Money Money Money Down the Drain...

Most of the new computer arrived today, in some massive UPS boxes... Was pretty neat, everything got here at once, as well as a few of my mother's eBay purchases, so the UPS guy spent ten min or so unloading stuff off the truck for us...

I think I've decided to leave the old computer intact, and just build the new one from square one. Its about time for my bi-yearly format anyway, and would make it easy to not get the old one all garbled up with the new drivers and such. That does require a video card and a hard drive for the new computer though, basically the only two things missing from it after buying all the stuff required for the Pentium4: case, motherboard, chip, memory, etc.

Unfortunately after adding on those two purchases that will bring the expenditure total for the project up above a grand. Hence the words "I think" at the beginning of the previous paragraph. Sometimes I wish I didn't feel guilty. Its not like it isn't my money, I've been working all summer and have put away around two and a half grand, so I'll still have plenty for social expenditures during the school year, along with gas, books, parking permit, etc etc. I'm just obscenely spoiled. My family is basically upper class, even though it doesn't seem like it. We live in a pretty small one story house, nothing massive or impressive about it. Most of our money goes to college bills, I have an older sister who just graduated Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA, which is thirty something grand a year. She didn't get much financial aid at all. I'm heading back to my third year at UCSB, no financial aid at all there. And my brother just started his first year at CSULB, pretty sure he didn't get any aid either. What's sad is that both my other siblings tend to just say "I want" and they get. My sister is my father's favorite, the whole "daddy's little girl" idea. She worked summers like I did, but never really had to worry about money as long as she could "write letter$ to $omeone who love$ her" if you know what I mean. With my brother, the idea was just exponentially greater. In the last few months before leaving for college he purchased a laptop (mind you, he already had a desktop, and felt a need for two computers at a cost of at least a grand) a digital video camera (interesting, but a price tag of almost a grand there too) and various other random pointless purchases like a used N64 for a hundred or so, and a "limited edition" Batman poster for about the same. The thing that annoys me about it, is he doesn't feel bad at all. Typical conversation:

Brother: This poster is cool, I want it.
Father: I don't think you need that.
Brother: But I'll be nice and never bother you again for anything.
Father: Fine do whatever you want the credit card is on the dresser.
Mother: Did you ever give me my atm card back after borrowing it for a week?

Its really quite pathetic. We actually sat down and had a conversation about it, and discussed the "pie" that was the families income, and how my slice was minimal compared to the gargantuan size of my siblings. Their response: "eat faster." So here I am torn between being a spoiled little brat and actually caring about the amount of money I spend and the things I buy like top of the line computer upgrades. The computer world is so pathetic, you spend three hundred bucks on a top of the line video card and within a year, there's a three hundred dollar one that's at least five times better than the one you paid that much for previously. Its an ongoing process, you can never have a fully modern computer. I don't think I act spoiled when around people, other than the fact they usually realize how much money I spend on computer parts on a yearly basis... I generally end up trying to "spread the wealth" so to speak, offering to pay for amusement park trips, meals, movies, that sort of thing, without trying to cross the line over to where its rude or assuming. The other problem is you can't take a friend out to the movies and pay without them suddenly thinking you think its a date...

Reminds me of a trip I took to the Bay Area once, when I went via Greyhound (twelve hours each way on a bus is a whole nother story). I was in the San Francisco station waiting to leave for the trip back, and was leaning against an arcade game. A man walked up, and randomly started telling me about how he was five dollars short for a ticket to get to where he was trying to go (don't remember where, might not have heard it in the first place) and could I please spare a quarter or some change or anything that could help. I remember looking him in the eye kind of blankly, and without even thinking, pulled out my wallet and handed him a lincoln, returning my stare to the clock. I was surprised that I had done it, all weekend I had been ignoring people at point blank range as I walked around Berkeley, where literally the most common conversation starter is "spare change?" Yet something about this guy made me react differently. After his mind registered what bill I had gave him, he looked at me in utter disbelief and shock. I had already looked back away, but he put his hand on my shoulder and with a exclamation of "thanks man!" extended his other to clasp mine. It was a firm handshake, and frankly I felt really good about myself for hours afterward. He scurried over to the ticket counter, my bus arrived, and I never saw him again. They say it feels better to give than to recieve, and they're right.

So this is the kind of thing my conscience forces myself to think about. With the extra few hundred dollars I'll end up spending on the new computer parts, how many mouths could I feed? How many people on the side of the freeway onramps could I help out? I guess I'm thinking too hard about it. You can't solve world hunger in a day, and if I gave money to everyone who asked for it I wouldn't be able to eat myself. Theoretically, by buying the computer part I'm giving to the workers who created it, and the people who sold it to me.

It's too bad it feels like taking though.

So here I am pondering whether to go "the full monty" on this project, and add in the extra top of the line video card. I know I'll end up buying it in the long run, and I'll end up gaining countless hours of enjoyment from it, but that won't keep me from thinking about what some of my friends would do if they had a few hundred dollars to spend, and how much more important it would be to them.