Gas Pump Prank!

Another Quality Horoscope

I think I might start believing this stuff... Well seriously, it sounds like good advise to me no matter how silly the source is:

Unlike typical impatient Leo behavior, you have been waiting for the right moment to push your master plan forward. And even though you might feel that little or no progress has been made in the past few weeks, now it's time to shift gears and take action. Although you may be past the point of no return, be persistent for it still could take a few days to find your rhythm.

Office Space Super Friends

I love this shit - YouTube, please don't go away any time soon.

Leo 7/17

You've left something behind and now it's time to go back and pick up the pieces. If you miss this opportunity for personal growth, you may regret your decision for a long time. If, however, you choose to explore what's bugging you, you have an excellent chance to bring healing into your present situation.

Amen to that. I've been putting off what I know I need to do for too long. The plan needs to get moved from my head to paper, and from paper to action.

It starts now.

Cool Site for Men

While browsing one of my favorite gadget sites, Gizmodo, I stumbled across a link for uncrate.

While the ‘net is in no shortage of male-oriented gadget sites, uncrate is cool because it covers items you can actually buy now.  Some of my favorite sites like Gizmodo and Engadget are great for drool-worthy sites if you’re a neophiliac like me.  Unfortunately a lot of the stuff they cover is either from Asia, rumored for future release, or conceptual.  Yes they do cover actual gadgets as well, but a lot of times you find yourself checking some cool device that will never make it to the US.

The site is reminiscent of those gadget sections of magazines like Maxim, Stuff, & Playboy with one major difference – they link to stores where you can buy the stuff.  This has earned a coveted spot in my favorites toolbar of Firefox.

But wait, there’s more!  Like Amazon, they have a “wish list” feature that lets you create a page of your favorite stuff.  Go check it out – its worth the click.  The also have outblush which is uncrate for women.

Replacements on Beavis and Butthead

Perfect example of the genius of Beavis & Butthead.

It's All About Widgets

Lately I've been trying to make my Windows experience more Mac-like. I love my Mac, and I do a lot of work on Windows so I have to run that all the time as well. In fact my next laptop is definately going to be a MacBook (preferably a black one) so I can run both Windows and OS X on one machine.

Some of the Mac's greatest little features are now available in some way on Windows.

Google Desktop for instance performs super fast searching on you computer much like Spotlight on the Mac. It also adds some great functioinality in the form of widget-like plug-ins that can be displayed as floating little windows, a sidebar, or docked in the taskbar.



Yahoo! Widgets comes directly from the Mac world. Before Apple not-so-kindly lifted the idea from a small developer and included the same technology in OS X, Konfabulator was a great Mac only engine to display little applets called widgets on your screen. Yahoo! bought out Konfabulator and hired the devlopers to port it to Windows and gave the software away for free. Its one of those applications that seem silly until you try it out - then you'll wonder how you lived without them.



Apple iTunes is of course developed by Apple. Porting this program to Windows was one of the best decisions they have ever made. When the iPod first came out for Windows, they bundled it with the god-awful MusicMatch Jukebox. It suffered from the same problems that all non-iPods still suffer through - it was too confusing to use. Thankfully, Apple invested in getting it right, and the iTunes you see on Windows works exactly the same as it does on a Mac (albeit not as fast when you're dealing with a large library of music). Many people out there are still tooting the WinAmp horn, but nothing beats iTunes if you own an iPod or just want an easy way to catalog all of your mp3's.



Picassa 2 is the PC answer to iPhoto. In a lot of ways, I think its even better. Both apps have similar editing features, but Picassa goes a little deeper with their effects, and the way it handles categorizing your photos is pure genius. When you set it up, you tell it to either scan certain document folders, or your whole computer and it will automatically group your pictures together. iPhoto still wins in the ease of getting your photos off of your camera though. You just plug in your camera or card reader and it does the rest.



Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird Both products exist on both the Mac and Windows. Firefox is the only browser you should be using on a PC. It is so far ahead of Internet Explorer in features and security it would be foolish to browse the web without it. Sure, IE7 is borrowing a lot of technology that the smaller guys have been implementing for years now, but it is still not compliant with internet standards and will still be integrated into Windows Explorer, making the chances to mess up your computer a lot greater than if you stick with a 3rd party browser such as Firefox. Thunderbird is to email what Firefox is to web browsing. I hate Outlook Express with a passion, and if you own Outlook then you know how archaic and bloated it is (Outlook 2003 was a step in the right direction at least). If you are not using an Exchange server, then there is no reason to stick with Outlook. The Junk Mail handling features of Thunderbird make it a great free alternative as well.



