Trying to Keep Cool

The blades on a fan are angled in such a way so that it pulls air from one side and blows it out the other end. So how does that keep you cool? Well, everyone perspires. Even ever so slightly. There’s usually always going to be moisture on your skin, even if you can’t see it.

When air moves over your skin it helps the water to evaporate, thus cooling your skin. This is called the wind chill effect. Now that’s about all I remember from college Biology class.

Trying to Keep Warm

Now keeping warm is a bit simpler than keeping cool. Just stay where the warm air is. The problem is that warm air tends to rise. And since we all aren’t seven (7) feet tall, we don’t get to enjoy that air that stuck up near the ceiling.

Usually, we rely on the central heating system to push that air around. But, that’s not supposed to be its job. It’s more efficient if it’s used to warm the air and we use the ceiling fan to circulate this warm air.

Now we could just put the ceiling fan on and have it blow downwards onto us and push that warm up from the ceiling straight down on us. Now, that would be fine, except there’s still going to be that wind-chill effect I talked about earlier.

Switching Directions

So how do we remedy this situation? Check your ceiling and and see if there’s a lil black switch some where. All the newer ones should have one. I never gave it a second thought, but what this switch does is reverse the directions that the blades work in.

So, that’s what you need to do. Just switch the direction that the fan blows in the Winter.

OK, Just A Bit More Science

In the winter you make sure the fan blows air towards the ceiling. What this does is pull up from the center of the room and push the air at the ceiling outwards. The constant blowing causes a circulation that forces the warm air near the ceiling down along the walls.

So there you go, warm are comes back down, but doesn’t blow directly on you and make you feel colder. Isn’t that cool?

Which Way To Flip

Now one problem I had when I was researching this whole deal, is which direction do I flip the switch in? Well, when I was in my first apartment, it was simple enough. I flip the switch up in the winter to blow upwards and down in the summer to blow downwards. Then I moved, and wouldn’t you know it? I got a sideways switch. Well, after reading a ton of stuff about angles of blades; clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation, etc; I found a dirt simple method.

Turn the fan on to the medium setting. Sometimes the low one is too low to do what it should and the high one causes too much turbulence, so it’s hard to read sometimes. Then you just crack a match or lighter under the fan. If it blows it out, then guess what? It’s summer time. If the flame stays on, then that’s a sign that you need that added heat.

No matches? You can achieve the same results with just something light that reacts to moving air: feathers, piece of one-ply TP, etc. Anything that’s not to heavy to actually be pulled up.

Still don’t believe me? You can read up on all the details here.

Previously, these folks would have to resort to the Better Gmail Firefox Addon. But, as of late yesterday, Gmail has rolled out Gmail Themes. Now you can give your Gmail the individuality that you so rightfully deserve.

When I started college, all that stopped. The amount of free time I had was enormous and there was no constant television. It was totally up to me to manage my own time. I did a good job of scheduling time, however the problem I still had was when to stop doing something; or more importantly, when I should start doing something.

Egg Timers to the Rescue

Great lil’ tool this egg timer is. You can set up small blocks of time (15 or 20 minutes) dedicated to the task at hand. It works great, since you focus solely on one thing for the entire period. You also see that there’s light at the end of these very short tunnels.

It simply boils down to breaking up tasks into smaller more manageable blocks and working with those, instead of trying to take everything on in its entirety. All the GTD experts out there will tell you that breaking down tasks is the way to go.

P.S. They also work great for timing eggs.

A few days ago, I noticed that the Page Rank went up to 3. So, after several months of no Page Rank, I’m quite happy with that. It actually gave me a lil’ bit of incentive to write more. But that’s going to be after the GRE, but that’s another story.

Boy, was I wrong. The plot , if you can call it that, was somewhat reminisent of Wrong Turn : super strength, disformed guy goes on killing rampage. This movie reminded me of those early 90’s over the top horror films. There were heads twisted around, there was gushing blood that looked like a garden hose squirting Cool-Aid, arms being ripped out, etc.

I really need to stop this self torture; it’s not healthy.

