Spending Money -- UPDATED!

I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but do you know what happens when you have a paying job but very few expenses? You end up with a lot of cash and nothing you need to spend it on. I'm still used to my apartment living mentality: I have no money, but I can justify entertainment purchases every once in a while. I still think that way, I'm still justifying all of my unessential purchases. I spent my tax return money on a trip to South Carolina and the collectors dvd sets of Buffy and Angel. I thought of that money as "extra" money. And since I haven't been spending, I've unintentionally been saving my money. Which is nice, because there are a few expensive things that I need and/or want.

First: I really need a new digital camera. My old one is... old. The zoom button is breaking and the battery is wearing down (not holding a charge as long) and it's from the ancient times before digital cameras could record real video (it'll only record in 15 second blocks.) I really like taking pictures, but I mostly only take pictures at parties and concerts, so it's really not necessary to have a DSLR. Even though that would be hella cool. I've been reading product reviews all afternoon and I think it's down to one of the Canon PowerShots and one of the Sony Cyber-shots. Sony is winning so far in that I can get a cool looking camera in red. Yes, I'm superficial.

Speaking of red and superficiality, I want a new laptop. I don't necessarily need it, but mine is getting quite old, and it's about time to upgrade. I'm thinking of getting a Dell, possibly one of the Studio computers. In red. It's so worth another $25 to get it in red. All I really do on my computer any more is the occasional word document and Sims. I know the Sims is a really lame game when you think about it, but it is really graphic-intensive and hard on my poor Lappy. Once we get the wireless set up in this house (I think I'm going to have to pay for the router, because it will only benefit me) I'll be internetting on it too, and as well as my Toshiba has served me over the years, I'm ready for an upgrade, and it wouldn't hurt to have the built-in web cam.

One more thing on the shopping front: Despite vowing not to buy any more books for the rest of the summer, I've bought two new books this past week. One doesn't actually count as breaking my promise, because I knew that I was going to have to buy it anyway. So I threw $10 down on the last book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. It's one of my semi-guilty pleasures, and the second movie is coming out this August, and from what I've read it pulls stories in from all of the last three books, so we'll see how that works out. The other book I purchased I have no excuse for. I bought Jonathan Safron Foer's Everything is Illuminated. I saw the movie a while ago and I've been wanting to read the book. I was just goofing around on half.com last night and ended up buying it, and part of it was because the seller mentioned that it had the pink cover. I don't know why that appealed to me, but it did, so pretty soon I should have a pink copy of Everything is Illuminated arriving at my doorstep.



UPDATE: I've been going over product reviews online all day, and I think I like the Canon Powershot s5 IS. My only worry is that it's going to be too bulky, so I think tomorrow after work I'm going to go to Best Buy and check out how it feels. I want a camera that's more advanced than the standard point-and-shoot deals, but by no means do I need a digital SLR. I really like that this camera comes with a dedicated movie button, which is pretty sweet. My goal was to spend no more than $500, and this one should come in on budget when I add on the protection plan. It would be nice to be able to fit it in my pocket like the camera Laura has, but I want it do do more than just take pictures of my drunk friends. I mean, that's a nice feature, but I'd also like to take pretty pictures of flowers. I also like that this camera has a swivel LCD, which, to quote VMars from memory, is "nice for overhead shots and ground-level macro shooting." So, this may be my new camera, depending how I feel about when I actually have it in my hands.