I assure you I’m not still going on about my Palm Vx.
What I am going on about is the Palm m505 that I won in an eBay auction and am just enjoying the hell out of. I have to say that eBay is really one of
those incredibly simple ideas that I kick myself in the ass for not having thought up before someone else. eBay is also a great place for cheap bastards like me to enjoy the thrill of an auction and the
thrill of getting a great deal on something.
Now I have to admit I feel a little bad about winning the auction I did. The only reason I feel bad is because at the time I was rabidly trying to make sure I won I was up in Lake Tahoe with my wife and my In-Laws and I had to excuse myself from the dinner table early to get my last minute bids in. I apologize whole heartedly to all at the table for this indiscretion. The auction was just too good to pass up.
The m505 I ended up winning had the same body style as my Vx, but it had one very frivolous thing that my Vx did not: a color screen. This alone was a very big thing for me and made me want to get one bad. I don’t know why. I didn’t really miss having color on any other Palm but the fact that it was out there and I didn’t have it really bugged me.
This m505 was also had potential of being a really incredible deal. This auction didn’t just have the Palm you see… it also came with a belt clip carrying case, the 16MB memory expansion card, the Game Pak expansion card, and in the truest of geek toys a 
foldable keyboard with carrying case to use with the m505. Now, I have a laptop folks… it has a small keyboard too. I can use it for lots of things
and there is no real reason for me to ever really need a keyboard to slide my Palm on to so I can type things into it faster. OK, maybe if I was on a quick commuter plane trip and had Sync’d my email into the Palm and was responding on the trip… that’s about it though. Sensibility doesn’t play into this one bit though… this was a cool gadget with a bunch of cool stuff and I just HAD to have it.
Needless to say I won the auction and I won it at only about $50.00 above what the typical m505 was going for on eBay. So I only spent an extra $50.00 and ended up getting over $200 in accessories I never would have normally bought. THAT my friends is a great deal.
Another quick side note to this story is that the m505 actually arrived today. While I was sitting there giggling to myself while typing an email using my Palm and the folding keyboard one of my co-workers came in and just laughed. After his initial reaction subsided he just looked at me and said, "I can’t believe you have two computers and a laptop all running on your desk right now and there you are typing something into your Palm."
It’s a thin line between dork-ness and techno-cool… and I’m now officially way the hell on the wrong side of that line.
-WW