorrow.  I don't know what that entails, but it seems like the thing to do.
Me:  Tomorrow is bonus day.
Scott:  I'm down with that.

(Later, it was determined that we would end up moving "movie night" to that evening instead of the typical Thursday.)
Me:  Given the circumstances, we might have to go with default pizza tonight.  We can do the expensive food thing next week.  I'll still have $$$.
Scott:  Unless you spend it all on hats.
Me:  That's a real danger.  I'm browsing hats4alloccasions.com right now.
Scott:  They have so many hats!
Me:  They have ALL the hats.

You’d THINK That (But You’d Be Wrong)

I get paid every other Thursday, which means that a couple of times a year there are months in which I have three paydays.
You’d think that would be a good thing, but more often than not it doesn’t work out that way.
Often it’s the result of unexpected expenses that pop up – which seems to be like a financial variation on Parkinson’s law, which is to say that expenses will expand to consume the income available – but mostly it ends up being a scheduling problem, or almost as frequently, a combination of the two.
Basically, when it’s strictly a scheduling issue, the problem is the distribution of due dates for bills.
A three payday month will often mean, for example, that my mortgage, car payment, car insurance, electric bill, and a few other minor bills all come due within a two week period, with no payday bridging the gap, meaning that I have to pay all of them out of one paycheck, in addition to also doing things like buying groceries and keeping the car gassed up.  Or in other words, living.
It’s usually not a huge problem – it’s more a matter of it not ending up being a boon the way it ought to be, which makes it a minor annoyance more than anything else – as I don’t really live paycheck to paycheck, and it’s never catastrophic, but it can make for a bit of a lean period, particularly if I haven’t been paying attention and didn’t notice the three payday month awaiting me and didn’t shuffle money around accordingly in preparation for it.
The worst is when there’s also an unexpected expense thrown into the mix.
This month is a three payday month that brings with it the annoyance of the scheduling and unexpected expense variety.
Well, really, unexpected plus expected.
The unexpected one happened a while back when my home server died and I bought something to replace it.  That made for a lean week or so, but by the next payday I was mostly back on track.
Then Christmas happened.
So the past couple of weeks have found me being forced to be a little more thrifty than usual, and I hate it.
However, once this week’s payday rolls around it should – barring anything unexpected – be pretty smooth sailing from here on out, particularly given that tax refund, bonus, and “merit increase*” time are awaiting me in the near-future.
I will say, though, that given the way I’ve been living for the past two weeks I’m going to be hard-pressed to keep from giving in to the temptation to go hog fucking wild come Thursday…

*I wish we’d just call a spade a spade and say it’s a Cost of Living Adjustment and set aside all pretense about it actually being connected in any way, shape, or form to job performance, and dispense with the whole “performance review” exercise/pantomime.

I Wonder If She Wants The Cereal?

