So after waffling for the entire four hours of the event--all of them, right up until midnight--I bought a G5.
People sometimes think I make impulse purchases of big-ticket items. Actually, I tend to make them after doing a lot of research, a lot of agonizing soul-searching over what is and isn't important to me, and finally a lot of steeling myself to get over the hurdle of actually ponying up the money.
And the thing is, that's usually not where the agony stops. As I knew I would, I kicked myself on the way back home. I had so many opportunities not to buy it and I managed to do it anyway. No matter how I spin it to myself, it's added debt. Paying it off quickly means existing debt isn't paid down. You can write the rest of the self-recrimination yourself here.
Yet if I hadn't bought it I'd be kicking myself with a similarly predictable line. I literally walked out the store, and back in, arguing with myself: you've been planning to buy a Mac desktop for the better part of a year; waiting until something "better is out" is always a losing proposition; if you're going to buy it, the time to do it is now when you can get a discount and--despite all your kvetching about work--have an income that looks like it may be more stable than you've been giving it credit for. (It seems like I'm being considered an important part of the reporting group for now, not a third wheel.)
Even so, right now the Mac is still sealed in the box. As long as I don't open it, I have ten days to keep up the internal argument.
