money, computers and real-time-strategy

I don't like to talk about money, mostly because I have a proven track record of being a poor manager of it. But I'll mention it here, because my latest craving has been to drop a cool thousand on a desktop computer upgrade.

Its funny how the mind sorts out value. I can think of a jillion things that I would not spend a thousand dollars on. But hardware for a computer? Oh heck yeah. I'm a big computer nerd. I like playing with computers, and I spend alot of time on the computer. So at first glance, this seems perfectly reasonable to me. But then if I consider for a moment all of the things that we're still paying for, and some of the small things that we need to spend money on, but haven't, cause its low priority, or whatever.. that thousand dollars starts to look like less of a golden opportunity, and more like some stuff.

Now, since I'm talking about computers, I'll move right on to computer games. I played a copy of Company of Heroes. Its a realtime strategy game about WWII. It looks really pretty, and plays pretty well - its a fun game. Then I remembered that I both hate, and am no good at (related perhaps?) RTS games. I'm a turn-based strategy guy. Always have been. Yet somehow I'm always suckered into trying the RTS games. They look pretty, and seem fun. So I load em up and start playing, and boy it sure is fun! Then the computer opponent, which is always a much better RTS gamer than I am, starts handing me my ass. And I'm not talking about "late stage" or anything, I'm talking about three minutes into the game. "Hey look! I created an infantry unit. I wonder what buildings I can build. Hrmm - 'need more resources'.. Hey, why is my infantry being attacked? .... Where is my infantry?? Crap!" And that's how these games always go for me. So uh.. I recommend Company of Heroes if you like WWII and RTS games.

Also, I'm going to have to switch to BBC news again, since I'm not interested in the coming 30 days of exclusive coverage of nothing but the death of Anna Nicole.