The Stupid Purchases thread!

[wonko the sane?]

Cause we all buy stupid jive... especially when drinking. I need to hide my wallet when I break out the whiskey.

Anywho! I just bought a portable retro emulation console off aliexpress, cause of a sudden urge to play blake stone... while lying on my bed. To be fair: I've been toying with getting a retro console for a while now, and for 35 bucks, I don't mind getting screwed over.

So what stupidities have you all bought of late?

 

[Dake]

Do I need a thirty+ year old sports car that's slower than my daily driver sports car? No. But I wanted it.

 

[wonko the sane?]

That is what I'm talking about. Besides, a little paint and tuning, it'll be awesome.

 

[MEDdMI]

So I typed out a long post, then realized it was starting to turn into self-loathing as I agonized over things I've bought that I've come to question/regret (and I wasn't even drunk). So, yeah.

 

[Dake]

Oh, I still have those thoughts from time to time too. I look around my toy room and think, what else could I have done with this? But then I realize I would have spent it on something else frivolous and repress... er, stop worrying about it.

 

[Princess Viola]

People make non-stupid purchases?

 

[wonko the sane?]

People make non-stupid purchases?

All the time. Food, clothes, regular payments on routine services, medications and such.

But if you've purchased something completely unnecessary, ridiculous, or extreme, please feel free to share!

Unless it's crypto, no one wants a sob story from your broke ass.

 

[MEDdMI]

At least I've never bought crypto (and refuse to).

 

[CoffeeHorse]

College.

 

[Platypus Prime]

These guys! Seriously, though, if you put the two together, it explains everything...

 

[DefaultOption]

Do I need a thirty+ year old sports car that's slower than my daily driver sports car? No. But I wanted it.

It has the best styling cue ever: pop-up headlights. No further justification required.

 

[Dake]

EXACTLY!

 

[wonko the sane?]

It's an awesome feature... even if I keep seeing cars that look like they had strokes.

 

[Pocket]

Fun fact: pop-up headlights only existed because it was illegal to make headlights in a nonstandard shape until sometime in the '80s, and for sports cars that interfered with their sleek, aerodynamic shape. I don't know if they ever went on to ban pop-ups for safety reasons, or if they just never had to because manufacturers only ever saw them as a means to an end in the first place.

 

[Dake]

True.

They went away mostly due to changes in pedestrian safety standards, as the really low, wedge-shaped front ends that required pop-ups became illegal. Combined with the law change allowing other-than-round headlight bulbs, the added complexity wasn't necessary... and a little bit of joy left the world.

 

[Pocket]

They went away mostly due to changes in pedestrian safety standards, as the really low, wedge-shaped front ends that required pop-ups became illegal.

Oh right, that. I think I heard something about that. Something like, you're more likely to survive getting hit if it just throws you forward than if you roll over the hood (and possibly over the whole car, land on the road in a heap, and get run over by the next car in line)? I've never been sure if that's real, or if it's just an excuse automakers used to make their cars look more "beefy" with their comically large cowcatcher grills.

 

[Dake]

It's a combination of things, but mostly low bumpers/hoods and/or stubby front ends (the cab-forward design popular in the late nineties) cause the pedestrian to go through the windshield head first which is frequently what kills them. That's why small cars today tend to still have long noses so a pedestrian will expend most of their inertia landing on the hood first.

 

[Haywire]

I mean, it doesn't help that the mechanisms to pop up headlights are finicky and prone to failure. When they work, they look awesome, but keeping them working flawlessly requires more effort than a lot of drivers want to put into their cars.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

My sister had an old Firebird with pop-up headlights. Can confirm, they're a bitch to work on.

 

[wonko the sane?]

So hey! I've had my little emulator console for about an hour (longer than that, but actually in my hand using it.), and I've started to figure it out, so here's a quick review:

x20 mini: good size screen, controls actually feel solid, button feedback is nice (to me anyway.) build is resonable. There is no way to update the firmware or load alternate software. The in built emulator is literally the cheapest jive you could crank out that still works and does not support multiple button presses. 0/10 do not buy.

Like I said: 30 bucks while drunk, don't mind getting burned. At least I got an 8 gig SD card out of it.

Edit: and in the spirit of the thread: I immediately bought another one. Three time more expensive, but an actual brand name (anbernic) in portable consoles which comes well recommended.