Black Friday Wishlist of Things I Don't Need

Here is what I am putting in my online shopping cart today and pondering over for a few hours before deciding I really don't need or want these items. Depending on how you look at it I am a horrible shopper, but I am also really excellent at talking myself out of purchases. But some of these sure look cool.

1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy $3.99 MP3 download via Amazon
I really don't care if I have his music or not but for $4 it seems like a deal. I could always find the album for free on the internet but then I have to deal with renaming tracks and making sure the quality is good, and more importantly I don't like stealing music, even from someone at Kanye's level. In the end, I probably won't have any of his music for the next three months until I cave in. But the sale on this album ends soon, so if you want it go get it. But on the other hand, $4 will also buy you two smoked sea salt caramels, which sounds slightly more enjoyable than Kanye to me.

2. Pro-Ject III Turntable  $400
Now I haven't sufficiently done turntable research and I am open to any suggestions. This is just one of the ones on my list but I heard Stanton makes some good entry level ones as well. I really want a vinyl collection. But I have a few issues with it.

First of all, reciever? phono jack? moving a rubber belt that sometimes breaks? USB connections? This all sounds too complicated, I don't understand it well enough. I'm not really settled and plan to move a lot in the next 10 years which means I will probably break this and find it a pain to move around with. My second problem with vinyl is that I should have a large record collection--about 500 records--from my parents. However, in the 90s, at the height of C.D.s and when MP3s were just a glimmer in Steve Jobs eyes, my sister was a toddler and broke the needle on our turntable and nobody was selling replacements at that time. Apparently this was enough for my dad to decide that records were obsolete and threw out the entire collection. When I got really into music as a teenager and went looking for the records only to find them gone, I was devastated. Now the thought of starting a collection from scratch is just too painful. The last problem I have is that a turntable is like a gateway drug. You get one, then you start spending all this money on records, then you realize you need a new speaker system, and then when you are broke you wonder why you didn't just embrace MP3s like the rest of the world.  Plus, by that point, you are so addicted you want to upgrade your turntable and the money sucking cycle continues. *Sigh*, despite all that I still want one badly.

3. Focal XS 2.1 Speaker system $599
Obviously that brings me to speakers. Now here is something I have actually done research on. At first I wanted tall stand-mount speakers, I was even willing to settle for bookshelf speakers, but like I said, I will be moving around a lot. It's just not practical right now. So then I figured a sweet computer sound system would be perfect and I fell in love with this french company who is better known for making outrageously expensive speakers. I love how sleek this system is, it all looks so easy and subtle, yet the sound would be more than enough for a small apartment. If you want a well compiled list of impressive speakers under $2,000 check out this Gizmodo list. The comment section also offers invaluable advice and is where I initially started my research and then got sucked in. Now I lust after a different set of speakers every day.

4. Assorted instruments: Accordion, Musical Saw, Keyboard ($0-$8,000)
These are the three instruments I want the most. The only one I can actually play is the keyboard. Like my dad, my mom also saw some obscure need to get rid of the one musical instrument in our house, and when me and my sister went to college she gave our (my) piano away to charity. While it is probably living a much more useful life now, I really miss being able to sit down and bang out a few notes, play Beethoven's Ode to Joy from memory, or figure out how to play the piano part of Matt & Kim's "Daylight", whenever I am home. However, I have dreams of busking whilst playing an old funeral dirge or a sad old french song on an accordion. The musical saw is pretty sweet, and little bit more rare for a busker to play. Yet it seems simple enough to figure out. These instruments are probably what I want the most from this list.

5. A new super computer capable of holding at least 100,000 songs while running at lightning speed with multiple open applications
It should be clear to you by now that I am no tech guru. Maybe this computer exists, maybe it doesn't. They are building a super computer at Syracuse University to try and detect the sound of celestial black holes. That sounds like technology a music blogger could really put to use! Plus my computer is basically a black hole. I currently use two computers just to blog. One holds all my songs, the other holds all my pictures. Both have memories that are at capacity, all my documents are stored online, I can't even run word on either computer, both run painfully slow. Yes I have a back up hard drive. But when I  go to play songs from it, it duplicates them in itunes and messes up my computer. I always back up, but I insist on having all my songs in one location, I just prefer it to be organized and accessible that way. Help in the form of a super computer (and maybe a permanent socially pleasant IT guy at my side)? Yes please.

Ok, now that I have gone way too far in this wishlist, what do you hope to get for the holidays? What musical gear are you lusting after?