There are plenty of other software solutions that will make your PC experience a little more Mac-like, but I'll save those for another day.

Geek Bone Neophilia

I was just perusing Slashdot and I saw this article, which is relevant to this post I made earlier this month.

Apparently, the condition now has a name (and most likely will soon have a drug to "cure" it). From the article:

Now scientists have found a genetic basis for the affliction. They say people with a specific form of a cellular enzyme, known as monoamine oxidase A, are more in need of stimulation from new things.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but an enzyme that makes you want to buy the latest and greatest seems a little crazy. I mean, people have been around long before gadgets. Did cavemen lust for the latest in rock technology? I do like the name though.

According to Wikipedia:

Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophile is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.

And within that article they quote the New Hacker's Dictionary with the following definition:

The trait of being excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures, including the pro-technology ‘Whole Earth’ wing of the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, music, and oriental food. The opposite tendency is neophobia.

Well, I did eat some delectable Asian cuisine for lunch today, and I am a musician. I have also been known to dabble in SciFi. So there - now to explain to my wife the scientific reasoning why I need new gadgets. I'm sure that would work... damn neophobic wench.

I wonder if I can spin this into a new digital camera?

Zelda 2's Bad Rap

Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link has always been considered the "black sheep" in the series, but is its stigma really warranted? We compare Zelda 2 to its predecessor to determine its value and why it's so frequently regarded as the worst title in The Legend of Zelda series.

I saw this little gem while digging for news on Digg.com. I always loved the Adventure of Link. I have a warm place in my heart for side-scrolling games because a lot of 3rd person 3-D games give me motion sickness headaches and it pisses me off. I also love the new Super Mario Brothers game for the DS. It's a big hit in my house - my wife is even playing it, which is a rarity these days.

Lets face it - Side scrolling platformers are the best games. Remember playing Contra with your friends? I spent hours with that game and my friend Brian growing up. I also invested a lot of my time into the original Metriod game as well as Kid Icarus. I really wish they would revamp those games and keep them true to their originals.

read more | digg story

Stuck in a Rut

You know when you hit a brick wall when you are trying to do something and you can’t focus anymore until you tackle the impossible?  I am currently stuck on an issue for this guy who throws me work every now and then, and each time its always something much more difficult than it appears.  The worst part about this is that I’m not even getting paid for this particular job ‘cause it’s for his daughter.

The feeling is so intoxicating – something that is routine normally and then there is something in the task that throws you off.  In this instance its an infected/corrupted computer that I just can’t seem to get going properly.  I had a similar job this morning for another customer, and it was easy as can be to fix and get paid.  For this particular case, I seem to be hitting a dead end at each turn.

When you start questioning your own abilities is when I start getting really flustered.  I deal with these issues all of the time and it never stresses me out.  But for some reason I can’t get this machine working properly.  I’ve been racking my brains out and I have hit a point that I need to stop and walk away for now.  Unfortunately I told him I would have it ready for him yesterday.

Oh well, you can’t be perfect all of the time – but it seems like whenever I deal with this guy I hit these walls.  I spent a whole day up in Florence with him trying to recover a voice mail server that was a proprietary system that I just couldn’t fix once.  Before that he wanted me to look at a ten year old computer that he wanted to salvage, but none of my tools would work with it and it had damaged hardware that could only be replaced with outdated stuff that is just not available anymore.

Sometimes I think I should just ignore his calls, since he always has something that he explains as an easy issue and never really is.  Oh well. I’m sure its just in my head, but damn why can’t seemingly easy things ever be easy?

Update:

I'm no believer in horoscopes, but I thought mine for today was interresting:

[Tarot.com ] Your rational logic is now tied to the commitments you made but your instincts may be pulling you in a different direction. Your emotions are strong and it's going to be a tough battle to keep your more radical feelings in line. On the outside, all appears okay, but you are working overtime to make it so. Be gentle with yourself. Remember that you are human and you don't have to hide your uncertainties all the time.

