The Nellie Spot

For some weird reason, the wife has let me run rampant with the gadgets lately. Of course, she loves me (for another strange reason that I'll never understand) and wants me to have these things. Or, she just knows I'll think about them day in, day out until she just gives up and lets me get them. Regardless the reason, I'm super up-to-date on my gadgets. Here's the list, in order that I got them:

Canon SD550 Digital Camera
I had been wanting a new digital camera for quite some time. We got our first digital camera after we got married as a Christmas gift from my parents. 3 Megapixels was pretty nice in those days. Response time was lackluster, though. With an always-running 2 year old now, I was missing a ton of great pictures, without the ability to zoom in very well to get the good part of the picture. So, for Christmas, Allison got it for me (and the whole family, of course) off eBay for 15% less than Best Buy was offering...way to go little shopping-bargain-hunter wife! I've loved this thing...great pics, super fast response time, and easily navigatable with lots of features, packed into a small package!

Cingular's Palm Treo 650
I have a 30 second memory. I'm always forgetting events and meetings, at work, at church, and at home. And that's not good. I had looked into several PDA's on eBay and actually bought an old school HP iPAQ for $50. I got stoked, and then bummed when it wouldn't connect to the computer correctly. I sent it back, realizing I wouldn't find another deal like that for a long time.
However, my friend Todd got a Treo 650 PDA/Phone for Christmas and didn't want it. I told him to quote me a price and I'd talk it over with Allison. He gave me ridiculously low price, and I actually UPPED the price. I though Allison would pass out...but it was still a crazy great price. I stuck in my SIM card and synched it with Outlook the next day at work. Now, I'm a remembering FOOL! I love this thing, though it took some getting used to. I don't feel dumb anymore, which is a good thing.

Video iPod
I had a 20Gb iRiver H120 for about 1 1/2 years. I loved this thing, too. Granted, it was no iPod, but I got the MP3/WMA player with built in FM tuner and voice recorder for the same price as an Mp3 playing iPod of the same size...hands down, I liked it better. However, I filled that 20gb bad boy up pretty quickly. Also, the only downside to the iRiver is that it doesn't sync with your computer...it's 100% drag and drop. I got Allison a Shuffle for Christmas, and she loves it. While washing dishes this past Tuesday, I randomly dropped the question "Honey, can I get an iPod tonight?". I about dropped the dish I was cleaning when she said "Sure!". So, we went to Best Buy to pick one up, but struck out...none in stock except the 30Gb models. We went to Target to look there, and struck BLACK gold! That's right...I picked up the black video iPod in al it's sweet ebony beauty! I've never even played with an iPod until this point...and I gotta say, they're pretty amazing. I already have all my songs on there (4,000, which is drop in the bucket to what it'll hold), the music video of Kanye West's Golddigger, and a full episode of South Park! I bought an Agent18 cover to protect the crappy scrath-seeking screen that Apple put on the iPod. This thing actually gets me a little hot and bothered! I love it, though my thumb is extremely tired nowadays from scrolling through the song and album list. I can't wait to get The New Tragedies album on there (a skater friend of a skater friend's band...they're REALLY good).

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty techno-ful and wanted to share with the world how wonderful my great wife is! Actually, she's SO much better than this...I'll post more about that later, so stay tuned!