As mentioned in earlier posts, I filed my taxes about two weeks ago, and had, in under a week, already gotten – and spent – my VA refund, and I was eagerly awaiting my Federal refund.
Given that I’ve found that it typically takes a week at most for me to get it, I was anticipating its arrival shortly after the VA refund.
Unfortunately, I got an e-mail informing me that the IRS was reporting a delay in processing of refunds, so it would take slightly longer than usual.  When I checked the “Where’s my refund?” page on the IRS site, it informed me that I would get my refund “by the 7th.”
It had been my intention to take a day off from work once I had the money in order to make a Costco run and stock up on those things which Costco is useful to me for stocking up on, which, honestly, isn’t a lot, but still ends up costing considerably more than a standard trip to the grocery store does.
So, in the parlance of the Internet, I was disappoint.
After all, I had hoped to schedule my day off in such a way as to give myself a long weekend by taking either a Friday or a Monday off.
That wouldn’t work, without additional waiting, if I wasn’t going to have the money until Tuesday.
With hope in my heart, I checked the IRS page again yesterday afternoon and found that the date had become more specific, stating that it was scheduled to be deposited in my account on February 6th.
Hooray!  I could take Monday off!
However, there still remained a problem in the form of my spending my entire VA refund so long before getting my Federal, which left me with a minimal amount of available funds until then unless I moved some scheduled bill payments around a little.  Which isn’t to say that I’d be paying bills late, just later than originally planned, which would give me some breathing room until Monday.
On any other weekend I would have been fine just waiting to do my shopping on Monday, but…well, the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and it’s become something of an annual tradition for me to do my grocery shopping while everyone else in the world is watching the big sweaty mens playing with a ball on their TVs and I can move through the aisles of the stores as though I’m living in a post-Rapture world free of crying children and slow-moving old people.
It is, quite frankly, one of my favorite days of the year.  It’s like I’m living in the world of Night of the Comet or I Am Legend, only without the homicidal zombie mutants chasing after me.  (The zombie mutants are what I contend with every other day of the year.)
So I couldn’t not go shopping on Sunday night.  The whole experience means more to me than Christmas.
So I shuffled things around and had to hope that the IRS was as good as its word and that the money would be there on Monday, or, barring that, no later than Wednesday.
I got up this morning intending to do my usual Saturday stuff, with the nagging question of “What if the money doesn’t come in until, say, Friday?  I should just hold off on buying anything until I know for sure that it’s there.”
With that in mind, for the sheer hell of it, I logged into my bank’s mobile site on my phone to check my balance.  The tiny text on the screen was hard to read, but it was immediately apparent that the first number in my balance wasn’t the same as it was yesterday, or the number that I was actually expecting.  A quick zoom showed that it was, however, the number it would be if my refund had been deposited.  Checking recent transactions confirmed that this was the case.
Yay!
So, unburdened by any financial concerns, I headed out to pick up my comics and a few other things to tide me over until I could do the serious, no hordes of mutant zombies shopping on Sunday and Monday.
Some time back I discovered that, ironically enough, the best price for cigarettes can be found at CVS Pharmacy.  Unfortunately, others have discovered that as well, so they’re frequently out of stock of my cigarettes.  Today, when I went, as I do every week, to the CVS in the same plaza as the comic shop I found that their cigarette shelves had been heavily raided, so I decided that I’d stop somewhere and get a pack or two and then pick up more tomorrow or Monday.
After that I stopped at Best Buy to look at Bluetooth keyboards for my slate, as I had been mistaken when I read that the slate came with the dock and the keyboard, and to pick up a MicroSD card to add to the slate’s overall storage.
I ended up buying neither, opting instead to just order the actual Samsung keyboard for it online at some point, and finding that they didn’t have any 32 GB MicroSD cards, which is what I was looking for.  I did pick up a cheap, low-profile flash drive for it, however.
In any case, I went from Best Buy over to the nearby Giant (a grocery store) and picked up a few things, then stopped at the unattended service counter – I’ve never seen service counters at stores unattended as often as I do in VA in any of the other places I’ve lived – and waited for someone to show up to sell me cigarettes.
While I was waiting, I could hear some woman at the registers very loudly repeating, “How much is the cereal?  I want the cereal.  How much is the cereal?  I want the cereal.”
She was stuck on that loop for a solid two minutes, before moving on to asking how much the Coke was, and stating that she wanted that as well, periodically reiterating that she wanted the cereal.
From what I could gather, based on her loud, undirected rant, her EBT card (the 21st Century version of food stamps) had not been activated/loaded on February 1st, as it was supposed to have been.
”It was supposed to be activated on February 1st!  It’s February 4th!  That’s terrible!  It was supposed to be activated on February 1st!  It’s February 4th!  Well, I got the cereal.  I wanted the cereal.  And the Coke.  But it was supposed to be activated on February 1st!  It’s February 4th!”
I’m not kidding.  She went on like this non-stop, to, apparently, no one, or to the uncaring Universe.
Or possibly to all of her fellow shoppers within earshot – which covered a fair distance, honestly – who were equally uncaring, or at the very least were completely incapable of doing anything to resolve her issue.  Even if we did care, or were able to do something about it, we pretty much would have gotten the message after the first twenty repetitions.
I will not deny that it must be frustrating to discover that you don’t have the ability to buy the things you need after you’ve walked into a store and made it all the way to the checkout fully expecting to be able to do so – after all, I had been, more or less, in the same boat earlier in the day – and I sympathize, particularly given that she was accompanied by someone in a wheelchair (I assume the EBT card, if that’s what was supposed to have been activated on February 1st – bearing in mind that today is February 4th, in case you forgot – was part of her companion’s disability benefits) but it was pretty seriously annoying, and is a good representative example of why I enjoy my Super Bowl shopping experience so very much.
Still, at least she got the cereal.
I’m just not sure she really wanted it.

****

Despite the influx of funds, I didn’t really end up spending any more money than usual today.  Actually, I spent a bit less, since I didn’t buy a carton of cigarettes.  Even the extra purchase of the flash drive for the slate didn’t amount to much, as it was relatively inexpensive.
Monday, however, will be a different matter entirely, since I never walk out of Costco without having spent, at a minimum, $100.

