StopBuyingCrap.com

My piece-of-crap, six years old, 3.2 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P7 digital camera has finally crapped out on me.

It’s four in the morning and I’ve just spent about two hours prying the camera apart, trying to figure out why the lens will no longer extend out when the camera is powered on.

After electrocuting myself (ah… so thats why they have non-conductive film wrapped around that area) and fumbling with the gears that extended the lens, I still couldn’t figure out why the damn thing is broken. The motor’s working but the gears won’t spin — even though the teeth on the gears appears to be in working order.

There’s a guy selling two of the gears on eBay for ten bones, as these particular lines of Cyber-shots are prone to lenses being stuck in the housing due to gears breaking (a frequent solution touted by people from Googling is dropping or banging the camera against the floor — no joke).

I can buy the replacement gears and see if it’ll do the trick, but I might just be wasting additional time and money — after all, there’s no guaranteed the new gears will fix the problem.

You’ve probably been in this situation before. Your old “good enough” piece of crap that you’ve been using for years finally broke down, and you have to make the decision to either repair it or replace it. It gets especially annoying when the part is easily replaceable, but is costly due to rarity or time consuming due to the part’s location.

Now, I can easily buy another “good enough” digital camera for around $50-$80 bucks. The gears that may fix my old camera cost $10, and it’ll probably take me another hour or two to replace the gears. An hour or two of my time, believe it or not, is actually worth more than $60 — but realistically, it’s not like I’ll be using those specific hours to “work.”

Hmm… what should a cheap and lazy bastard do?

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As I was stuck in traffic on a fine 4th of July Friday, I noticed that the minivan in front of me had a gigantic LCD TV installed for their kids viewing pleasure. Before I knew it, I was tailgating the minivan to catch the ending to another fine episode of Sponge Bob SquarePants.

The problem with buying lots of crap for your kids is that you may be unintentionally giving your children a sense of entitlement. Being a former brat, I know how it is to annoy surrounding adults with the wanting, whining, and complaining.

From my experiences, the quickest way to raise a bratty child is to buy them lots of crap to appease them, and what better way than a gigantic TV in the car, with a full collection of Sponge Bob DVD?

Here’s a list of five things I’ll never buy for my future kids:

1) TV in the family car.

I’m not about to spoil my kids with hours of entertainment as we drive cross-country to visit grandma (because daddy was too ‘frugal’ to waste money on plane tickets). What my kids will get are important stories on life and personal development. “Why, just a decade ago, daddy had to wake up midmorning, walk all the way to his home office, and slave away on blogs and other web projects…”

2) $20,000 playhouse.

If daddy didn’t get one, you don’t get one too.

[From The Digerati Life].

3) Massively Multilayer Online Role-Playing Games

Are you kidding me? Just look at uncle James, who’s been playing World of Warcraft since 2004 and you’ll see why.

4) A brand new car.

Now, daddy’s not a cheap bastard like mommy’s new boyfriend. See here, a 1985 Toyota Corolla — Japanese engineering at its finest!

5) 6th Generation iPhone

My kid’s phone will be able to do three things: 1) Call mom. 2) Call dad. 3) Call 911.

By using this link from Visa Signature’s concierge service (subscription to restaurant ratings cost $24.95 per year at Zagat’s website).

I’ve never use Zagat before, but from what I read the reviews are fairly spot-on. If you don’t feel like cooking this holiday weekend, perhaps you can find a nice place to wine and dine with friends, family, and loved ones — maybe the $334 per person sushi restaurant listed above?

I met some interesting bloggers last week at the blogging conference held by Consumer Reports; all of them, of course, writes six thousand times better than me.

Here are some blogs worthy of your RSS reader, pick and subscribe at your choosing:

• Erin Doland from Uncluttered.com, a blog about getting and staying organized. Emailing link to sister ASAP.
• Kim O’Donnel at A Mighty Appetite, a cooking blog filled with yummy recipes. Also emailing link to sister.
• Edgar Dworsky of Consumer Worlds, who also blogs at Mouse Print, a blog exposing the nasty catches buried in the fine prints.
• Zac Bissonnette, writer and editor at BloggingStocks and WalletPop. One of the other personal finance blogger at the conference. He was alright. (Just kidding he’s cool).
• Leslie Price, editor at Racked.com, a witty NYC retail and shopping blog. From the blog’s words: “If they’ll take your money, we’ll tell you about it.”
• The gang from Consumerist.com, where shoppers bites back and gives the middle finger to crappy businesses. Most likely already on your blog reader, and if it isn’t, it should be.
• Although I didn’t get to meet the blog editors, Consumer Reports also have a daily posting Money and Shopping blog that you may be interested in checking out.

And finally, here’s a picture of a T. rex from the American Museum of Natural History:

Any feedbacks and a few clicks on the voting poll will greatly be appreciated.

I’ll be flying out tonight to New York City (bleh to long flights) to attend a small blogging conference being held on Wednesday by the good folks at Consumer Reports, and one of the topics — is of course — on how new medias (social networking, blogs, videos etc.) are helping consumers in today’s busy marketplace.

So, on that note, here’s a quick poll for your clicking pleasure (comments are also greatly appreciated, click here if you don’t see the poll in your RSS reader):

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For me, depending on the item… I will research extensively via search engine, head to one of the specialized niche message boards, read about user opinions… and hopefully by the time I’m done fiddling with all that, whatever it was that I wanted to buy would be out of my mind.

And then, if I really do in fact need it… I’ll use various price comparison engine; search for coupons and deals; read reviews on the web retailer I’m considering buy from; and finally make the purchase.

I guess I could make it easy on myself sometimes and just buy it all on Amazon.

P.S. Never been to New York City before, so one of the first place I’ll check out is the American Natural History Museum. Yeah, you bet your ass I’m a nerd.

top photo credit: Armel*

Mmm… Sunday morning rant.

Seriously, what’s up with $200+ jeans? For that matter, anything more than $40 gets me a bit confused (or heck, even $20) — and $200 is only the mid-range price point.

I mean, what makes this jean that’s made in Thailand, better that one that’s also made in Thailand?

Okay okay, I suppose quite a many of them are made in the states (or other “high-end” countries), and I suppose if you can afford it — all good?

One thing’s for sure, if you’re a shareholder of True Religion and the likes, you’re not complaining — and yeah, the rant is also a few years too late.

Fun to share if you haven’t seen Matt’s videos before. His latest:

From [Where The Hell is Matt]