I've been wanting a GPS for some time now, partly to geocache, partly to avoid getting lost (although I never really seem to drive anymore -- last night's trip to get some sorely needed groceries was the first time I've used my car in over a week). I finally decided that, as I'm going to get it anyhow, and it'll be another inspiration to go hiking to new and fun places in the awesome park system around town, I was going to get one today. So, I look at the stuff they have at some local sporting goods stores. Bleh, nothing really seemed to catch my eye, but someone suggests I look at Magellan's Meridian Colour GPS. Looks really cool, but oy, the price. I want to geocache, and a colour device really would be a lot nicer than a black'n'white, but $500 is too much. I start poking around for alternative units, but don't see anything I like... and geocacheing.com's sponsored items page really doesn't have much in the way of good deals.. I'm sure the devices they recommend are nice, but I'd prefer to have the savings sitting in my credit union account gathering interest.. so eventually I go to pricewatch.com, and they point me at some places that have it for considerably less (over a 30% cost difference). The particular place I got it from had free shipping as well.. all this is why it's a good idea to shop around, even when you're impulse buying. It is interesting though, that the online stores tend to share an absolute bottom price they'll share it for, no matter what the venue or if they're listed together somewhere. I wonder if this is literally their cost for the item (meaning that they make their profits selling something else) or if there's some unspoken or perhaps manufacturer-mandated minimum price they can sell it at. Someone at work is buying a digital camera soon, and he's been borrowing mine to play around with it. I probably should point him at pricewatch too.

Anyhow, it should arrive next week. I'm off to take a nice walk, and then likely to the coffeeshop to get some stuff for work done, and finally a nice geekfest with the Zets to end the day.

Oh, the funniest IM away message I've ever seen, I saw today: "I am not available because I am playing a computer game that takes up the whole screen."

Finally, an interesting social datapoint on Saudi society.