****

(Note: Our boss refers to my co-worker and I as brothers.)
Boss:  I’m worried about your brother.
Me:  Why?
Boss:  He’s getting jaded.
Me:  Tell him to join the club.
Boss:  I know.  That’s the problem.  You’re jaded, and I’m jaded…I can’t deal with all of us being jaded.
****
Boss:  So I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Me:  You mean I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Boss:  …yeah.
Me:  I knew that was going to happen as soon as I heard there were going to be interns, because I’m fucking psychic.
Boss:  Well, I thought about giving him to your brother…
Me:  What’s he going to do with an intern?
Boss:  I don’t know.  Stop being mean to me.  You’re going to make me cry.
Me:  No I’m not.
Boss:  Yes you are.
Me:  No, you’re going to make you cry.
Me:  *Sigh*  Fine, I’ll try to to think of something for him to do.  When does he start.
Boss:  He started already, but he’s already working on some other stuff.  You probably won’t have to do anything with him until next week, so you’ve got time to come up with some projects for him.

****

(The next day)
Boss:  So here’s the intern.  Find something for him to do.

****

Me:  I thought I had time to come up with something for the intern to do, but he got dumped on me this morning.  So I spent an hour and a half explaining what our team does and watching him struggle to stay awake.
Scott:  Well, he’ll take away one thing from the internship:  the knowledge of what he doesn’t want to do with his life.

****

Me:  I didn’t realize I was getting him today.
Boss:  Yeah, sorry.
Me:  He’s so young.
Boss:  I know!  It’s crazy.
Me:  He’s not even a baby.  He’s a…pre-baby.  He’s a zygote.

****

I’m currently reading Criminal:  The Last of the Innocent by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.  I now understand why it made so many “Best of” lists last year.
Not that this comes as any surprise to me, because Ed Brubaker.  And even more to the point, because Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

Screw You, Universe

Universe:  So Jon, I see that you already got your VA tax refund.
Me:  Yeah, that was surprisingly fast.  I mean, I just got the notice that my form had been accepted on Tuesday.
Universe:  Sweet!  So...what are you going to buy?
Me:  Nothing yet.  I mean, I might take a day off from work next week and make a Costco run to stock up on stuff, but nothing too major.
Universe:  What about that Samsung Slate you've been wanting?
Me:  I can hold off on that for a while.  I want to wait until March, when I've gotten my Federal refund and my bonus, and I know how much of a raise I'm getting.
Universe:  Seems sensible.
Me:  Yeah.  I really want to put as much money away as I can - after paying off a few small debts - and use it to get some work done on my house and yard this summer.
Universe:  Good plan.
Me:  Thanks.
Universe:  You know you're not going to do that, though, right?  You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me.
Me:  Screw you.
Universe:  Hey now, I'm just being truthful.  It's not my fault that the truth hurts.
Me:  No, that's just a happy coincidence for you.
Universe:  Well, it couldn't hurt to just browse over to the Microsoft Store site and see if they have any kind of deal on it.  That has been the place with the best price for it, after all.
Me:  No, I don't want to go there.
Universe:  Come on...
Me:  No.
Universe:  You can do it.  What's the harm?  Start typing...
Me:  No.  Dammit, fingers!  Stop typing!
Universe:  ...dot com.  There you go.  Now, hover over Computers, and then on the Slates flyout...
Me:  WHAT THE FUCK?  $300 off with the 128 GB SSD and docking station????
Universe:  Yeah, that's a hell of a deal.
Me:  DAMMIT!
Universe:  Oh, hey, look!  You also get a $200 Microsoft Store credit for future purchases!
Me:  SON OF A BITCH.
Universe: 

Problem?

Get Rich Quick Scheme? No, Get Rich NEVER Scheme.

Total number of years I've been selling stuff on Zazzle:  8
Total earnings in those years:  $30.20
In the several months that I've been an Amazon Associate I've generated a total revenue of $0.00.
Money from AdSense ads on this blog?  Ha.
So far my earnings on Hub Pages have totaled $0.14.
I've done somewhat better with Heroic Portraits.  With 4* customers - over the course of 5 years - I've generated a total income of $500.
However, that income is offset by the costs of server space and Domain Name registration.  I don't think I'm in the negative numbers from that alone - I don't remember how much I've laid out for those expenses, but it's somewhat less than $500 - but if you factor in the cost of ink, paper, my large format printer, and my Wacom Cintiq, I'm seriously in the red.

