Saturday, March 05, 2005
Toys
One of the problems of business school is what I call lifestyle creep. It's the slow and steady process of increasing your standard of living due to the observation of those around you. It's especially prevalent at business school, where everyone has massive loans with low interest rates to subsidize their spending on cars, trips, tv's, electronic goodies, etc. Of course, many people came here with sizable savings from working high paying jobs that kept them too busy to spend, so it's not all credit.
In any event, I now have my eye on a few toys. The more immediate purchase will likely be an MP3 player, which I think we'll get before our trip to PR. I'm somewhat anti-Apple (I don't like products that are specifically designed not to work with the rest of the world), so I've been looking at the new Creative Zen Micro. The FM radio and recording capabilities are one benefit over the iPod, and I'm also looking at the Napster To Go service since I've never been a real big collector of CD's. I'll gladly pay $15 a month for access to a giant music collection, since I'm too lazy to create my own. Any advice on my planned purchase?
This summer I plan on making the switch to HD. After watching a few NFL and College Football games on HD this year, I've decided I can't go back. In order to get the most bang for my buck, I'm looking at the Samsung DLP TV's. Hopefully the new 46" will come down in price a few hundred bucks in the next six months, but if not maybe we'll get the older 50" model instead.
In any event, I now have my eye on a few toys. The more immediate purchase will likely be an MP3 player, which I think we'll get before our trip to PR. I'm somewhat anti-Apple (I don't like products that are specifically designed not to work with the rest of the world), so I've been looking at the new Creative Zen Micro. The FM radio and recording capabilities are one benefit over the iPod, and I'm also looking at the Napster To Go service since I've never been a real big collector of CD's. I'll gladly pay $15 a month for access to a giant music collection, since I'm too lazy to create my own. Any advice on my planned purchase?
This summer I plan on making the switch to HD. After watching a few NFL and College Football games on HD this year, I've decided I can't go back. In order to get the most bang for my buck, I'm looking at the Samsung DLP TV's. Hopefully the new 46" will come down in price a few hundred bucks in the next six months, but if not maybe we'll get the older 50" model instead.