Then, this morning, I got a text message from a friend:

Jesus Phone

Then he called me (he still couldn’t receive calls at the time. Brand new activation and all). Then we started talking about his new iPhone. How it’s changed his life and he loves it so much.

So I started to wonder, Do I want an iPhone? My T-Mobile contract is about to expire in a few months, so I’m seriously considering it.

Well someone told me some time ago that I should be more sociable and try to make more friends. So when some of my coworkers offered to have me over for poker night, I figured why not?

So this is how night one goes. There’s a $20.00 buy in . That’s what everyone pays to have a stack of chips in front of them for the night. Now, from here it varies depending on how many players there are, but usually the 1st place winner gets most of the money and the 2nd place gets $30.00 back .

Now, night one was the 1st time I’ve played this game. I even brought along, what I now call, my lucky cheat sheet. It’s just a list of hands and stuff, nothing useful. I actually managed to stay in until 2nd place and got back $30 bucks. So I’m $10 up and loving it.

Night two, didn’t go as good. I can’t remember when I got knocked out, but it was way before 2nd place so I was out $20.00, for a net effect of $10 under.

You guessed it, there was a night three, that bore a striking resemblance to night two. So, after three nights, I’m $30 in the hole .

I Think I’m Done

Ok, so I think that’s enough socializing for now. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time. These are a bunch of fun guys. but $20 a week for fun is cutting into my clubbing budget.

I would go more frequently if a few things were different:

• Lower Buy in - $20 a week is a bit rich for my blood. Every time I try to turn them down, I get the same response: "But we just got paid". Right? How bout $10 or even $5. Damn, I’d be there every week at 5 bucks.
• More Distribution of Winnings - Out of 6 players, one gets a ton of money and the other guy barely gets his winnings back. And the other players get to go home empty handed. That kinda sucks. How about if there was only one loser? That would feel a little fairer to me, but what do I know about poker?

So, it’s been fun, but alas, I think I’m going to have to call it quits for now.

As you guys should know by now, Lava is my resident Personal PF blogger. Yesterday morning, she gave me a call ranting and raving about this crazy lady that bought $250 worth of groceries for $10 . Needless to day, I was a bit intrigued. After doing a bit of research myself , I found that the story goes like this:

1. You sign up for CVS Extra Care program and wait 2 weeks to receive the Extra Care card .
2. You stalk the store a little bit and get some Extra Value booklet or something like that. This book is supposed to list all the items that are available for Extra Bucks for that week/month.
3. You buy stuff that gives you Extra Bucks. It’s sort of like an instant rebate .
4. You use the bucks your got to buy more stuff that gives you bucks.
5. Rinse and repeat.

Here’s a typical example: You’re first purchase may be some deodorant that normally goes for $3.00 , but this week there’s a special where you get $3.00 extra bucks on that purchase (Yeah, so technically, it’s free - just pay sales tax). Now because you just started this, there’s going to be no initial savings , except if you used some other coupons or something.

The following week, there’s some can’s of tuna or something that goes for $4.00 (yeah, expensive tuna) and gives you $3.00 in extra bucks . You’d use the extra bucks from your previous purchase , sort of like a coupon, to get $3.00 off the price of tuna. Now because you’re smart and chaining these purchases, you’d also get the extra bucks back from that tuna purchase . So you’re net effect is $1.00 for the $4.00 can of tuna , not too bad.

Now this $10 turning into $250 thing needs a little bit more background information. First off, this lady already had a ton of Extra Bucks lying around and she’s turned this thing into a delicate science. She she spends an hour planning ever trip the grocery store and has systems where she uses coupons, extra bucks, and divides up her transactions (up to 5 at a time) so she can get the most benefit out of the program.

But in theory, the idea is if you keep on buying stuff that will give you back extra bucks you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Why I Never Tried Before

Now this sounds like a great idea, but in my defense I’ve never heard of it until now. Also, I suffer from the "try it once" syndrome. I do make an attempt to do things like this to save money, but I always try it once and never look back.

