the World Wide Want

The amount of time and money I spend on ordering things from online merchants is becoming problematic.

PROS

1) You can get anything you can imagine at the best existing price;

2) It's a great cure for boredom and a conduit for procrastination;

3) Knowing something is coming in the mail gives you something to look forward to.

CONS

1) ending up with a bunch of shit you don't really want, need, or have the space for;
(example: $50 on sheets from Overstock.com)

2) 70% of the time, the thing I buy fails to meet my hyped-up expectations;
(example: $25 on PS2 game from Half.com)

3) shipping charges are an absolute scam;

4) I'm almost broke.

Here's an unbelievably poignant example of a piece of absolute garbage on which I threw away my money:

5-Day Weather Forecaster from Brookstone

With the unbelievable after-Christmas price of $35, who could resist! Anyone who had ever seen one in person, that's who. This thing fucking sucks. I say this in all complete sincerity--I could open the window and tell you the temperature outside and my guess would be 10-15 degrees more accurate. Again, I'm really not kidding. On most days, the temperature never even comes within the "hi / lo" range displayed on the screen.

It tells you it's thunderstorming outside when there's not a cloud to be found, and vice-versa.

Lesson: I could have spent 8 bucks on a window thermometer at Target and gotten what I was looking for.