Rolling Stones - Rocks Off Live Voodoo Lounge Version

Ahh - My favorite Stones tune.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

On Friday I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and I thought I would give my 2 cents about it. First off, let me start by saying that I didn't think the 1st movie necessarily called for a sequel. It was one of those movies that stood fine by itself and there was no real segue to a potential 2nd movie that seemed urgent. I guess its unexpected success was cause enough.

Well, I have to be honest. I enjoyed this one more than the first. Of course this one does not stand on its own - without a good memory of the plot and cast of the first one, the second one's impact would not be significant. The way the screenwriters incorporated the cast into this story was quite interesting and gave this installment a more epic feel similar to the effect the Two Towers had in expanding the realm of Middle earth in the Lord of the Rings.

I did not read any reviews of this movie before seeing it - which is a good way to view any movie you are interested in. I had no pre-conceptions or 3rd party influences, leaving me to enjoy the movie for the roller-coaster ride that it is. After I saw the movie I was surprised how split the critics were about it when I did check out the reviews. It only got a 53% (rotten) on Rotten Tomatoes. Some critics seem to be a little too full of themselves to enjoy what is essentially just a fun summer movie. I mean what do you expect from a pirate movie? A deep meaningful journey of the soul? That's why critics are what they are and aren't film makers - if they were the world would be bored to tears. I was dually shocked when I heard some callers on the Ron & Fez Show bashing it. I guess you can't please everyone, but a huge number of people seemed willing enough to plunk down some cash this past weekend to check it out - $132 million for the weekend with $55 million on Friday alone. I guess we'll have to wait until next weekend to see if it has any legs.

What I liked about the movie was the way it flowed. It was full of action and plot twists that made the 2 hours fly by. It was also over-the-top like the first movie, but didn't leave you thinking you are watching a kids fantasy movie. It was often violent and dark, as well as funny. The actors do a great job, especially Depp's almost cartoon-like creation of the character of Jack Sparrow. You get the feeling that he really loves this character and puts his all into it. Its no wonder he got a nod from the academy for the 1st Pirates movie. The critics that claim he adds nothing new to the character are just stupid. If he changed the simple character traits at all, it would be a dishonest representation of him. Jack Sparrow does not need to be anything more than the self-serving pirate (with a hint of good nature) that he is. A real joy comes early on when the crew is willing to face certain death just to retrieve jack's hat from the water. The way Jack handles the situation is all the character development you could wish for in a pirate. His disregard for his prized possession to evade something that scares the shit out of him is symbolic of his nature to put that what he treasures most in harm's way to protect himself - a theme that is revisited and tested at the film's climax.

There have been very few movies I have been excited about lately - and I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this movie. i was pleasantly surprised and can't wait for number 3 next summer.

On a side note - I saw Superman recently as well and I was not as happy. It was OK, but there was an overall whitewashed feel to it. Kevin Spacey was a great Lex Luther though.

Zoo day

Today we went to go pick up Mackenzie from "Nanny Camp" and decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and go to the Riverbank Zoo in Columbia. Mac spent the better part of the week with her cousin Haley at their grandmother's house. Surprisingly, Mac lasted the whole trip, although we did get a couple of night-time phone calls asking to come home early. By the time she got going the following days she was back to having fun though.

The Zoo was cool - much better than the last time we went there - all of the animals were out and about and there was no bothersome hail storms to interrupt the fun. In fact you could not ask for a better day weather-wise - not too hot and it was sunny the whole time. We also ate some freshly grilled ribs for lunch, which seems like an odd thing to serve at an animal sanctuary such as the zoo. Regardless, it looked better than the pizza they were serving.


Sea Lions are my favorite!

This past Thursday night was a real "treat" so-to-speak. Hugo called and asked to go "get coffee". By "get coffee", he really means "go to Starbucks and then head to a bar for the rest of the night". So as we're getting coffee, this girl that we met last week, her name is Madonna (for real - I checked her license), called us and asked if we were going to the bar. Well as sure as we were enjoying overpriced coffee products we were headed to the bar.