It’s the same story with coupons: Back in the day, after a brief analysis (maybe one attempt), I decided that coupons weren’t for me . Not because, I’m too proud…oh know, but because coupons were always for the expensive brand names and I always bought generic . And that was it; I scrapped the coupon idea.

I didn’t give consideration to the fact that my situation has changed a lot since then. For some items, I’ve worn out my appetite for the generic brands. It’s literally to the point where if I put more of that stuff in my mouth, I’ll puke. But no disrespect to generic, this happens to me with all food. I usually have to cycle through things. So no worries Great Value bread, I’ll be back. Also, some items that I purchase simply don’t have generic brands , like detergent, toothpaste, etc. But after one hour some years ago I decided that: Coupons won’t work for me , like an idiot.

Giving Everything Another Try

So needless to day, I hoped onto the CVS website and signed up for the Extra Care program and I’m patiently awaiting my card. I’ll also take this chance to make a quick spin to the CVS store on my street (in walking distance, closer than Walmart) and see if they even have things that I use.

But don’t be scared Wally World, nothing can replace you for most of my purchases.

This is the second time this fun stuff has happened. The last time I purchased a cell phone for Lava’s Christmas gift. I always like to track my packages online while they are in transit. So for the entire day that I was at work, I was checking the package info. At about 2:04pm, to my utter horror, I saw that the package had been delivered and left at doorstep . Now mind you, I get home at 5:45 pm for the earliest. My jaw just dropped.

For those of you wondering, what’s the big deal , I live in an apartment complex. The neighbor in the building that I live in, whom I don’t know or speak to, has to walk very near my door to get to his apartment. Now, I’m not claiming that anyone is dishonest, but isn’t this just a bit too inviting? They have to pass the apartment complex office on their way out; how hard is it to dump it there?

So, I called up FedEx and said what’s the deal, dude? I was told that the seller (some eBay company) shipped the package and put a signature as optional. Apparently, this cost an extra 75 cents. The seller said that it’s out of their hands and if anything had happened, I would have to file a claim with FedEx. So, just for shits and giggles I called up FedEx and asked the what if questions: What if I hadn’t received the package . FedEx said that they’ve met their requirements by delivering to the address indicated. Wow.

It Happened Again

Well yesterday, it happened again. But this time I ordered from Buy.com and it was a USB Flash disk. The guy did his best and tried tucking it underneath the doormat. I almost stepped on the damn thing. What would they have told me then?

What Are My Options?

• Avoid FedEx - Every time I make a purchase I would first have to contact the seller and ask who they ship with. Then, beg them to ship with someone else. This isn’t a very good option for a number of reasons. It defeats the whole point of online shopping. You just want to click some buttons, add to cart, check out and be done. I really don’t want to have to wait to confirm shipping method before I order. After this incident, I checked back on Buy.com to see whether they listed the shipper. I’m sure they must have, but after 5 minutes, I couldn’t find it.
• Post It Note - This seems to be best bet, next to crossing my fingers. And just hope that these guys read the note and leave the package in the office.
• Buy A House - Well, if I had a house, I wouldn’t have the neighbor problem and packages would be safe (at least safer than my apartment) at my doorstep.

Well, after almost 18 months, I’ve been in that guy five times tops. The good news is, two of these sessions were this week. So, it looks like I’m back on track to getting into some sort of shape. I know people are going to hate me for this, but ideally, I’d like to gain about 10 more pounds and I’ll be good. Now of course, that’s 10lbs of muscle and not fat.

Didn’t Know It Would Be This Hard

Whoa! I jogged for a while on the treadmill then hit the weights. That’s it. Nothing too hard. I even went about 75% of the weight I remember being able to lift. Well long story short, I got back in the apartment and passed out of the floor for about 30 minutes.

Hopefully, all this will work out for the better. I’m waiting for the point where (people claim) this exercise gives you more energy and stops hurting you. I guess I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Just wanted to share with you guys, that this weather sucks. It sucks a lot. Now added to these conditions outside, we have the temperature problem inside: There’s a constant battle among the thermostats from various departments. Some departments are too warm, some and just right like Goldie Lox and of course mine has to be freezing. Therefore, it appears that I need to wear a jacket year round. Yay Texas.

