Worst impulse buy ever?

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'd have to say my Roomba...but in a good way. I got one off Woot and now I have a small army of the suckers :|

Do they work worth a shit? I've been thinking about getting a couple to "hold the line" on the floors between our infrequent vacumes.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: kt

Originally posted by: Linflas
Our house.

Don't feel too bad, I am in the same boat.

I'm just curious...what do you guys regret about your houses?

3 little letters: HOA
I always swore that when we finally moved out of our townhouse I would never again live in an HOA covered community. Also I wanted a house built pre-1970's. I was really kind of answering tongue in cheek as I guess as we will have made healthy profit when we finally sell this house but still I didn't get what I really wanted. It was kind of an impulse buy though as we bought in 1996 right before the recent boom began and had gone to look at the model on impulse when I saw an ad in the Saturday real estate section saying they would guarantee the sale of your existing house. I knew that was too good to be true but my wife fell in love with the layout of the model and the rest is history.

Yeah, HOA was on my dealbreaker list. There were a couple tempting ones with loosely defined HOAs...but once they are formed, they grow like a cancer.

 

[evident]

Mixman DM2 fake turntable thingie for the PC, Zip Drive, bunch of hard drives,

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'd have to say my Roomba...but in a good way. I got one off Woot and now I have a small army of the suckers :|

Do they work worth a sh*t? I've been thinking about getting a couple to "hold the line" on the floors between our infrequent vacumes.

Yes, they're great! I have the older Woot models; the newer models are actually twice as powerful. As long as you setup your room properly, they work fine. That means no thick rugs (the bumpers won't let it go on top of them), nothing on the floor to choke on like socks or speaker wire, no rugs with tassles (although the new ones can handle tassles), and putting the electronic walls where you don't want them to go. I liked mine so much I actually changed my room configuration around to fit more with the Roomba. Sure takes the hassle out of cleaning and a freshly-vacuumed floor makes a room feel remarkably clean I wrote up an in-depth review over at Roomba Review with pics and stuff, have a look:

http://www.roombareview.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=4726

 

[crystal]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'd have to say my Roomba...but in a good way. I got one off Woot and now I have a small army of the suckers :|

Do they work worth a sh*t? I've been thinking about getting a couple to "hold the line" on the floors between our infrequent vacumes.

Yes, they're great! I have the older Woot models; the newer models are actually twice as powerful. As long as you setup your room properly, they work fine. That means no thick rugs (the bumpers won't let it go on top of them), nothing on the floor to choke on like socks or speaker wire, no rugs with tassles (although the new ones can handle tassles), and putting the electronic walls where you don't want them to go. I liked mine so much I actually changed my room configuration around to fit more with the Roomba. Sure takes the hassle out of cleaning and a freshly-vacuumed floor makes a room feel remarkably clean I wrote up an in-depth review over at Roomba Review with pics and stuff, have a look:

http://www.roombareview.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=4726

LOL - they should pay you for that review.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: crystal

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'd have to say my Roomba...but in a good way. I got one off Woot and now I have a small army of the suckers :|

Do they work worth a sh*t? I've been thinking about getting a couple to "hold the line" on the floors between our infrequent vacumes.

Yes, they're great! I have the older Woot models; the newer models are actually twice as powerful. As long as you setup your room properly, they work fine. That means no thick rugs (the bumpers won't let it go on top of them), nothing on the floor to choke on like socks or speaker wire, no rugs with tassles (although the new ones can handle tassles), and putting the electronic walls where you don't want them to go. I liked mine so much I actually changed my room configuration around to fit more with the Roomba. Sure takes the hassle out of cleaning and a freshly-vacuumed floor makes a room feel remarkably clean I wrote up an in-depth review over at Roomba Review with pics and stuff, have a look:

http://www.roombareview.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=4726

LOL - they should pay you for that review.

I won an Amazon gift card from it, if that counts

 

[HankToms]

Originally posted by: trmiv
Creative Zen Vision:M I actually did use it quite a bit when I commuted by train. Now that I moved and commute by car I never use it.

I bought this for my creative zen, i use it all the time when i drive. It plugs into your headphone jack, and into a car adapter plug(cigarette plug). you just tune the radio to the fm station you select on the little device and you can hear. its good quality, but not perfect.

FM Transmitter for your MP3 player


on topic, i've bought many games just to get it on release date, but never had time to play.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: trmiv
Creative Zen Vision:M I actually did use it quite a bit when I commuted by train. Now that I moved and commute by car I never use it.

I don't listen to mine via headphones much anymore, but I listen to it constantly in the car. If you have a tape player in your car, you can buy an adapter that hooks into an MP3 player. Works beautifully.

As for me, I think it would have to be Black & White 2. I was expecting too much from Peter Molyneux after my love affair with BW 1.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: aplefka
I wanted to see RossMAN post in here. That'd be interesting.

Not that spectacular, my impulse buys are usually $50 - $100 at CostCo.

A few have been online purchases for around $1,000 then I get buyers remorse and eBay them for $1,000 + profit.