We got to the bar and met up with Madonna and her freinds, but she was pissed off at them for some reason only a bi-sexual woman could be pissed off about and she persuaded us to go accross the street to the gay bar. Now I'm no stranger to gay bars since my brother used to work the door at one and we went there all the time years ago because the music was good and there was always something interesting going on there. So we trekked over to it and Hugo and Madonna continued to get drunk (I wasn't drinking too much at this point as I was designated - as usual).

The bar called last call and we had to be on our way. At this point I was already out much later than I should have been, but Hugo is a very persuasive fellow and talked me into driving him and Madonna back to his house. We got there and started drinking. Now that I wasn't too far from home, I started drinking. Unfortunately I drank a little too much 'cause I did not want to get behind the wheel of a car - I realized this when Amy called me after 2:00am to find out where the fuck I was.

At this point, Hugo started to get a little friendly with Madonna, and luckily for him, I was there to answer his phone when this other girl he is seeing from NY called. By the time I was done talking to her, Hugo had passed out in a drunken stupor. Madonna on the other hand was wide awake and well aware of the fact that she had to go to work the next day. So she asked me to drive her home - which was like 30 or so minutes away.

Long story short, I didn't get home until almost 5:00am. Man did I hear it, and I rightfully deserved it. This is exactly why I rarely tip a drink anymore - that time thing can be really tricky when you got some sauce in ya.

There's Always One In Every Town

God, I love the internet. You only got to hear about these kinds of things when I was a kid. Now the whole world gets to see this.

I Did It

OK, I was busy renewing one of my domains that had old CC info and failed to auto-renew, and I decided to take care of upgrading that service I have been glowing about lately.

Its so nice to see my usage drop from over 90% for the month to just 1%. Ahh... I can start archiving my favorite pictures now.

Here's my favorite pic from last night's fireworks in Columbus, NC:



I also had a little fun with Picassa. I quickly turned an ordinary picture of Kegan watching Star Wars into a cool picture:



Now if only I had that camera.... (my birthday is next month).

Kid Torture

Why is it that siblings are programmed to drive each other insane?  My brother used to do it to me when we were little, and my daughter does it to my son all the time now.  I’m talking about the constant annoyances to make the younger sibling upset over nothing that they lose their mind.  This usually takes place in a confined space such as the car.  Visions of my Grandfather spinning around in his seat and threatening to pull the car over so he can beat our asses with his 18lb belt buckle come to mind as we were driving up 26 towards North Carolina yesterday and my daughter kept poking my son until he threw a fit.

This is not trained behavior either.  I mean, the eldest sibling has nobody to learn this from, so where does it come from?  I think it’s some strange instinct in all children to pick on the weaker of their kind.  8th graders pick on 6th graders, Seniors pick on Freshman, etc. – Why do they do this?  

I remember I wasn’t the type to pick on the younger kids in my high school, but that is probably because I took such abuse as a wee one from my brother (the boy made me eat poop on a stick – but that’s a story for another time).  But the kids who did were brutal, and it started the first day of school with name calling.  As you were inspected by the upper classmen, you were assigned your nickname that stuck with you for your high school career (mine was “Stedita” which was derived from the incorrect pronunciation of my last name, which in turn made me laugh inside since it was just a reminder of how ignorant the guy who made it up was – plus it really didn’t bother me).  Then, the first sign of any individuality was completely exploited.  Anything you did that was out of the norm was completely judged and sentenced to a reputation that would be next to impossible to shake off in the 4 never-ending years of high school.

I remember the first opportunity to experience this was at the first dance of the high school year as a freshman at Holy Child.  Now, when your 14 years old, you have barely figured out who you are and for a lot kids their sense of style is completely dictated by whatever their parents buy them.  For me, I was subject to my Grandmother deciding what clothes she would get me, which turned out to be a bad thing at such an impressionable and transitional age.  I went to Catholic school, so I was saved by the fact that I had to wear a uniform and it was the same clothes everybody else wore.  So, everyone starts out on the same page – a god thing in hindsight.  The fall dance came around, and what did I show up in?  Bojo’s.  What are Bojo’s you ask?  Picture knock-off Z-Cavaricci’s that were just about as lame as you can get.  They were worn by the type of people who listened to house/dance music at the time and were usually dreamt of owning an Iroc Z and used whole tubes of gel in their hair before they left the house.  You know how some fashions will get really popular and then Macy’s or JC Penney’s will start carrying that style just as its on its way out?  My Grandmother lived to think she knew what the kids were wearing and would by the most awful clothing for me.