In a nutshell, Mr. David Allen does a few things differently from the classic organizational tips that we’re all used to. He hates the traditional todo lists. He figures that listing everything you need to do on one list makes you "go numb" that the list rather quickly.

An Empty Head is a Happy Head

I think this is my favorite of all his philosophies. Generally, we’re not supposed to try to keep any bits of information in our head. That’s why he advocates things like planners, notebooks, PDAs, etc to keep track of everything. You collect everything into your inboxes . This is basically for dumping place for any loose bits of data that have had to be processed or organized. It takes the stress out of a lot of things. Even though I’m far from perfecting his process, just having an inbox has already done wonders for me. You remember something that needs doing, you scribble it down on a piece of paper or a notepad and you throw that in the inbox and you’re done.

Processing The Inbox

This is what I need to work on. After you’ve collect all your stray data, then comes the processing and organizing stage. You go through the inbox and put things in their appropriate places. These places include Calendar, Action Lists, Project Folders, and Reference Material. Now that sort of simplifies matters for most of us.

The calendar is easy for most of us. We’ve been using it for some time now. But the difference with David’s use of the calendar is he only stores things that you absolutely must get done on at date (at that time) or the sky will come crashing down. He’s against putting a list of things that it "would be nice" if you could get them done. By doing this, one April 1st, 2009 hits, the first thing you do is look at your calendar and see that you need to "Execute killer April Fools joke on boss, 3 years in the making". When you look at that, you can then evaluate it and decide whether that’s the best use of your time. Else, you go to your action lists.

Action lists are a variation of the classic todo list, but they are divided into specific context categories such as Home, Phone, Email, Computer, Work, Agenda (people you need to see), Waiting for (stuff you can’t do because someone has to get back to you), etc. The idea behind these contexts is that you shouldn’t be worrying about doing something if you’re not in a position to do it. If you’re at work, then you should only be looking at your Work list. If you’re mile from a Computer, then you can’t possibly "Upgrade Wordpress to 2.5". This doesn’t work out so well for me and here’s why: All my contexts seem to always overlap, so I’m always looking at my entire list, pretty much. I got a cell phone, so I always have to keep looking at Calls list. When I’m at Home there’s the possibility to make calls, emails, use the computer and even login remotely to my computer at work. So, I’m still trying to refine this process a lil’ bit.

A Project, by his definition, is anything that takes more than one action to complete. There are a lot of tips in there about planning projects, but the one thing I did pick up and try to make use of is the organization of projects into folders. So currently, I have an Auto Registration project folder that I just keep dumping stuff into. Got that expiration letter in the mail, dump it in the folder; set up my online account to register so I dump the username and login in the folder; got the sticker in the mail, dumped it in that folder. After all that, I set a calendar reminder of when I needed to change the car sticker. When that day came, there was no question as to where everything about Auto Registration was located. He also advises we use the projects list for higher level projects like career goals and such.

Everything else that you don’t need to do something about and you don’t want to trash gets classified as reference material. And he has some good tips about filing, etc.

He also has some good tips about processing email. He has this idea of "getting down to zero", which basically means that your email inbox should be kept at 0 (read and unread) as much as possible. That doesn’t mean deleting things, just when you read email you should process it like you do everything else: evaluated the next actions it and put in the appropriate context (folders work fine), stick it in a projects folder if it’s so related, or file it away as general reference material if you want to keep it. That way, when you go through your email and wonder "what do I need to DO?", you can head straight to your context folders.

Weekly Review - Now There’s My Problem

The thing with all this organization and not keeping everything is in your head, is for you to be aware of what you need to do, you need to have a weekly review of all your lists and you need regularly process your inbox.
This is the last lil’ bit of the process that I need to work on and get squared away in my brain.

After that, I’ll be unstoppable!

I don’t know what to say. When I first opened up the package I was speechless. I just sat and stared at it for a while. Kudos goes out to Garmin for shipping the product fully charged. I don’t think I could have survived waiting for the unit to charge.

