Is Money Worth Dying For?

I was greatly disturbed today to read an article about an L.A. man who killed his wife and five kids, then turned the gun on himself.  He faxed a letter to a news station before the murder-suicide outlining his reasoning.  He and his wife had both lost their jobs, were behind in their mortgage and other bills, etc.  

I don't want to trivialize this economic crisis, nor the notion that people can become severely depressed behind this stuff.  However, WTF?  I mean seriously.  When I first heard this I was livid.  First of all, every time I hear about one of these murder-suicides I always wonder why the assailant didn't start with the suicide part.  I mean why take innocent people with you?  This just disgusts me to no end.  But then I started thinking about how many other cases of finance-based suicides I've read about in the past few months.  I asked myself, are our possessions more valuable than life itself?

It seems like an easy 'no' on the surface, but think about it.  A person's inability to sustain their standard of living just cost seven lives.  And there are plenty smaller stories out there that aren't sensational enough to make headlines.  It's clear that financial problems are enough to depress anyone and with a sudden onset of depression there's always potential for a worst case scenario.  So how do we prepare ourselves?

I honestly don't know for sure what I would do if one day I was in danger of losing everything I had with no other options in sight.  But in light of this recession/depression we're in, I've given it a considerable amount of thought.  I hope my SURVIVAL SKILLS would kick in and I would maintain the necessary composure to help guide my family through it.  I hope my FAITH kicks in and I'd know that what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger.  I hope LOVE kicks in and I realize that love indeed concurs all and as long as we have it, we will survive.

I believe we need to start treating the financial crisis like the category 5 hurricane that could come any day.  Think about, talk about, take precautions.  I believe mental preparedness is a valuable asset in times like these.

I think I can safely recommend the Blackberry Storm

I am a gadget nut.  Seriously.  I'm not someone who needs the latest and greatest of everything.  But every now and then, something moves me so much that I just HAVE to have it...if it's within my budget of course.  So I sold my LG Dare and purchased a Blackberry Storm - on launch day.  Yes, on a cold November morning, I sat outside of a local Circuit City waiting to be one of the first to have this little treasure in my hands.  

Unfortunately, my delight began to wither away shortly thereafter.  The touchscreen was inconsistent to say the least.  The phone lagged, lagged, lagged.  But after having the blackberry experience there was no way I could go back to a regular phone.  So I decided to wait it out.  A software update came.  It helped a lot but the hardware still seemed a little jacked.  So I got a replacement device.  This one was a tad better but new problems arose with this one.  It would reset spontaneously, freeze for no apparent reason.  Just awful.  So I called Verizon customer service once again and after pleading my case, received yet another phone.

So now I am convinced that RIM has made some adjustments to this phone that were not there in previous issues.  The touchscreen is MUCH better than either of the other phones.  The interface seems a bit peppier and with another OS upgrade due this month, I suspect it will run like a champ.  The phone I have in my hands now is the phone that should have been available on launch day.  Sometimes it simply doesn't pay to be an early adopter.

Laptop #4

Well, well, well.  I haven't posted to this blog in quite a while so let me say 'hey' to the 3 people who might read it :-).  One of the main reasons I haven't been blogging lately is because my laptop died on me.  Those who know me personally and my history with laptops were not surprised by this at all.  Why?  Well this was the 3rd laptop I've had in 5 years.  Which basically means I have never gotten two years worth of mileage out of a single laptop.  I don't think I'm especially hard on the things.  I mean I do use my laptop a lot.  I am a certified internet junky to say the least.  But it's not like I'm physically harming the machines...am I?  

Well anyway, I was able to replace the laptop with a new one and decided to go Mac this time.  The new sleek unibody macbooks just came out so it was the perfect opportunity for a cheapskate like me to get a good deal on the older model.  So I got a substantial savings on a 2.5ghz Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro.  This is my first Mac and so far I am satisfied especially with the operating system.  It is much more stable than Vista and very intuitive. 

So wish me luck...I'm gonna need it.