*That's 4 paying customers.  Total number of "customers" has actually been 7.  Even a free Portrait promotion only got me 1 person willing to take me up on the offer.

Remorseful Waiting

Between my tax refund and my bonus at work I've come into a large amount of extra money recently.

It had been my intention to use part of that money to get a replacement for the current Hugin, my main computer, which, while still a decent machine, as it was top-of-the-line when I bought it back in 2008, is starting to show its age, and it just generally feels like it's "that time."

Originally I had planned to simply buy the components and actually put together my own system, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a hassle and recipe for disaster that would be.

A while back I had configured an HP system that (mostly) had the components I wanted, so I was toying with the notion of just buying that and then adding in the additional upgrades that HP didn't offer. However, after pricing the components, I found that the total cost of the HP + the extra bits was $300 more than the cost of buying all of the parts I wanted and putting them together myself.

Plus there was a particular computer case I really liked, and I had some concerns that one of the components I wanted to add wouldn't fit in the stock HP case.

Still, whenever I thought about the work involved in assembling the pieces, my inner Homer moaned, "Can't someone else do it?"

I remained on the fence about buying the HP, and then found that my decision was nearly made for me. I wanted to buy a particular Intel CPU, and was looking to save some money by ordering the CPU and Motherboard together, as you usually get a better deal when you buy them as a combo. However, I wasn't able to find any CPU/Motherboard combos that had that particular CPU.

So HP it was...until I found another site that does custom-built complete systems which offered a lot more choices than HP, including the particular case that I wanted.

Sadly, I couldn't pick out the particular graphics card that I wanted, but that seems to be the case everywhere. As a consumer, I can actually buy the card from an online retailer or a brick-and-mortar electronics store, but as part of a system build? Nope.

The other component I'm looking to add is only available from two sources, so there was no way to get that thrown into the build.

I went through and configured the system, going mostly top-of-the-line with the components, and managed to put together a system that was somewhere between the cost of building one myself with the individual components - with a slower CPU - and the cost of the HP.

I found that I could knock the price down a bit further - still above the DIY version, but, again, faster CPU - if I could exercise patience and tell them that there was "no rush." This would be an absolute lie, of course - want it nao! - but a 5% discount made up for the fact that I'd have to wait about three weeks to get it.

So I put together all of the components and added the system to my cart.

And left it there overnight as I got preemptively hit with buyer's remorse. I need (note "need") a new system, and it was an incredible amount of bang for the buck, but it was still a lot of buck.

Finally, early Sunday afternoon, and I went back to my cart and, as I knew I would all along, made the purchase.

The buyer's remorse kicked in instantly, and so did the realization that I'd lied and said that there was no rush.

So I'm stuck in a period of remorseful waiting. My order status says that the expected ship date is 3/29/11. Given that I went with the cheapest shipping option, I most likely won't actually get it until sometime in early April.

*Sigh*

Too Tired...Too Lazy...Take Your Pick

I've got a huge rant waiting inside of me about my post-work commute yesterday, but I just don't have the energy to write it up just now.
Not sure when I will write it; tomorrow night I'll be off to see Watchmen in IMAX. Depending on how that goes, I might just have another rant. Hopefully not.
On some positive notes, for Riff Trax night Scott and I watched no Riff Trax, but rather the Futurama movie Bender's Game, which was hilarious, and the new DC Animated movie Wonder Woman. The acquisition of said movie contains a rant in itself, but the movie was awesome. Astonishingly so, actually. I'd read that it was good, and based on other DC Animated projects, I expected that it would be, but I was unprepared for it to be so full of, well, wonder.
Very good stuff, and the preview for the next feature - a Green Lantern movie - while containing no footage, made it look very promising.
And finally, let me just say, "Money money money money....money!"
(Tax refunds + bonus = a happy Jon*)

*For a Jon-specific value of "happy."

Economically Stimulating My Package? What?

Oh, that's "Economic Stimulus Package." I get it.
And I really did get it; my tax rebate money was in my account as of Monday (I just noticed).

But What Of Munin?