Why I Got It

I’ve been playing around with the idea for awhile, but I just kept trying to justify the purchase to myself.

1. It’s too expensive
2. I don’t need it
3. I should learn my surroundings
4. I should learn to use maps better
5. In two weeks I’ll get fed up of it and never use it again
6. blah blah blah

Then one day, I just said screw it. I found it online for a reasonable price, so I just bought it and was done with it. I’ve also been looking at a few older models of Garmin’s GPS devices (c300 and c500 series), but I changed my mind and just went for the best I could afford. Since I’ve never had an experience with these devices in the past and since I damn sure won’t be upgrading to another newer/better model anytime soon, I just decided to go top of the line (for my dollar this is). The Garmin nuvi 350 has got a better antenna than the other models, and is smaller and more compact (about the size of a large deck of playing cards).

Why I I Love It

I mean, come on, it’s a gadget and I love gadgets. I’ve wanted one of these things for years. From the time I’ve started driving in Texas, I’ve wanted nothing more.

But this thing is great. It can pretty much pinpoint where I am at any given time. It takes about two (2) or three (3) minutes to acquire the satellites from a cold start, which is about the time it takes from me walk out my door with it and hook it up in the car. Oh no, I don’t leave this baby in the car at night, never that.

It speaks the name of the street you need to turn on when you need it. It took me some time to stop looking for the street before I was alerted. In short, it’s great.

There are Points of Interest that range from shopping, gas stations, nightlife, etc. But what really love is the recalculation. But a few weeks ago is when I really fell in love. I was on my way to meet a friend on Friday night. I punched in the address and started on my way. About half way there, I was instructed to take a turn and ride for about 2 miles. After two blocks, I saw a big detour sign.

At first I started to panic; it was my first trip with my new baby. Then she whispered some sweet, sultry words in my ear: “Recalculating”. I can’t begin to tell you how I felt. If I wasn’t late I would have pulled over, hugged her, and kissed her.

What Other People Bitch About

After reading tons of reviews, I was a bit skeptical about this purchase. The thing is, no matter how good something is, some people always have some negativity. I’m not sure what they expect from for a reasonable price, but here goes:

It takes to long to acquire the satellites

Now, this is what I was really worried about. Because I travel (well no I don’t, but I would be traveling) down in the Dallas area; tall buildings and such. So I was worried. I was also worried about the flip side: wide open areas. Now, I’ll have to tell you, on both ends, I’ve only ever seen this thing drop one bar. So losing a signal isn’t an issue for me.

The only problem that people would have is on initial start up. Now, that’s two minutes. If you can’t either get started on your route or sit in the car for two minutes, then you don’t need a GPS, you need a teleporting device.

It took me the long way, I know a better route

Did you really shell out all those bills to have a machine tell you how to get to where you already know? As far as I remember, in the academic world is the only place that people ask questions they already know the answer to. If you know a faster route, then drive there. If your sixth sense tells you that there’s a short cut, go for it, it’s just going to recalculate anyway.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I bought this thing to use as a guide, not so that I could follow it blindly to the ends of the earth. Yeah, I used it to get to work and Walmart a few times, but only as very rough tests. These devices make calculations based on known data: distance, known streets, speed limits, etc. So if you’ve got it calibrated to get you there in the shortest time, it’s generally going to stick to main streets with fast moving traffic and avoid side streets. You can’t compare a trip where you hit every light on a main street to a trip flying down the side streets and shortcuts that you know about.

The store isn’t where it said it would be

Now this one, I’ve personally experienced this a few times. But in Garmin’s defense, Google, Live.com , Yahoo and MapQuest have all (on a number of occasions) taken me down non-existent streets. Shoot, it’s not Garmin’s fault that JC Penny doesn’t update their stupid addresses. I’ve also experienced this trying to find a company. But I should have known something was up, since it didn’t give me a street address, just a zip code.

This can be rectified by Googling the place before hand and getting and updated address (hopefully).

