Kuwaiti Treasure
Apologies for length...

Well, when I was in Iraq a few years ago I was lucky enough to get something called OSD. Operational Stand Down, where 4 lucky guys a week get to go to Kuwait, stay on the American camp and have fun and explore the city (which is very much like Dubai/Qatar).

As it was the first time I'd been out of the desert in 5 months I went a bit overboard with 5 months worth of untouched wages (with overseas extras) in the American PX. We're talking new DSLR's, Lenses, clothes, knives, presents for people, huge cigars, food....new bags to put it all in. I was having a blast.
What I didn't know, is that this was flagged up back in England with my bank as 'strange behaviour' as my card had gone from not being used for so long to being rinsed. What I also didn't know, was that the American ATM's and chip & pin machines on base, were routed through America first, not Kuwait.

I got a phonecall off my dad a few days later (who was managing my mail etc. for me whilst I was away) saying the bank had detected fraudulent activity on my account and someone had been spending my money in Texas.
I didn't click on at first and neither did he. He had already told the bank I was in Iraq, not America and could prove it.

I got back every penny I spent there as the bank assumed it was fraud and got to keep everything.
( Terry_Tibbs Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language, Mon 25 May 2009, 16:36, 4 replies)

In 1989 I put a down-payment on Nelson Mandela.
By 1990 he was free.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 25 May 2009, 15:15, Reply)

For the love of Megatron
I am roughly thirty years old. My parents were reasonably well off, but they didn't believe in toys or things that weren't practical. I had severe Transformers envy as most of my friend had loads. I had none.

Twenty years later, I go around to one of my friend's house for a BBQ. I notice in his study that he has some of his old Transformers on a shelf.

I get drunk and go home.

I wake up and I find that I have spent £950 on ebay buying a virtually complete collection of first generation Transformer toys, most in the boxes.

I then realise that I have severe psychological issues stemming from childhood.

Having said that though, they virtually all fit inside my bed under the blanket at night when I go to sleep, and I can almost see all of them through the little box windows.

I might eventually even open one of the boxes to play with them.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 25 May 2009, 14:55, 5 replies)

...
I once impulsively bought the World.
Cunt who sold it to me got a song written about him.
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Mon 25 May 2009, 14:29, Reply)

"What about 'er?" one sailor asked to another "think her boat could shift that sunken wreck?"
"Oh er? She shifts decommissioned oil rigs all over the place so her boat's probably designed for it."

"what about 'im in that smaller tug over there?"

"Couldn't manage it"

"why not?"

"Boat's not designed for it"

"what's he do then?"

"'im pulls buoys."
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Mon 25 May 2009, 13:17, 3 replies)

My mate Ian
once pulled some girl and her girlfriend, both of who were up for it with him as well as each other.

Yup, that's my tale of Ian-Pulls-Bis.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Mon 25 May 2009, 13:13, Reply)

No funnies I'm afraid.
Music is one of my greatest pleasures in life and I have collected vinyl for years, dj'ed on a few different radio stations and always had pretty good stereo kit.

However, one day I felt the need for 'better sound' I bought a pair of very expensive Sennheiser headphones (HD650s if you are interested) and a kit for a valve preamp to drive them (again, if you are interested they are 300ohm impedance so most amps don't drive them properly).

Cost me the best part of £400 and about 15 hours putting the amp together but christ, what a difference they make! I'm hearing new stuff in albums I have known for years, new instruments, the odd but of chat between the engineer and band in the background, sound takes on a totally 3d effect. You are in the room with the band.

In impulse buy, but probably the best buy I have made in years.
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Mon 25 May 2009, 13:03, 4 replies)

Nearly. Very, very nearly
I was a bit pissed last night.

There is a bash with Legless and other aussie b3tans on the third of July. In Melbourne.

I live in Oxford.

I had everything lined up - flights, hotels, visa application.

Thank fuck I couldn't find my credit card. I am a complete and utter idiot.

