Ya gotta love Craigslist

Since I moved a few months ago, I've been doing some wheeling and dealin on Craigslist. Mostly in the selling rather than buying, but it has worked rather well. Some of the stuff I've unloaded in recent months:

• 17" LCD monitor
• Dell 19" LCD monitor
• Bookcase
• Headboard
• Marantz receiver

It has generally worked very well. Of course, you get a number of disgustingly low ball offers, but there are also others who are sincerely interested in your product (and fee). Yeah I still do the eBayin', but this works much better for items that are very large and/or are commodities. Also, if I have something that requires some sort of verification of the seller - such as a cell phone I just sold for the lady - eBay's feedback system allows the buyers to make sure your legit.

Very pleased I bought the new Dell!

After reading this CNET blog post, I'm thrilled that the recommended specs for Crysis are almost exactly in line with my new PC. For those interested, here's what I snagged:

• Dell Vostro 400
• Core 2 Duo E6550 proc
• 3 GB of RAM
  
• 160GB HD
• DVDRW and DVDROM/CDRW
• 8600GTS 256MB video card
• XP Home (have yet to read a reason to upgrade to Vista)

This came to $725 and included a 19" LCD monitor. I got $165 for the monitor and $425 for my old PC (Dell 9150). So, the new one cost me just over $100. And can play Crysis. I'm set.

Can't get enough of Celebrity Jeopardy

"I'll take famous titties for $400!"

Why are we so scared?

Say you're in the elevator with three other people. Two people, who are on one side of the Vader, find their floor and exit. Then, you'll always find that awkward moment when the other two remain - on the same side. One of the two always feels the need for symmetrical space and saunters on over. Why do we do this? Can't two people remain together? As one? Why do we have to recreate Vietnam?

The lady's new ride

The gf had a Nissan Altima for a number of years now. It runs fine and has just over a 100K miles, but she's been pining for an SUV ever since she got the Altima. (Fortunately grad school was a financial priority). During the past few months, though, we've been looking around at various smaller SUVs:

- Acura RDX: Very nice ride and finish. Plush seating and fancy gadgets galore. Only problem was that the pricing was high ($37K with the navigation), and its supercharged engine required premium fuel.

- Toyota RAV4: Toyota build quality certainly was a plus. However, it's one of those cars that got pricey very quickly. Gf doesn't need the V6, but wants the moonroof. Too bad, you have to get both. Thus, we were again looking in the mid 30's.

- Mazda CX-7: Smooth ride but had a chintzy interior. Pricing was fine, but again required premium gas, as it shared the same engine as the RDX.

- Nissan Rogue: This one just came out and is a small Murano. On paper, it sounded good (under 30K, 4-cylinder engine, Xenon headlights, Bluetooth, leather), but we test drove one and the inside feels as though you're in a much smaller car. Also, the visibility out the back was horrible and there was no backup camera or nav. The seats were super comfortable though!

Finally, we settled on a Honda CR-V which was redone for '07. Even though 2008 models are just coming on the lots, a few dealers still had the '07 models, and we snagged one for under invoice from the wonderful people at Honda Village, where my parents bought three cars from.

It's a sweet ride - Royal Blue with black leather, moonroof, and navigation. It's also got a killer sound system and four methods for music playback:

• 6 disc CD changer
• Aux input (for your iPod/MP3 player)
• PC card slot (reads MP3s off a memory card, but it requires a Compactflash card/PCMCIA adapter, which is about $60)
• Single disc CD that reads MP3/WMAs

All in all, an excellent ride and she loves it!

A lucky read = cash money!

Perusing CNET yesterday I saw this piece that analyzed the high prices of DVD recorders with built-in hard drives. For some reason, manufacturers saw a lack of demand on these and stopped making them a year ago. I don't really get that. You've got the chance to record some TiVo'd show on your hard drive and then easily throw it onto DVD or VHS. Sounds ideal.

Anyway...

I was then at Circuit City in the afternoon and ran through the DVD player aisle. There lay an open box Panasonic. With not only the DVD-R but also the coveted HDD. Hell yeah. $250? No problem. It's now on eBay where I hope to snag at least double that.

Yanks are up 8-4. Double hell yeah.