I let my inner gadget slut out to play yesterday.
I first heard about Woot! from Tori. Seemed intriguing enough – a single possibly almost too-good-to-be-true gadgety deal per day, with the occasional Woot-off, deals in rapid succession, sold one at a time until there are none left. Yes, it’s Home Shopping Network for geeks.
I checked it out. I even installed a Woot menu bar that alerted me to current deals. Nothing interested me, though, and I began to resent the real estate the menu bar occupied, so I got rid of it.
Then today on Gizmodo (I think. Might’ve been somewhere else. That’s the problem with reading blogs via a feedreader – they all look the same) I saw an announcement that there was a Woot-off going on right at this moment.
Off I went. Up I signed.
The first item I saw was one of those round vacuum cleaners that run themselves. I have no idea if it was a name brand or not – I’m not up on this technology. I went to check the product site, though, just to compare the price. Manufacturer’s direct price was ~280. The Woot price was $150. Not bad.
The site is fun – the product descriptions are very clever. Apparently there’s a daily podcast – today it’s the Woot-off theme, which is hilarious. They show some useless but interesting stats (as usual, click to enlarge), and have a sense of humor about each product. These folks are having a lot of fun doing this. Here’s the product description for that land line phone decked out in camoflage you see above:
Yes, We Know What You Mean. Yeah. Yeah, Vern, I know it. I know it, I told them “Hey, I got cats to label with unreasonable grammar, I ain’t got time for that.” Hey, hey, hold up, guess what I’m callin’ you on. No, go on guess. You ain’t gonna guess? Go on, just guess once, one guess. You ain’t got it, you big dummy. It’s a Uniden DCT746M 2.4 GHz Cordless Camo Phone. A camo phone! Yeah, just like Snake Eyes. Wait, was he the guy with the beret? The ninja? Hell, I don’t know. But I do know that I got me a sweet phone. It works on the 2.4 GHz band, handles Caller ID and Call Waiting, Three Way Conferencing… YEAH BUDDY THREE WAY WOOOOO You sure right about that, Vern.
It does a lot more crazy stuff too, like connect to other Uniden phones and accept other handsets, but I got no idea where I set that manual so I ain’t never gonna figure that crap out. But hey, I got it so I can take this baby out to my yard. Yeah, that’s where we are right now. I’m out back in the woods, right by the air conditioner. Yeah, the tall grass I ain’t never been mowin’. Hey, we gotta… AW HELL I DROPPED MY PHONE! I DROPPED MY PHONE!! VERN!! VERN!! I CAN’T FIND MY PHONE, VERN!! GOD DANG IT IF THIS DON’T WANT TO MAKE ME JUST KICK TESLA IN THE NUTS! SAY SOMETHING REAL LOUD, VERN!! AW, CRAP IN A BAG, WHY DOES THIS STUFF ONLY HAPPEN TO ME?
I checked back in a while later. There was an RCA Dual Format DVD Recorder w/DivX, HDMI, and UD upconversion for $69.99. I wrestled with myself for a bit, pretending I needed a reason to buy this. Haven’t people asked me tech questions about DVR recorders at some point? Shouldn’t I know this technology? Ultimately, of course, I bought it. Later I bought a US Modular 12GB Monster USB Drive for $50 (that’s basically a little jump drive – like the one on my keychain but maybe 2x the width, and it holds 12GB.)
This was yesterday. At this writing, the Woot-off continues. It’s a good day to be a geek :P)
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