/facepalm
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Mon 25 May 2009, 10:50, 13 replies)

I bought a new life..
A couple of years ago, I bought tickets to a music festival in California. A little pricey at $250US, but it was Rage Against the Machine's first live show in around seven years.
Only problem is I live in Australia...
So $250 quickly turned into another couple of grand for a plane ticket, $150 for a passport application and another $50 for a copy of my birth certificate so that I could even get the passport. Oh, and travel insurance, taking time off work etc etc.
In the end, I did what any intelligent person would do. I quit my job, applied for a Canadian work permit (amazingly, the cheapest part of the whole ordeal!) and moved to Vancouver after the festival.
Since then I've seen most of North America and have just got back to Australia after spending six months in Europe. I plan to see more of Europe next year with my girlfriend, an American who I met at Disneyland in LA and now live with in Melbourne.

Best $250 I ever spent. I meant the ticket. Not my girlfriend.
(r0ach, Mon 25 May 2009, 7:58, 6 replies)

Destroy before using
The Mrs. just sent me to the thrift store to pick up her latest "find". We've been looking for a decent dresser for our bedroom.

"This one's really nice - solid wood, big enough to hold everything, but still small enough to maneuver up the (steep & narrow) stairs", she said.

I've brought it home, and it's a crappy, particle board, cheap as fuck thrift store reject. It's also huge. If we manage to get it upstairs without destroying it I'll be shocked.

Edit:
That went as well as expected. The dressers intact, because it's impossible to get it around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. I now have a dresser in my library - just what I need. I'll just start getting dressed downstairs, I guess.

$50 (not) well spent.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Mon 25 May 2009, 7:47, 2 replies)

first post be gentle.............
well where to start...............a few years back i had a nasty life threatening accident in work and was in hospital for a long while..............after numerous skin grafts and other operations i was discharged and was approached by my union rep...sue the fuckers....you'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams he said......fuck it thought I lets do it

fast forward 4 years and i finally get a payout........not as much as initially expected but i am not too worried about cash flow these days..................until 6 weeks ago.........a fuckspludgeringly huge row with mrs spinks saw me in the spare room and, being the compulsive twat that i am i bought a house......not just any house ...........a cottage with a twatting huge garden (i hate gardening but the dog likes it!!)....but thats not the impulse buy ....oh no a hundred grand on a cottage isn't impulsive for this fuckwit......the house needs work.......alot of work..........so far its had a new kitchen....carpets throughout............furniture for every room.......a gardener to sort the bastard jungle out before i lose the dog....a fucking dishwasher yet i will live alone there (lazy twat)...........a fucking 8 ring range cooker costing fuck knows how much (i never looked at the price tag i just liked it)..next i guess is a huge telly and a big ass massaging leather sofa

oh and me and mrs spinks made up and she's in greece at the moment and is expecting me to be home when she gets back....wish me luck with that one!!!!!
(spinks its only kinky the first time, Mon 25 May 2009, 7:32, 6 replies)

I'm pretty much a shopaholic
If I see something I like I buy it.

I once bought $200 worth of Star Wars Lego (millennium Falcon!) then realised what I had done and simply gave it to my boyfriend at the time as a birthday present. It was a good cover up for my overspending.

I also can't help myself when it comes to anything to do with cupcakes. I bought a 36 cupcake holding cupcake courier.. and I don't even bake more than 12 cupcakes at a time. Let alone take them anywhere that would need a courier. Atleast it looks pretty :D
( Squishtastic is having bouts of insomnia.. beware b3ta, Mon 25 May 2009, 5:51, 3 replies)

a while back
i bought a large chunk of land off Russia out of sheer boredom for a cent an acre.I got a right grilling about it from ..well, just about everybody. Then we discovered gold and I was pretty damn chuffed.
Yours sincerely,

William H. Seward
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Mon 25 May 2009, 1:49, 2 replies)

My laptop
Bought a lovely laptop. It was amazing, did everything I wanted. One day it stopped working so I took it to pcworld to get it fixed.





