Stumbling Into the 21st Century

I caved. Actually, hubby caved, I just drooled. Here's a picture of my new toy:

It's really Amazon's fault. As I mentioned in a previous post I'd been thinking about getting a smartphone, but after thinking about it and talking it over with my husband I decided not to get one for now. I kept thinking about it, though, which is odd for me once I've made a decision about something. I probably still wouldn't have one, though, if it hadn't been for Amazon.

Since our desktop computer died we had to replace it, and after two days of research I ordered a new one from Amazon last week. They said it wouldn't ship until mid-February; I didn't know why it would take so long but it was a good deal so we figured we'd live without a desktop until then. (I got a laptop when I started school so we weren't completely computerless.) Then, last Saturday, I got an e-mail from Amazon that said the following:

"Due to a lack of availability from our suppliers, we will not be able to obtain the following item(s) from your order... We've cancelled the item(s) and apologize for the inconvenience."

That meant we were back to square one with getting a new computer, so since we were planning on going out to run some errands on Saturday, anyway, we went to Best Buy to see what they had and talk to an actual person (which had been my original plan once upon a time, anyway). I hadn't thought about it but of course Best Buy is in the cell phone business now, and when we walked in the first thing we saw were all those phones. Hubby hadn't seen the Droid Eris himself yet so I showed it to him, and as I commented once again how pretty it was he said, "Let's get you the phone. Happy Birthday." (My birthday isn't for another six months so he just made that up.) Thanks to discounts and deals we ended up paying only half what I thought we would for the phone itself, and hubby ended up getting a free one for himself—all in all a pretty productive day. Since I've never used a smartphone before (or a touchscreen) it took me a couple days to figure out how it worked but I've gotten the hang of it now and am having lots of fun with it. And it's so pretty. 21st century, here I come!

Oh, and we got the new computer, too: Best Buy ended up having the next model of the one I'd ordered from Amazon. The model I'd originally chosen came out last November (I think) and this newer model came out in January. It hasn't been in the stores very long (only a couple weeks, the salesperson thought) and it may not have even been on the Web site yet when I was looking at computers before. So we ended up getting an even faster computer with a ridiculously large hard drive (1 TB) for only a little bit more than the other one would have cost. Here's a picture of our shiny new computer:

Isn't it shiny? I've never had such a shiny desktop computer.

Unfortunately, hubby still can't play one of his games on it: Apparently that particular game requires a 3D video card, which the computer doesn't have. Interestingly, he's sure he played the game on the laptop before but it doesn't have a 3D card, either, and when we tried it gave the same error about the video card as the desktop. Oh well, we knew that might be the case. For now, enough is enough. We'll upgrade the video card on the desktop at a later date.