It’s entry for addresses out of order

Now it took me a while to figure out what the folks were yapping about. But the nuvi asks for state, city, street number, then street. Are you kidding me? This is a legitimate complaint that someone had about the product. I’m not even going to touch that one.

It asks for the full state

OK, you got me on this. I have no clue when it doesn’t accept the two letter abbreviations. So it sucks for folks in New York, but I live in Texas, so after typing TE, the auto-complete pops up, and I’m right there. Sorry. But regardless, it defaults to your current state, so you only need to worry about this when traveling somewhere else.

Conclusion

So, if you’re somewhat like me and are terrified of getting to far from your stomping grounds for fear of getting lost, then you need one of these guys. Trust me.

Now there’s a lil’ catch 22 with whole reward card thing. Since it’s a reward card I want to get the maximum rewards I can. Therefore, I use this card for everything. That makes it a little bit harder to pay off the balance every month. I had to pull some money out of my savings last month to pay it off.

So just in case, I called up Chase and asked for a reduction in my APR. Great news! There was a “promotional reduction available” on my account. So I asked, “What’s the promotion?”. The guy on the phone (Juan I think his name was) told me that today they would be able to reduce the APR on my card to a whopping 21% from 23%.

Yep, that was all there was. A 2% reduction. And the kicker is that I wouldn’t be able to inquire about another reduction for six (6) months. However, if I didn’t accept the incredible 2% reduction, I could call back an inquire about another promotion.

So I decided on the latter. Way to go Chase! Oh well, nothing I can do about it right now. This card gives me 3% on gas purchases and 1% on everything else. The only thing that beats that is their Freedom card (which I’m currently waiting for a reply on).

Here we have a snippet from Clipperz.com

• Clipperz is:

  • a secure and simple password manager
  • an effective single sign-on solution
  • a digital vault for your personal data

• With Clipperz you can:

  • store and manage your passwords and online credentials
  • login to your web services without entering any username or password
  • protect all your sensitive data: codes for burglar alarms, PINs, credit card numbers, …
  • share secrets with family members and associates (coming soon)

• Clipperz benefits:

  • free and completely anonymous
  • access it any time from any computer
  • no software to download and nothing to install
  • avoid keeping secrets on your PC or on paper

Now, in the past, I’ve frowned upon online password management. They seemed like glorified excel list. Yeah, it’s secure, but who cares.

But NOW, these guys have incorporated an auto-login feature. This is awesome! It requires you to slap on a Bookmarklet to your browser, but that’s not really a huge issue for me. When I’m not at home, I usually run Firefox from my flash disk anyway, so it’s not a big deal.

The auto-login is an awesome feature. You simply click the link from the Clipperz website and you’re logged in.

Passpack also has something slightly similar, but you require the Bookmarklet to set it up and login to your desired websites.

Now don’t get too excited, these are username and password only. Clipperz has the option of doing some other custom fields, but these must be fixed fields. You can’t use them for sites that require random fields like some question or something. So sites like ING Direct won’t rip the benefits. However, you can still store your info in there.

When I was in college, Christmas usually only meant two weeks off of school to sit and chill. It was usually a boring time for me, because 90% of the college body would go visit family and friends. So no one was around to do anything with.

Working would have made this Christmas even less of a celebration, since we would only get the 24th and 25th off from work. But it just so happens that my Mom decided to make the long trip up from Dominica to spend some time and Lava got some time off from school (lucky bastard), so we’re doing the family thing.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

This is a great example of why I need to plan things better. On Saturday I decided to take a trip down to Lava’s house to check up on her. The problem is gas is more expensive down where she is. The smart thing to do would have been to fill up before I left.

Here’s The Dumb Thing To Do

Instead of doing the smart thing, this is what I did. I hopped in the car and looked at the gas gauge and realized that I had more than enough (well just enough) gas to make the trip.

So I loaded up the car and gunned it down there. This is where plans changed. I was on the phone talking to a friend to pass the time on the highway. Then I noticed that I had missed my exit, by about ten (10) miles. No problem, just exit, find an overpass and get back on track.