The rest is history

Paul Gadd
(Pill Popper Thank you Sasha Shulgin, Mon 25 May 2009, 1:22, 3 replies)

tenuous but true
we have just been stuck at barbados and then antigua airports, as virgin managed to turn an 8 hour trip into a 24 hour litany of cockups and internal flights. although i stamped my foot hard enough that we got sent back to our lovely hotel at mr branson's expense for a few hours, most people were not quite so lucky.

or so fragrant.

that last minute boots purchase of impulse "temptation" body spray (which i haven't used since school netball!) may well be the best £1.10 i have ever spent.

if only they made one to silence screaming babies...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 May 2009, 0:43, 3 replies)

This burger
I'm not too sure about it at all.

Ask me to report back.



If I'm still here tomorrow.
(Wheezy Luv-ah is pootling about on, Mon 25 May 2009, 0:25, Reply)

Old radio equipment
To be precise, a large box of assorted ex-police 1980s walkie-talkies (on a variety of frequencies that aren't used for anything any more), twice as many rechargeable batteries as radios, a recharging dock that takes several radios at once and weighs about 20kg, and some flexible aerials. They use crystals rather than synthesized tuning, so they would cost more than a modern radio to set up with all six channels. They were 15 quid for the entire (huge) box.

I really only wanted the lovely bakelite 1940s Morse key that was in the corner of the box with them...

Click this if you think I should apply for a licence to use 149.400MHz...
(gordonjcp, Mon 25 May 2009, 0:06, 2 replies)

I didn't buy it, but i do have it.
A Twitter account.

I merrily jumped on the bandwagon, only to find it's completely and utterly useless.

Having said that, Lily Allen is actually very entertaining on it.
(KneelDiamond, Sun 24 May 2009, 23:32, Reply)

Implusive... read drunk.
To date.

A "Deluxe Chrome Bottle Carousel & Measures" from drink stuff .co.uk (http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?SearchField=optic+stand&ID=103) I bought it when i live in edinburgh, where it lived for a year, and loaded up with diluting juice. Now it sits out back gathering dust. It is a bit pants, if you get one, make sure your have 6 bottles otherwise it will not spin & leaves at an alarming angle.

Cordless phones, i was making a drunk call to the southern hemisphere and the sound quality was shocking so i, while drunk, bought some phones.

A years subscription to RapidShare.

Oh, although i wasn't the "buy" i was there for this. Group of us, drunk, walking back from the pub run into two nice blokes looking to sell some cheap barcadi, two 1ltr bottles for £20, Spark goes forth and inspects them, money and booze exchanged. Car speeds off. Water, they were filled with water. Shouting and throwing of bottles, we walked on. 10 minutes later, "I'm thirst, anyone got some water"

StyX
(StyX is staring at you, yes YOU!!!, Sun 24 May 2009, 20:03, 3 replies)

When back at school
and in the days when students got their loan cheques in one lump sum at the start of the year, we had a couple of people come from the local university to talk to us about every day student life, dealing with finances and stuff. They were actually very good.

They told a tale about someone at their uni who, not realising that the cheque was for the whole year, went out and bought, of all the things in the world...

...a bloody speedboat.

He bought it off an ad in the paper and couldn't get his money back either. Still, my guess is he was a legend.
(Tiny Blindfolded Horse Kitten sound car horns would end road rage, Sun 24 May 2009, 17:25, Reply)

Step right up
This QOTW is just aching for a soundtrack..."step right up" by Tom Waits springs to mind
( daikoku has been on a ragga tip since, Sun 24 May 2009, 14:53, 4 replies)

In the name of cuteness.
They where just there, staring at me. Wishing to be bought. Their little beady eyes and wriggly noses spoke to me. "Buy me, cunt." They said and so I did.

Sadly the male (coloured) passed away a bit ago so Pudding the albino needs me to buy her a new friend.



