The Chronic Consumer

We’re thinking about cashing in our frequent flier miles for a couple of tickets to Vegas later this year. We’ve never been to Vegas, but have always wanted to go, so this would be a perfect way to get there. We’ve got enough miles for two free round-trip tickets, which means we’d just have to pay for the hotel and rental car.

So while I was out shopping today, I picked up a Las Vegas travel guide to help us plan our trip a little better. Of course we’re going to gamble a lot while we’re there, but we might as well see some sights and take in a few shows or museums as well. The guide I bought is pretty comprehensive and offers tons of suggestions, so we’re going to need a few days to go over everything and decide what we’d most like to do in Vegas.

Hopefully we’ll actually get to our intended destination this year! It seems that for the past couple of years, we’ve ended up landing in boring places like St. Louis and the Wisconsin Dells instead of where we really wanted to go….

I have a generic, no-name PC that doesn’t have any bells or whistles to speak of. It’s currently three years old going on four, but since I don’t have the money to buy a replacement, I’m stuck trying to make do with the thing.

One of the most annoying problems I have with the machine is that there’s only one USB port on it! I take that back: there are actually two USB ports, one in the front and one in the back. But since I have to plug my mouse into the one in the back, that leaves me with just one free USB port to use for my iPod, external hard drives, and any other peripherals that I want to connect to.

Of course this sucks, so I’m currently looking at buying a multi-port USB hub. I saw a 7-port hub from Belkin for just $19.99 (after a $10 rebate) and free shipping over at Buy.com, which I think is an excellent deal.

Too bad this is shaping up to be a rough week financially, as both my estimated tax payments for the second quarter of 2008 and my monthly credit card bills are due on the same day (tomorrow). Those payments are going to wipe me out, so I doubt I’ll be able to buy a multi-port hub this week. Hopefully it will still be on sale when I get some extra spending cash, but for now it looks like I have yet another item to add to my wish list!