malkav11

I need to stay far, far away from eBay. I start poking around there on Tuesday hoping to score a cheap laptop to load full of RPG sourcebooks in PDF format and maybe use for Wifi and hotseat gaming and that sort of thing. By yesterday, I've wound up bidding on an Xbox 360, because, dammit, it was sitting at like $60 and that would have been a steal. Plus I do want one, and that *was* something I was planning to do with my tax refund....*after* completing driver's ed and then having my mother repay me my tuition expenses for it.

Tonight, I lost both laptops I bid on (it appears people are still willing to pay more than $100 for substantially out of date laptops, but I'm not.), and wound up paying a grand total of $270 for that 360... it jumped $25 with literally less than a minute to go. Fucking snipers. Grand total: $225 bid, $18 for 5-7 day shipping, $15ish sales tax (it's in Texas, so why they're charging sales tax is beyond me), $8 for insurance. I don't normally truck with shipping insurance, but this is a high ticket item.

Which is admittedly still a deal - I'm getting a Premium with the 20 gig hard drive, all the extras except the Live headset I don't need and an ethernet cable, plus Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, something that would have run me at least $400 new....but then, this one isn't new. And that money was supposed to go to said driver's ed tuition. I just couldn't let it go. *mutters*

Also bidding on Crackdown, The Darkness, and Saint's Row. I'll probably borrow Dead Rising, Perfect Dark Zero, and maybe something else from a friend. Dead Rising I don't expect to be able to play well since I don't have an HDTV, but the fact that my friend owns it lets me make sure without shelling out cash.