Comments on: $200

Question: $200

mecran01 — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:25:15 -0800

$200 falls into your lap. You can only spend it on something cool for yourself. Perhaps something electronic. Your picks?

By: Jairus

Jairus — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:37:59 -0800

XBox mod chip and a huge hard drive. Then, I have nigh-unlimited gaming fun. Not just XBox games, either, but all my old SNES/NES/MAME roms.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:44:14 -0800

Gameboy advance with a rom loader so you can play old NES and MAME games on it (might cost about $250 total though -- I just started looking to get this setup for myself)

By: Danelope

Danelope — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:53:54 -0800

James Burke's Connections. One of the best television series ever.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:08:49 -0800

The last time I had a spare two hundred dollars, I bought this, and I'm completely satisfied.

By: majick

majick — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:13:44 -0800

Gameboy Advance, my ass! You want handheld emulation with a really high cool factor? Screw Nintendo! What you're really after is a GamePark 32, which has a port of just about every emulator out there, including MAME.

You want old school? C64? Weird-ass european shit you've never heard of? No? Not old school enough? How about 2600?

Lik-Sang's got these suckers for $150, just enough to spend the rest on some SmartMedia to hold your games. Or $200 if you want the frontlit screen version.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:19:55 -0800

Oh, that's an easy one.

I'd buy this. Which I am going to do. Tomorrow.

By: anathema

anathema — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:29:10 -0800

Danelope, thanks for the Connections link. I'd forgot I was looking for that.

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:33:14 -0800

$200 would be a great initial investment into a savings account. Put 10 percent after from every paycheck and you'll be in the top 10 percent of people who have excess money all the time. Oh, what? Not dorky enough? Buy yourself an ATI 9600 XT 128MB and spend the pocket change on a carton of cigarettes.

By: kindall

kindall — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 23:26:22 -0800

$200 would be a great initial investment into a savings account.

And in a year, you'll have $200.01!

By: justgary

justgary — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 23:47:11 -0800

And in a year, you'll have $200.01!

Hah!

By: taz

taz — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:43:02 -0800

mr_crash_davis: ooh! I have a Wacom, which I adore - the stylus is almost worn down to an exhausted little nub after four years of heavy-heavy use, but still going strong, and the tablet is one of my few absolute-must-have peripherals.

Just a couple of thoughts though: I have the smaller size, and I can honestly say I would in no way prefer the larger, though before I got it I thought I was "settling" for the smaller. But because you can "map" your use area, you can reach anywhere with a minimum of hand/wrist movement, which means that even on my small one, I actually end up using even a much smaller area of it (graphically visible by the wear on the plastic "guard" covering the actual tablet) - no more than about 2 or 3 inches wide by 1.5 to 2 inches high.

Also, I'm surprised at the prices. I'm almost positive I didn't spend more than $75 on mine... have prices gone up? That seems sort of strange.

By: sixdifferentways

sixdifferentways — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 01:20:25 -0800

Last toy I bought - a few weeks ago - was the Plexor DVD burner which burns at 8X speed on 4X disks. It's sweet. They're about $160 - so you would have enough left over to get, say, a 35-pack of blank DVD-Rs.

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 01:35:57 -0800

I've got a GBA XG-Flash Rom Burner. Has made owning a Gameboy Advance more than worthwile. 256mb version out now, should come in at less than $200.

www.cdworld.co.uk

By: benjh

benjh — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 04:08:22 -0800

I agree with the GBA Flash ROM card... very cool thing to have. Plus you can load up an NES emulator onto the card and play all those old NES games on your gameboy.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 05:26:37 -0800

how about an extra firewire hd?

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 05:42:36 -0800

(not cool, but useful) : >

By: hootch

hootch — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 06:47:03 -0800

This is what I'm getting with my next extra $200.

By: heather

heather — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:12:20 -0800

if you've got a digital camera, how about a big ass card? amazon frequently has rebates on viking and other cards. i was able to pick up a 1 gig cf card for $150 just before the holidays and now i can take photos forever.

By: o2b

o2b — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:55:21 -0800

If you're a TV watcher, nothing, I say NOTHING will change your life more than TiVo.

Assuming you don't already have one.

</zealotry>

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 11:12:26 -0800

The Tivo is a very strong temptation. I had one once when I only got three channels of crappy reception, so I sold it for a turbo jogging stroller, which we haven't used that much.

However, the camcorder and/or Imic let me make something, instead of consume something, so they will probably get the nod. Although I am so sick of my wife's crappy guitar I may go that route...

And yes, I realize I sound like a complete materialistic pig talking about what crap to buy myself.

By: Stynxno

Stynxno — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:28:21 -0800

bah! I'd buy any of one of these issues listed under Tales of Suspense.

By: thomas j wise

thomas j wise — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:54:38 -0800

I'd go for Hannah Mary Rathbone's Some Further Portions of the Diary of Lady Willoughby (1848). Of course, I'd have to throw some additional money at it. (A copy is listed at $285 on abebooks.)

By: kaibutsu

kaibutsu — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 23:34:41 -0800

Bicycles are really cool.

I was looking at a used road bike today, going for a measley $200, but in surprisingly good shape for the money, and feeling really sad that I'll be spending the next two years paying off the student loan demigorgons.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:37:20 -0800

I will be paying off graduate loans for at least 15 years. So I have no pity.

Bicycles are most excellent, and I'm amazed at what is available used. I ride a low-end recumbent, and one of my possible purchases is a low-end trailer to haul my youngest kids around in. $99 at Nashbar.

Thanks to everyone for these cool suggestions.