Hes Nikke's Journal: $$$ - post xmas rant

the following is a strait copy/paste from my message board

i'm broke and it sucks.

My xmas haul was nice but I'm going to sound all conceited and say that it wasn't nice enough, I got a cheap portable MP3 CD Player (thanks but it doesn't fit my needs) and a couple of DVDs (Chicago and Two Towers Extended) as well as a Borders gift card (I'm not sure what I want to get aside from the return of the king sound track.)

Since I didn't make a wish list for xmas I can't really complain. Since my birthday is coming up in a month I thought I'd get a list started.

*The primary thing that I want is just strait up cash. That will help me with my day-to-day living until I get a real job and or make my business a full time thing. (Don't forget I'm a full time collage student)

*Short of that, I want an iPod. Any size will work, the bigger the better, but any will work

*I also want iTunes Music Store gift certificates (or better an allowance! ) at the moment I have a $130 shopping cart and I can't afford to spend that much in 1 shot. I also don't want to clear my shopping cart as the iTunes Music store has no way of keeping track of what I'm interested in aside from the shopping card (boo! )

*The other thing I'd like is a larger hard drive for my TiBook. At least 40 GB, but preferably 80. The drive I have now is just feeling small and old.

*$500 earmarked for PowerBook repairs. Apple has a flat rate laptop repair program where you send them the laptop and a good chunk of money, and they'll in turn fix everything that is wrong with the computer. My TiBook's screen has some pixels that have gone out, and it's just getting plain annoying, I've got the nasty crack I mentioned a few months ago, and it appears that the backlight is starting to fail. If I was to do it myself, a new screen alone would set me back $1000 (probably more than the machine is worth! )

*A new notebook. Rather than the above 2 items, you could just replace my notebook. (3 or 4 people can coordinate and get it done) there are 2 units I'm looking at. The 1st is a 14" 1.25 GHz iBook G4 with an Airport card and AppleCare. That machine comes out to $1671 with the educational discount. Yes, I'd settle for a 1 GHz unit, and yes I require AppleCare! BlueTooth would be nice but I don't require it. The 2nd notebook I'm looking at is a 15" 1.25 GHz PowerBook G4 with a Combo Drive and AppleCare. That totals to $2358 on the Educational Discount. Again, I'd settle for a 1 GHz unit, and again I require AppleCare. BlueTooth and Airport are included. Both of those units have base Ram (2x128 and 2x256 MiB respectively) and I'd want to upgrade them to at least 1 GiB, after market.

I know I'm dreaming with this list, but if 3 or 4 people get together and finance a new computer, I could then turn around and sell my TiBook and add that money to my day to day fund.

I'll add things as I think of them.