My iPod Nano broke last month. It drowned while I was in Mexico for a friend's wedding. I tried to resuscitate it but had no luck. For a short time it worked without the background light before it finally died last weekend. It is hard to complain in an era when people seemingly switch phones every year and my iPod lasted me over five years but when looking for a replacement (which will be an iPod Touch) I thought about some of the things that I wasted my money on. That is the big problem with being a "gadget guy", sometimes you strikeout with your purchase and end up wasting a ton of cash and feeling like a chump.
I still have my Panasonic Shockwave walkman. It is in the same drawer as my MP3 portable cd player, MP3 player and dead iPod Nano. Remember when Sony came out with the Sony NetMD walkman?.. Guess who has one of those too? (aside: Sony kind of lost that war to Apple's iPod... just a 'lil) For all of the iPod Nano-like purchases I have made that can be easily justified by my continued use, there exists a NetMD walkman purchase every once in awhile. Heck, I am the guy who had a GameBoy, Gameboy Advanced and Nintendo DS (note: I received the first two secondhand and after newer handheld video game technology existed like Atari Lynx or Sega Game Gear) but gave away the first, use the second sparingly on the toilet and admittedly only use the latter whenever I am on vacation. You know who has disposable income? Apparently this guy right here.
Earlier this year I finally moved out of my parent's house for good and along with buying essential things like a television, couch and bed there also were dumber purchases like a wooden chair that I predicted (correctly) the dog would chew on and wreck. I do not see myself as somebody who is frivolous as I do not make enough money for that to even come into play but I am amazed at how every once in awhile my idiocy gets the best of me when I reach for my credit card.
Some of my dumber purchases
1. Sony NetMD walkman
2. DVDs and CDs
3. Those slippers that are supposed to attract dirt (not for me and not for me to wear)
4. Books and video games (too many to read/play and not enough time at this point)
5. Futon cover... sure the old cover was disgusting but the futon is an automatic toss in the trash whenever I get around to buying a house
I tell myself that everybody makes mistakes and as long as you learn from them then at least there is something positive to come out of a bad purchase. Yet I am almost positive that in the future, I will throw away money at another Sony NetMD walkman. By the way, did I already mention that I just bought a record player?
any time you buy a sony product early on you're risking it being out of date by the end of next year.