In the interests of spending at least a little money, I decided to buy some books.
Specifically I bought the trade paperback collections of Ed Brubaker’s run on Catwoman, as well as a book titled (in the US, at least) Benighted, which was written by one of the regular commenters on Slacktivist. It doesn’t seem like it’s really my cup of tea, but everyone in the Slacktivist community who’s read it raves about it, and her comments are invariably cogent, insightful, and funny (I must confess to having a bit of a crush on her), so I figured I’d give it a shot.
(The UK title is Bareback, but that was deemed to have too many sexual connotations, which have nothing to do with the actual content of the book, in the US.)
So that was my big purchase with my refund money.
Oh, and a new computer.
Of course, technically I didn’t buy that with my refund money, as I charged it to my Dell account.
For those who are interested in that kind of thing, here are the specs:

Dell XPS 420
Windows Vista Ultimate with Digital Cable Support
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Processor
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
500 GB Hard Drive
Blu-ray Disc Drive (BD/DVD/CD burner w/double layer BD write)
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner with Remote
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition

Plus, as an additional bit of pointless geekery, there’s a Windows SideShow display built into the tower.
I had originally intended to buy a system from HP. In fact, I had a saved configuration that had pretty much the same specs, with the major differences being that it had a slightly faster processor (2.66 GHz), an actual Audigy card, a 750 GB hard drive, and the HP’s Blu-ray burner could also read HD DVD. It also had a separate DVD ROM drive, as I prefer having two optical drives.
Of course, it was slightly more expensive than the Dell system.
The reason I didn’t buy the HP, though, is that between the time I configured a system and went to order it, HP stopped offering the ATI Digital Cable Tuner as an available option.
Why? I had no idea. I actually went so far as to initiate a live chat session with a sales associate to ask. His response to my question, “Why is the CableCARD tuner no longer an available option?” was to say “That is no longer an available option.”
Umm…no shit, Sherlock. Or, more accurately, no shit, Merlin, as he called himself.
When I asked again “Why not?” he told me that he couldn’t comment on it.
I did some digging online and discovered that this has actually been an issue with HP. Apparently for more than a year now they’ve been offering it, then not offering it, then offering it again, then not offering it, and so on.
In one case, someone bought a system with the digital tuner, had a problem, sent the system in for service, and got it back sans digital tuner and was told that the digital tuner was not an available option.
I had thought that it might be a problem of stock, but evidently HP keeps running into configuration issues with the digital tuner, which must be recurring.
I was still tempted to buy the HP system I’d configured, because I really liked the idea of having a high-definition DVD drive that could at least read both formats, but I ultimately decided that the digital tuner was a higher priority, and since I could always buy a multi-format drive and install it myself, but it’s nearly impossible to buy a digital tuner without also purchasing a full system, I opted for the Dell.
Why is the digital tuner so important? Well, I can contact Verizon and have them provide me a CableCARD for it that will essentially turn my computer into a Verizon set-top box, allowing me to watch and record HD content on my computer.
This means that, for example, when the new season of Shark starts, or if CBS starts airing reruns rather than running edited for network TV episodes of Dexter in its slot, I will be able to make my own HD screen caps of Danielle Panabaker, or make HD screen caps of some of the lovely ladies of HGTV.
Somewhere along the line – at this point, probably next year at tax/bonus time – I’ll buy a dedicated Media Center system with digital tuners that will allow me to replace my Verizon set-top box.
I haven’t ponied up the cash for the Cintiq yet, as I’m still considering Kathleen’s suggestion about registering Heroic Portraits as an LLC, allowing me to claim its purchase as a business expense on next year’s taxes.
In any case, the new system will become the new Hugin, leaving me to ponder the fate of the current Hugin. I ‘m inclined to turn the current Hugin into the new Munin – a role currently being filled by Gungnir, my Tablet PC – though that then leaves me to ponder the fate of the current Munin, which, having been robbed of its monitor, has been sitting unused in my closet for months.
Munin can’t pump out a suitable resolution to be used with my old 20.1” monitor, and I’m giving Munin’s 17” monitor to my mom, so even after I get the Cintiq, which will take over as Hugin’s second monitor, the current Munin will still be without a monitor. So really, the question is not “What about the current Hugin?” but rather “What about the current Munin?”
I’m not sure about that yet.
Of course, one (with my mom probably being said one) could say that the real question is “How many computers do you need?”I would suggest that such a question is akin to a Zen Koan, such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It’s a question for which there is no answer, but the contemplation of which can possibly lead one closer to enlightenment.
After all, it was pointed out to me that I have a responsibility to spend money on cool gadgets, as it allows Scott to purchase expensive electronics vicariously through me. Do you really want me to let Scott down? For shame.
After I buy the Cintiq, the remaining amount of my windfall – which will be substantial – will be safely socked away in my high-yield savings to earn me interest, so I’m not being totally irresponsible with my finances.
In any case, I suppose I should attend to my exciting Friday evening plans…which consist entirely of finally getting around to watching the latest Netflix DVD that arrived in the mail last week.
(Hot Fuzz, for those of you wondering.)

$$$

So my state and federal tax refund money was there when I checked my account balance this morning.
That was three hours ago, yet I still haven't spent any of it.
Is that a new record for me?