I didn't factor in that Im a student, finished now and having a ferret sort of makes it harder to find places to live it seems.
(Guilt wants to get in your moist confines, Sun 24 May 2009, 13:35, 22 replies)

Tweet
Tweet is a small, cuddly blackbird toy that makes the sound of a real blackbird when you squeeze him. He's adorable.
I bought him in January as a treat after university exams, and he lives mainly in my bed, either perched on the pillow or just peeping out from under the covers. He's the only cuddly toy I currently own, having shut all my previous ones in a cupboard when I was eleven (my sister and I decided it wouldn't be 'cool' for us to have toys when at secondary school).
Since buying him, I have found that the way people react to Tweet when they first meet him is an excellent way of determining personality. I call this (somewhat unimaginitively) 'The Tweet Test'.
The sign of a caring, well-adjusted person is to think that Tweet is really cute and coo over him a little bit, maybe ask where to get a bird like him.
An arrogant person will hardly make any comments, even when presented with Tweet directly.
People who are insecure or self-absorbed will think that Tweet is staring at them, thinking about them or even talking about them.
There is no pass or fail to the test, but it is very revealing, and very, very useful for determining suitability of prospective boyfriends.
( Peapod Has returned to the fold on, Sun 24 May 2009, 11:37, 6 replies)

Range Rover.
Back from the pub, and straight on the computer as usual.
Woke up the next morning to find I'd bought a Range Rover on Ebay. But not just any Range Rover, this had to be a Range Rover at the opposite end of the country from where I lived, ended up flying down to collect it, as the bloke just happened to live a couple of miles from Stanstead, and flying was the cheapest way of getting down there. The flight cost me £40, and it cost me £70 in fuel to drive it back, this doesn't bode well for the future me thought!
Still got the bloody thing 4 years later, as just after I bought it the arse dropped out of the range rover market, and I couldn't sell the bloody thing. Had to take a second job to pay for the petrol to get to my first job, but shouldn't complain really I suppose, as so far I have been pretty lucky that the tyres haven't been slashed and it hasn't been daubed in paint by the lentil munchers.
Anyone want to buy a Range Rover?
(SimonSNJ, Sun 24 May 2009, 9:07, 3 replies)

Seemed like a good idea at the time....
several years back...
Going through a separation after 20 years of wedlock...
What can be besed described as a difficult time...
Anyway.. the witch pleads poverty and the need for a car for the bofkins...
Borrow mine... (bearing in mind she had already stolen my ML320 and sold it... (OK so I'm a prat))...
"Thank you" she says, so I go home and arrange finance to buy another set of wheels...
Call it midlife crisis or whatever... it was silly buy at the time (her thieving bastards (lawyers) made much out of it)..
I bought a Maserati Spyder.
Wow!... a ragtop with oomph!!...
Can't use it in winter or bad weather... Too powerful for the road (so it spent all last year in the garage).. it comes out in summer for 6 months..
Best described as a 2+2.. it's no use now as new Bofkin is 6 months old.
In 4.5 years I've put 6K on the clock (current total 29K)

Not the wisest purchase...
Anyone want to buy a Mazza? (seriously)
(bof, Sun 24 May 2009, 1:09, 8 replies)

Earlier today I was offered a
plinthe mounted taxidermy wild boar head. Should I buy it? Click I like this and tell me what you think. I'll even put a picture of it here for your viewing pleasure if you good people tell me to buy the thing! For only a mere £100 of our English pounds!! Woo!
(Sir General ***WoW***, Sun 24 May 2009, 0:34, 7 replies)

My Wife
Picture the scene - A happy couple driving through Sydney, tooling merrily westbound on the M4.

My then girlfriend and I are discussing a possible future together. At that stage, we'd been together for just on a year.

My best friend was possibly leaving the country for an undetermined period of time, and her best friend was going to be back in the country for 4 weeks from working in Europe.

I looked at her. She looked at me.

I summed up the situation.

"Well, if we're going to get married, it's going to have to be in September this year. So, do ya wanna?"




I'm still paying. And now there's bub on the way, too.....
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Sat 23 May 2009, 23:34, 3 replies)

impulse buy
Strolling along Charing Cross Road London i spotted a Hohner Pro Series Jaguar guitar in window of a guitar store -i debated the issue with myself over a ciggie and took the plunge,being a Nirvana fan and wanting to own a Kurt Cobain copy axe i have no regrets-i still have the guitar to this day and its lovely.
(shug, Sat 23 May 2009, 23:22, Reply)