The damage I had to recover from after showing up wearing Bojo’s and a turtleneck would be stifling to most kids.  I swear that there were girls in my class that refused to speak to me after seeing what I wore that night.  I learned a few valuable lessons from that experience.  The most important one was that the people who judged you based on what you were wearing at age 14 were not likely to be good friends later on anyway (although they really were awful looking clothes), and that you need to really give people a good chance to prove themselves before ostracizing them.

I didn’t help myself recover in the fashion sense when I started to pick my own clothes either, as the majority of kids in my school fell into the preppy category, and I was more inclined to wear a band t-shirt and Chuck Taylors, but I established myself as someone who was not interested in fashion by the time I was a senior and managed to get by on my personality more than my sense to not wear boat shoes like the other kids.  Its all about confidence – the more you don’t try to fit in by being fake, the more people seem to accept you as you are.

Does this answer my initial question about why kids pick on younger/weaker kids?  Of course not.  But I still want that damn Canon SD30.  And Flickr still rocks (although I have not paid for a pro account yet).  Here’s a picture from my camera phone taken yesterday up in NC:

Family Blow Outs

Did you ever notice that when any holiday is looming there is always some sort of family melt down? Do you remember one of your parents going completely batshit over nothing and the next thing you know containers of food are flying through the house and someone storms out all pissed off?

I realize now why kids think their parents suck. The answer is quite clear: Kids suck!

My six year old has mastered the art of whining until she gets her way. This is the most effective form of torture for any sane person. Relentless whining will make men crumble to pieces at the will of a human being who can't even tie her own shoes yet (and I know she knows how to tie them, but she would rather pretend to not know so that I am forced to do it for her... tricksy damn kids).

Kids are always testing the waters to see how much they can control their parents. The worst offense comes when the other parent walks into a tense struggle between the wills of a parent and child and completely throws a stick in the embattled parent's spokes. The seemingly rational minded spouse will assumingly inject their 2 cents and not realize that the ridiculous battle has nothing to do with what is on the surface, but is a struggle for control of a given situation. Once the stick is placed and that wheel of control locks up, it sends the fighting parent over the handle bars and straight into a fit of psychotic rage.

From a kid's standpoint, the parent is fucking loony tunes at this point, because they do not understand why the parent is so passionate about something as simple as walking the damn dogs. The spouse has no clue about the damage they caused, and they tend to take the child's side because they think their significant other is crazy too, and now the child has even more reason to believe that their parents are weird since the parents will start fighting with each other at this point.

I remember being a kid and thinking about how unfair it was growing up - you feel like you have no say, no rights, and no freedom. Now that the tides have turned I want nothing more than to have complete control over my kids. The reasons are simple too. Kids are stupid. They will never believe any advice you give them and will always need to learn the hard way. Kids are fearless. They will put themselves in horrifying danger with no though of consequences - everything is now now now, there is no later in the minds of children. Knowing that, I do try to be a little easier going on them in terms of letting them fall down so they can learn to stay on their feet. But that is easier said than done.

I should probably wrap this up with some light side of having kids that makes it worth while, but fuck that shit. I'm a free thinking adult and I can choose to be short sighted too if I damn well please. Little fuckers.

Beach Day

We (my family) went to our favorite beach today - Kiawah. This is a very nice little beach that is about a 40 minute drive from our home, but its worth the drive. We have a bunch of closer beaches, but they are ridiculously overcrowded in the summer, and the traffic makes the travel time about the same anyway. Besides, Kiawah is a lot more natural looking and there are lots more shells and birds and such to admire. Today of course it was packed because of the holiday weekend - the most people I've ever seen at this beach since we moved here. We still managed to have a really good time even with the extra bodies on the sand. I have some pics up on my Flickr page.



To update yesterday's post, the whole TextAmerica debacle got me curious so I went and checked out their sign-up page to see if they really put the kibosh on their free accounts. Well, it turns out I wasn't the only pissed off person. Here's the message that was posted on the sign-up page:

We are pleased to announce: In light of recent changes and the outpour of positive support, textamerica will continue to provide free memberships to users. In celebration of our existing users that have recently upgraded, all accounts upgraded on or before 7/15/06 will hold “Founding Memberships” with special VIP privileges not available to other users. We are currently finalizing stipulations to new & existing memberships, terms and conditions to be announced 7/8/06. In honor of your greatly appreciated enthusiasm and participation in helping to keep the community strong, the “lifetime membership” contest will continue until the new TA is finalized (contest.textamerica.com). Thank You.