Money Money Money Money...Money!

Real Thursdays are so much better than those fake Thursdays.
They are superior in every way.
Especially this Thursday.
A while back I mentioned that AOL was paying out its annual bonuses to employees and to those employees, like me, who were laid off.
I was beginning to get annoyed because I knew that current employees had already received their bonuses last week, but I hadn’t heard anything or noticed a sudden increase in my bank account.
I was especially annoyed yesterday when I heard people where I work now – a company owned by the same corporation as AOL – saying that they would be getting their annual bonuses today.
While I was lying in bed last night, it occurred to me that maybe I would get my bonus today, as perhaps AOL was waiting for my company’s payday to give the bonuses to ex-AOLers now working on that other branch of the corporate tree.
When I checked my account balance this morning, I found that this as indeed the case, and, in fact, AOL had disbursed the bonuses via my company’s payroll system.
So…bonus!
The nice thing was that the bonus was deposited separately from my regular salary, which means that while the government took a huge bite out of it, the bite wasn’t quite as big as it would have been if my bonus and salary had been lumped together.
Given that this is a non-mortgage payment payday, and that the bills I have to pay with my paycheck amount to a lot less than a mortgage payment, I’m pretty much rolling in dough right now.
Things only got better, though, when I went to H&R Block this evening and got my taxes done and discovered that I’m getting a huge refund.
So things are looking pretty good.
Which is, of course, making me nervous…

Things That Couldn’t Possibly Amuse Anyone But Me Department:
The other day while I was sitting at the computer doing…something. Drawing maybe? Well, whatever it was, I was listening to my MP3s, with Media Player in “shuffle” mode, and the song Wake Up Dead by Megadeth came on, and my inner metalhead rejoiced.
So this morning when I got in my car I reflected on this metal moment and decided to eschew my standard car CD listening habits – which tend to hover between Nick Cave, Liz Phair, and Sarah McLachlan – and put in something with a little more “oomph.”
I decided on Tribute, the Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads concert album that I listened to so much in high school that at this point it’s probably encoded in my DNA.
As I was rounding the last major bend on my way to work, the song Mr. Crowley came on, and as I sang “Oh, Mr. Crowley” along with Ozzy, I did so in a voice that was somewhere between that of Lucille Ball and Mrs. Big Head from Rocko’s Modern Life, a sort of raw, throaty, “Ohh, Mistah Crowley!”
And then I laughed.
A lot.
(For those in the know, I sounded rather a lot like our standard imitation of Carol from AOL, though I didn’t ask for a chili dog or a Lucky Strike.)

spf factor nipple clamp

I woke up a little late this morning, but not too bad considering how late it was by the time I finally got to sleep last night.
After puttering around/sitting on my ass for a while I got ready and headed out into the world. My first stop was the bank, where I deposited a rebate check and a check from having recently exercised some stock options. The latter check was considerably larger than the former, and as I looked at my receipt showing my current balance, my eyes goggled a bit. Even factoring in the subtraction of my mortgage payments and a few other outstanding debits, it was still a substantial balance.
Which is what made going into my next stop scary; it was Best Buy.
I was in Best Buy with a several thousand dollars at my disposal. That is a scary thought.
I’d gone in strictly for the purposes of buying a USB hub, but those intentions were made well before I realized just how much money I was going to have in my account.
Still, I managed to remind myself that there would be little point in buying, say, an HDTV, or something similar, and that it’s been my intention to put most of the money into my high-yield savings account, with the hope that, somewhere along the line, it will go towards a down payment on a new place.
(Deadline to respond to the buy-back offer is this week. If it goes through, the deal will be final 180 days from the receipt of the last letter. Last count, as of yesterday, was 52 out of 58 received.)
So I managed to walk out of there without dropping a few grand, and in fact, only spent $20 beyond what I’d intended to spend.
(Monty Python’s Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life on DVD for $10 each? Impossible to pass up.)
From there it was off to the grocery store, and then home again where, thanks to the fact that I remembered to buy butter, I had those grilled cheese sandwiches I was supposed to have for lunch last week.
And that’s been my exciting day so far.
Oh, and the title of this post is a search term that led someone here that was just crying out to be shared.

