The Chronic Consumer

My mom’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I’m starting to look around for a present. I know she has mentioned wanting an iPad or similar tablet, but I honestly cannot imagine her combing through the app store to find all the apps necessary to make the tablet do what she wants. So I’m going to check out regular acer laptop computers instead. She’s had Acers in the past, so she knows this brand fairly well and should be far more comfortable learning a new Acer than trying to find her way around an iPad. Let’s hope I can get one at a great price!

For the past three seasons, Under Armour has been putting out some cool college football uniforms in support of their Wounded Warrior program that benefits injured service members and their families. This year’s unis, which will be provided to South Carolina, Texas Tech, and South Florida, will actually commemorate 9/11 and will have a stars and stripes motif. And players’ names will be replaced with buzzwords like “courage”, “duty,” “honor”, etc.

I’m not a big fan of changing uniforms just for the sake of it, but I think this is a pretty good cause and the unis look cool, so win-win IMO.

I don’t buy DVDs that often, but even so, I’ve managed to accumulate a bunch of them over the years. Since I’m not the kind of person that can watch stuff over and over again (well, there are a few exceptions) I’ve decided to try and sell a bunch of the older, non-collector’s editions of movies and TV shows that are just taking up space. There are a couple of things I need to buy right now, such as iguanamed scrubs for my aunt’s birthday and a new floor lamp to replace a broken one in the living room, and selling DVDs would help defray those costs.

Anyway, there’s a CD Replay (used disc) store in town that I plan to check out. However, I think I’ll probably have better luck getting higher prices on eBay, so we’ll see!

I’m going on vacation next week to visit some relatives I haven’t seen in a long time. Right now I’m just trying to pack and get all my work done before the departure day. I’m also looking for gifts to bring, and have found the perfect thing for my uncle. He loves unwinding with a brandy and cigar most evenings, so I’m going to buy him this glass top cigar humidor for his desk. It looks nice, can keep up to 100 cigars fresh, and would certainly be appreciated. Plus, from my end this humidor is a good choice because it’s neither too cheap nor too expensive. As I said, it’s just perfect!

In case you were wondering what the most expensive car in the world is, feast your eyes on this photo. It’s the Lamoborghini Sesto Elemento, and features a hefty price tag of $2.9 million dollars. I am not into cars at all, so I simply cannot understand the attraction of something like this. Sure, it looks cool and it’s probably fast as hell. But is that enough to justify paying almost $3 mil for a CAR?

On the bright side, only 20 were made. I wonder how many were actually sold???

Now that all the hoopla surrounding Kim Kardashian’s wedding is beginning to die down, I feel more inclined to look at photos and evaluate some of the fashions from the day. I have to say that I really liked Kim’s Vera Wang wedding dress. It was very elegant and classy, and was certainly far more understated than I expected from her.

Actually, considering the royal wedding from just a few months ago and some other high-profile nuptials that I’ve seen, it appears that conservative gowns are one of the latest celebrity wedding trends these days. And you know what? That’s a good thing! Kudos to Kim on her fashion choices for the big day!

My uncle is going to be hosting a high school exchange student from Spain. With the new school year just around the corner, the boy should be arriving in a couple of weeks. My uncle wants to have a small gift waiting for the kid when he arrives, and asked for my advice. I suggested an electronic speaking dictionary and thesaurus because it would be very practical and get a ton of use. The only problem with my suggestion is that we don’t know if the student already has something similar. I guess my uncle can always buy one and then just return or exchange it if it turns out to be a duplicate!

So my husband is looking for a new backpack to replace the one he’s had for 12 years. The old pack’s straps finally gave out, and it’s unsalvageable at this point. After looking around at some popular models, my husband wants to get this Oakley Bathroom Sink pack. It’s called the Bathroom Sink because apparently there’s a bigger “Kitchen Sink” model, too. This one is slightly smaller than the Kitchen Sink, and thus is called the Bathroom Sink.

At any rate, I think it looks okay, but the price tag is incredibly big for a backpack: $150, to be exact. A hundred and fifty bucks??? For real? I know it’s Oakley and all, but come on!

So what do you think, yay or nay on this model (either because of the price or the looks)?