Lets take a second to dissect this statement...

"In light of recent changes and the outpour of positive support, textamerica will continue to provide free memberships to users."

OK, lets see - this should read "Because we realized that the majority of our users were going to bail for freer pastures, we are keeping the free accounts".

"In celebration of our existing users that have recently upgraded, all accounts upgraded on or before 7/15/06 will hold “Founding Memberships” with special VIP privileges not available to other users."

This one basically states that a minority of the users panicked and forked over $99 to keep their account active. Now that TA has decided to change their tune, they actually state 2 alarming things in the sentence that follows: "We are currently finalizing stipulations to new & existing memberships, terms and conditions to be announced 7/8/06", which translates into: "We don't know exactly how we are going to appease the suckers who payed already and we're hashing it out, and we're still going to screw the freebies in some way".

The rest of the statement is marketing crap and irrelevant to what the message is. The fact is that when you give out a service for free for 2 or more years, you can't just pull the carpet out from everyone's feet. You need to do it one thread at a time so that people don't say F you and drop you like a sack of cancer. Oh well, they certainly F'ed up for anyone who decided to investigate the other options out there and find that services like Flickr are years ahead of them technologically and offer pro accounts that are 1/4 of the amount.

While I'm on the photography topic, I must say, I still want that camera dammit. I mean, I have learned to be somewhat patient in my older age of 29. I have not taken the plunge to replace my powerbook with a black Macbook yet. And that is a legitimate upgrade since my notebook is 3 years old and can't run Windows like the new Intel Macs can. I have had one too many calls where I lugged a PC notebook along with my Powerbook to complete a job and having a machine that boots into both environments would be a blessing as well as a smart investment. But alas, I do like my 12" Powerbook more than the current line-up of Apple notebooks, and the Intel version of the Mac OS is still in need of a lot of native apps that don't need to run in emulation. Besides, its known lore in the tech world that you never buy the first rev of a new product as it's the public who will be working out all of the bugs. I can wait on that one, but man do I still want that camera.

Geek Bone

The Urban Dictionary defines "geek bone" as follows: "getting hot and bothered in a nerdy way over the latest technological marvel"

::Tangent:: I can't believe I started off this post with a dictionary reference - how high school graduation speech-esque

Anyway, I am absolutely jonesing for the Cannon SD30 camera. It's one of those tiny Elph series ones that comes in such fun colors as "Rockstar Red". I already have a perfectly good Cannon Powershot camera, but I tend to find that its a bit bulky for carrying around everywhere. I also have a camera in my phone to catch those "wish I had a camera - oh, I do" moments, but camera phones suck ass, to say the least.



::Tangent #2:: I have a Text America free account, and the rumor is its going bye, bye. So I finally checked out Flickr, and I can't believe how fucking great that is (I might actually buy the pro account because it's actually worth it). The fact that TA is pulling free accounts with little to no warning to its users is deplorable to say the least. Luckily I was tipped off by my brother and I took the initiative to use this nifty website to archive all of my old camera phone photos.

Here's where the problem always comes in. There really is no need to upgrade my camera (except for maybe the size issue), it takes great pictures. Check out this picture I took with it:



I mean, I really like my camera, but why do I feel these weird urges to get something I don't really need?

Since I've discovered Flickr, I have had some fun searching for product names on the site. I know there are people out there who are far worse than I. Just go there and search for the latest notebook computer, like the Macbook. There are a lot of pictures people take of their gadgets that are like techie porn. From the unpacking (undressing) process to posing it in strange scenarios, the scary nature of the gadget lust, and keeping up with the Jones's is quite the problem. Even the tech blogs like Engadget have been showing the infamous unpacking of the latest goodie any time something worthy is released.

What does it take to get over the urge to just click on the "submit order" button on Newegg?

For me its called a wife. She never lets me down (in a sense). When I am hovering the finger over the trackpad getting ready to click on that evil button, I'll tell her about it. Her response is very consistent: No.