Meeting Of The So-Called Minds

So last night after work I went to the homeowner’s meeting in which we discussed the buy-back offer.
Everything was proceeding nicely. We were presented with a recap, got a little more information about the condo developer’s situation, learned that of the 58 owners there had, at that point, been a confirmed 42 who had accepted the offer, and we learned a little more about what the consequences of not accepting the offer could be.
We then found out that area real estate developers are, naturally, very interested in the fact that there may soon be 58 potential home buyers on the market, and so there’s a lot of opportunity for us to get some great deals, particularly if we were to purchase en masse.
For example, a nearby development is prepared to hold an open house just for us and is offering 6% off the purchase price along with a variety of incentives.
A friend of the woman who’s been doing all the legwork for us, including brokering the offer, was given the floor to speak about some of the opportunities, as he was a realtor and could provide us with a good perspective on the situation.
That’s when things fell apart.
This old German crank started bitching about being “solicited,” and how he came to hear about the buy-back and didn’t want to hear about anything else.
He seemed to think that the realtor was actually representing area developers and/or our condo developer, and thought that this was some sort of attempt to pressure us into taking the deal. That he was concerned about this seemed odd, given that he stated that he actually had accepted the deal and was all for us accepting it.
No amount of talk could convince him that he was an idiot that he had misinterpreted what was happening, and refused to shut up and let the realtor talk even though the rest of us were interested in hearing what the realtor had to say.
He also went off on some rambling rant about mediators and lawyers, but finally shut up after it was stated – and restated – that it’s too late in the game and that if we try to push any harder the developer will just rescind the offer and we’ll be hosed.
Basically he was just a jackass who liked the sound of his own voice. It kind of went like this:

Us: What do you want?
Him: I want to have my say!
Us: Okay, what do you have to say?
Him: That I want to be heard!
Us: Heard saying what?
Him: That I want to have my say!

You get the idea.
The only other thing we learned is that the one old biddy hold-out is doing so because she recently invested $5,000 in putting in new floors and doesn’t want to lose that investment.
We have to hope that she’ll come to understand that she’ll lose even more if she doesn’t agree.
Of course, she didn’t bother to attend either meeting, so that doesn’t bode well.
The cute music teacher was there and she smelled really nice. At one point she leaned forward in her chair and I got a glimpse of her underwear. They were teal and didn’t appear to be very sexy, being along the lines of 100% cotton granny panties.
Just thought I’d mention that.
After the meeting I went home and watched Earl and The Office, then it was off to bed, where I slept for about two hours, woke up for over two hours, then slept for just under four before getting up and coming in to work, where I ended up spending $442, $140 of that inadvertently.
The $342 was spent on a new graphics tablet.
I went with the 6x11 even though, at $60 more, the 9x12 would have been a bargain. I just don’t have the desktop real estate for the 9x12, though, and the 6x11 has the advantage of sharing my monitor’s aspect ratio, and it’s still much bigger than my current 4x5. And being newer it has all the bells and whistles.
The other $140 was spent when Scott accidentally ordered a copy of Adobe Studio 8 when attempting to see if his student discount allows him to purchase more than one copy of it. Since he was investigating that possibility on my behalf, I figured I might as well just buy it from him.
On the topic of buying things, yesterday the back issues I’d ordered came in the mail, which was cool.
As for the bags and boards I ordered a while back, I’d gotten an e-mail from them saying that they were on backorder for 2-3 weeks. That was a month ago, so I sent them an e-mail canceling my order.
Now I need to find another supplier to order from.
Hopefully whatever company I order from will actually have a supply of what they’re selling in stock.
It’s going to be a long day, as is evidenced by the fact that it’s already been a long day and I still have over 8 hours to go.

Another $100 Pissed Away...