 

[gamepad]

Xbox 360. I'm not interested in games at all now.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Full home theatre system with 47" Samsung LCD, upconverting DVD, PVR, speakers, Monster cables, the whole works, when I really only watch about 5 hours/week (maximum) of TV.

Thankfully I was able to return all of it.

KT

Another satisfied Costco customer.

Why on earth buy it all then return it? You could have just came over to my house to watch a killer HT system for free! :thumbsup:

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: BlackTigers91
Buying a 750W sound system for a very small (10x11 maybe?) bedroom. Totally useless.

=/

How was that a waste? You need the extra receiver wattage to support any kind of decent 5.1 HT system. Even at low volume surround sound gains a lot of enhanced surround effects just by having that spare wattage in reserve. You can never have too many watts in HT. In spite of what your parents or neighbors might say!

 

[novasatori]

dell laptop with ~45% off or was it 50%, I don't really remember...
It was like 2004 coupon for all inspiron laptops so I got a fully upgraded inspiron 8600M
it gets used every day, and has worked well, but I think overall I'd rather have had a spare desktop, since I still only use my Compaq 733mhz P3 laptop when traveling cause its tiny and has good battery.

 

[her209]

$20 each on three copies of Hard Boiled Criterion Collection

 

[SlickSnake]

Oh, my worst impulse buys to date are all the various parts for a new PC I never built, including a nice case and various Cold Cathode lights and LED fans and crap for it. I got everything but a new mobo and CPU. I could never decide if I wanted a AMD or Intel, so it sits in parts limbo. But I'm now leaning towards Intel ATM.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: her209
$20 each on three copies of Hard Boiled Criterion Collection

Ebay that before Xmas hits, and buy yourself or someone else something for xmas with the cash. :gift:

 

[TheoPetro]

right now its windows home server + the $300 in parts to put a machine together

 

[Captante]

$400+ on the first 64mb Hercules GForce 2 ... performance gains over the 32mb Asus GForce 1 I already had were almost none-existant & I was unable to return it.

Used 1987 Toyota Camry wagon from a dealer ... I actually got a pretty decent price but the car turned out to be an extremely unreliable money-pit & I ended up selling it for approx a $2500 loss.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

There's a few things like my paintball gun that I never used. Most of my electronics aren't impulse buys as I really need time to think things over before upgrading items in my computer.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

1: Creative Infra 52x CD-Rom drive
- I wanted a faster CD-Rom drive, and I thought that having one with a remote sounded cool, so I got one off ebay.
The remote didn't work very well and Creative never made XP drivers for it
http://www.techbuy.com.au/prod..._52X_Blaster_CDROM.asp

2: Refurb CRT from Azatek
- I had heard good things about Azatek in the past but didn't bother to check their recent reseller ratings which had plummeted. Ended up being the worst customer service experience I've ever had.
The first one I got had major convergence issues and they didn't believe me until I sent them these:
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp.../monitor%20corners.JPG
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp...monitor%20corners2.JPG
After finally getting that one returned, I got a replacement of a better model but it had what seemed to be a cold solder joint and after a few minutes of use, it would start to shimmer / flicker. The problem started to occur on the last day of their 7 day warranty service and they did not honor the warranty and treated it as a regular return vs. a defect return.

3. Sony 36" CRT
- I didn't think the thing was going to be as hard to move as it was...
~210 pounds of fragile glass and plastic to move around made no sense for the amount of times I'd be moving within the past few years.
Luckily I smartened up and replaced it with my first projector, an Infocus 4805
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp...04805/Blank%20Wall.JPG
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/sp...5/Startup%20Screen.JPG

 

[gururu2]

probably certain video games for a number of my old consoles. you play the game for 2-3 days and then realize its not fun.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Yeah, camcorder for me too. they look so cool, but after the 10 minute novelty wears off you suddenly find out there's no reason to use the thing. If only Paris Hilton would pay me a visit...

 

[grrl]

A cheap set of Chinese drill bits. Weren't even worth the dollar I spent on them.

 

[PandaBear]

Sound Blaster 16 with IDE port and 3x NEC CDROM drive. Mail ordered from HK for around $800 shipped in 1994, sure it was cool at the time, but $ completely wasted a couple years later (cost only $200 locally) and never really used it that much (pretty useless).

The $600 alarm system the dealer charged for and failed 3 times in 3 years, only to find out that it cost around $120 installed from a small shop.

A bunch of overpriced auto services and questionable quality tires for top prices, only to realize that sells for 50% off with coupons or on tirerack.com

Other than that a $200 RFID badge reader when trying to do a project for a quick buck but never get around to do it, and my partner is completely clueless and can't help.

Then there are a bunch of programming books, computer parts, USB drives, etc that I bought just for discounts and cool factors but useless in real life, total about $200.

 

[aplefka]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: aplefka
I wanted to see RossMAN post in here. That'd be interesting.

Not that spectacular, my impulse buys are usually $50 - $100 at CostCo.

A few have been online purchases for around $1,000 then I get buyers remorse and eBay them for $1,000 + profit.

Man I was waiting to see something about buying without pricechecking or something cool like how you paid $20 for something you could have had for $12AR. How anti-climactic.