Time To Recalculate, But I Didn’t

This is where a smart guy would realize that he needs to recalculate things, but oh no, not Baz. When I was leaving, I hopped into the car. I noticed that the gas gauge was a bit low, but then I figured that I’d already calculated and I’d be fine.

To my surprise :), the gas light came on right when I was crossing over down town Dallas. Luckily, I was on the phone with the same friend who made me screw things up in the first place. I got him on Google and he attempted to help me find my way to a gas station.

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

The first place we found was a 7-Eleven not too far from where I was. This is when I learned something very important: 7-Eleven isn’t always a gas station. All I found was the standalone mini-mart.

Moral Of The Story

• When you’re going on a trip, plan properly. That means planning (even if it’s a little bit) for the unexpected.
• When you Google directions for a gas station, look for an Exxon or Chevron. They don’t have stand alone mini-marts.
• Forget all of the above and get a GPS.

One problem that I’ve always had, is that I’m a very practical person. My significant other has asked me countless times, “What do you want for Christmas?”. Although there is quite a large laundry list of things that I want. The problem is, I can’t pick one thing that I can justify getting, since the pit of money that we’re both rolling in has a very distinct and visible bottom.

For a long time, what I’ve always wanted was a wide screen LCD monitor. Earlier this year I made myself happy with the purchase of my new computer. Since then, what I’ve wanted was another wide screen LCD monitor. Who ever invented the dual monitor set up is a genius! This Christmas, I’ve already budgeted money for that gift to myself. But the question remains, what would I like someone to get me?

Redefining The Word Want

A long time ago I seem to have confused the word want with thing like beneficial, need, etc. Although the second monitor was usually a bit more pricey than I would go, I’ve already justified the purchase.

• Increased Productivity - Since I do a lot of website design at home having a dual monitor setup would of course be beneficial. Hey, I’m not making this up, there have been studies.
• Dedicated Entertainment Monitor - When I’m not working hard and being super productive I can use the second monitor as a dedicated entertainment monitor for glancing at television once in a while. That means I would not have to choose one thing to do. I could fiddle around on the computer or my blog, while having a nice large television display on the right. I wouldn’t have to stop anything just to be entertained, thus saving time and eventually money.
• Low Power Usage - The monitor I’ve been eying uses less energy than a 60W bulb.

I mean you just can’t go wrong. My problem is that I think a purchase should have to pay for itself in direct monetary reimbursement, time savings, bill savings, or some other form. I haven’t yet grown into buying things just for wanting them.

What Do I Want (If Money Wasn’t An Issue)

At the top of this list would be a GPS navigation system for my car. Everyone knows that I have no sense of direction. If I did, then I must have lost it somewhere. Back home in Dominica, the roads were much more distinct. We have less stuff so it’s easier to use places as landmarks. Here, where there’s a 7-11/Kinkos/Mc Donalds/etc on every block, it makes this a tad bit more difficult for me.

The problem with the GPS is that I haven’t yet justified it’s purchase. Currently I don’t really go out much. A GPS would make it easier to get around. But then it raises the whole Chicken and Egg issue. Do I stay home a lot because I usually get lost? Or do I usually get lost because I always stay home?

• In other words, should I just get a map hit the road a few times to learn my way around (Dallas is sooooo confusing)?
• Will a new GPS sit in my car like a huge ugly air freshener?
• Will I still sit home looking at South Park on a Friday night and use the GPS to get to the nearest Dominoes on Sunday afternoon?

I just can’t commit to making $200.00 purchase with all these unanswered questions.

With respect to gadgets, I’ve been known to use and abuse them like prostitutes. When I get a new toy. I’ll play with it straight for a few days then drop it like a bad habit. That’s what happened to the camera I bought and the MP3 player. I can just see myself now using the Garmin GPS to get to Walmart.

Hey, there are always the gifts that stand the test of time: cologne, socks (I like socks), boxers, shirts for work, etc.

As you can see, I didn’t really get the input I wanted, but regardless, here you go:

Out of my tiny lil’ sample, it seems that we’ve had our fill of movie parodies.