I just ordered 1,000 comic book bags and 1,000 backer boards for a grand total of $94.15.
Still need to buy new boxes, and I'm not even sure that 1,000 bags and boards will be enough.
*Sigh*

Crazy Money-Spending Fool

I got a call this morning telling me that my taxes were ready to be sent out and that I had to stop in to pay for them and sign some stuff, so I sat around for a bit, showered, dressed, drove over to H&R Block, paid for them ($161…yikes. Good thing I’m getting a lot of money in my refund.), then headed off to Wal-Mart.
While there I randomly saw the DVD for one of my all-time favorite movies, Night of the Comet, for like $10, so I grabbed it.
For those unfamiliar, Comet tells the story of the night the greater part of humanity is whipped out by some substance contained inside the tail of a passing comet. There are a few survivors who came through unscathed, while some others have turned into flesh-eating zombies.
It’s a low-budget, totally 80s cheesefest, but that’s pretty much its charm. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and honestly has some great gags.
(FYI, I just noticed in its IMDb entry that it will be airing on The Movie Channel tomorrow morning at 7:30)
Back when the movie came out I was completely in love with its star, Canadian actress Catherine Mary Stewart.
My love for her, which started with her role in The Last Starfighter – another one of those favorite movies that I ought to own but don’t – has led me to sit through a lot of painfully bad movies just because she was in them, but Comet is not one of those. Not only is CMS hot, the movie is actually enjoyable, so bonus.
Speaking of movies I love but don’t own, while I was there I saw The Princess Bride on DVD for $7.50, so I picked that one up as well, and now it no longer falls into the love but don’t own category.
(Along with the aforementioned Last Starfighter, that category pretty much consists of The Crow – which I once owned – though maybe I should consider adding some of those “powerless to do anything but watch” movies I’ve mentioned, like Strange Days or Real Genius.)
From Wal-Mart I went on to Best Buy, where I was going to pick up Season 1 of Justice League Unlimited. I grabbed it, but then realized that I’d grabbed Season 1 of Justice League, which is different, and which I’ve been reluctant to buy because I thought that buying Justice League would be a big, multi-season purchase, as opposed to JLU, which was just two seasons. In any case, they didn’t have Season 1 of JLU, so I took my leave and headed to the comic books store in Herndon.
Where I dropped $86.
On comic books.
And that’s just comic books. No boxes or bags. No hardcover collections or trades. Just a stack of regular comics.
In fact, it was only 25 comic books.
I remember the first time I ever went to a comic book store, probably like 21 years ago. I spent $20 and bought way more comics than I did today, plus a couple of posters.
For the record, that first trip to a comic book store was a magical experience for young Jon. I mean, I knew that such places existed, but for me they were still sort of semi-mythical, places that only existed in stories.
Atlantis. Avalon. Hy-Brasil. Stores that just sell comic books.
It’s been a long time since I was last in a proper comic book store (or sine I viewed them as being magical places). One thing that struck me as I walked into this one today was the smell. I’d forgotten about the smell.
No, I’m not talking about the sweaty goatlike smell of the overweight and virginal staff and customers, I’m talking about the smell of comics.
For me, it’s a familiar, comforting smell, like the smell of a new car, or the inside of a leather store (I frequently go into Wilsons at the Dulles Town Center to just breathe in the smell of leather, then get out before I become too tempted to spend a lot of money on jackets and coats that I don’t need.).
In a month the store will actually be moving closer to Leesburg, which is excellent timing considering that it coincides with my plans to get back into regular comic book purchasing.
(Sucks for Scott, though. Still, that’s what you get for living in Manassas.)
For any of you wondering what I bought, here’s the list:

The Authority 1-2
Birds of Prey 102-104
The Brave & The Bold 1 -2
Daredevil 92-94
JSA 1-4
The Eternals 1-7
Welcome to Tranquility 1-4

There are some books that I plan to get caught up on by picking up the trades and then I might start buying the monthly books. Books like Fables.
I might also pick my Superman habit back up, but I haven’t been terribly impressed by anything I’ve seen there. I might buy the trade of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, and then start picking up the regular books as they come out. We’ll see.
Not looking to add much from Marvel. I really can’t see myself getting back into buying X-Men, even with Ed Brubaker writing.
(Note that there were two Gail Simone titles in what I picked up today: Birds of Prey and Welcome to Tranquility. )
After that bit of splurging I stopped at the Best Buy in Leesburg on my way home to see if they had Season one of JLU. They did, and were selling Season 1 and 2 of JL for the same price, so I just said, “Screw it,” and bought those, too.
(Turns out there were only two seasons of JL, so I have the complete JL and JLU now.)
All told, not counting what I paid for getting my taxes done, I dropped around $200 today.
(Of course, that includes non-comics or DVD-related stuff like toilet paper and various other sundries.)
Anyway, that was my big day of spending money. There’s not likely to be a repeat of it anytime soon, as the refund is going straight into my savings account.
That’s too funny; just as I wrote that I got an e-mail from my bank telling me that I should put my refund into my savings account.
In any case, I’ve got some comic reading and DVD watching to do before getting ready for my workweek.