Sometimes You Just Gotta
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For several months I've been returning to the amazon.com page for the OED on CD-ROM to watch the price fluctuate, drooling as I gazed. I told the story here about my unquenchable lust for words and their stories so I won't reiterate.
The OED has been on my wishlist for decades and the electronic version for nearly half a decade but recently my wish for it got so intense the term wish list seemed too wishy-washy so I started calling that upper tier of the wishlist my lust list.
The OED was usually at the top but occasionally it would shake hands with one or another item that climbed over to perch on its head. Lately that has been the Nexus 7 which I want for my primary e-reader and to give me back the portability for writing, posting and surfing that I lost when switching from my elderly netbook to this 15in ASUS Windows 8.
Well, as of this afternoon, the Nexus 7 has no competition.
Since Thanksgiving I've returned to check on it and watched the price rise and fall between $247 and $207. I had even put it in my shopping cart when it hit $207 but I dithered over it for the next 24 hours and by the time I refreshed the page the next day it had gone back up to over $233. I felt like kicking myself but at the same time I knew my reservations were sound--I don't have the time to install and learn my way around and my funds (back pay from SSI) are fast depleting so I set myself a limit on what I could spend per month and that Joanne.com purchase last week had reached it.
So when I found the price at $205 yesterday I actually started to pound my forehead with my palm, a bad habit I'm intent on breaking. I managed to just cover my eyes and bow my head asking silently Why couldn't you wait five days?.
Both those reservations were still active: no time and low funds. But on the other hand I knew I'd still feel like kicking myself when I saw it go back up above $220 in a day or three. And on yet another hand: Sometimes you just have to make the time for the things that are that important to you.
The clincher hand that allowed me to justify taking the plunge today was that this was not a frivolous purchase. It was much closer to a need than a simple want as it will be key in several ways to my business plans. Besides the writing itself from posts to poems to copywriting to stories, there are the word games I intend to create and publish electronically.
Now watch the price drop down to $197 or lower before the month of February is over.
It's suppose to arrive Saturday.
And this one is supposed to arrive middle of next week:
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| Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Deluxe |
In for a penny, in for a pound.
This was listed in one of the related lists on the OED page and at the price of $7.99 I couldn't resist. For most of what I would use an encyclopedia for I don't need up-to-the-minute information.
Plus mostly I don't use encyclopedias anymore for just looking up quick facts. The Internet and search engines have filled that role.
I have just always enjoyed reading the articles in encyclopedias especially the long ones on technical topics and the biographies and those for each country and state/province.
Besides just reading articles for fun, I use them as jumping off points into topics I have only glancing knowledge of. The encyclopedia article is just the first stop in a research project. It gives me an overview of a topic and a list of words or phrases I can take to a search engine or library card catalog or to find my way to related articles in the encyclopedia.
So I grabbed this on my way to the checkout.
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