Tablets
Yesterday I ordered my very first Tablet. I've been wanting one for years now but I kept putting it off because it seemed like a pricey investment... then I finally rationalized yesterday.

I've got three small jobs I'm doing for a musician friend... I should be getting several hundred dollars for the work (we've only set pricing for the first project so far [a joint project flash video for a German-based website that is almost in alpha], so I'm not sure of the exact total amount). While I could use that money to buy a tablet after I'm paid, it seemed more useful to HAVE the tablet to do the work and then pay myself back for the expenditure later on.

While I was musing over this possible "investment," a mutual friend of ours mentioned that her company Toolfarm could give me a good discount on the tablet I wanted - first the website discount and then an additional personal discount from her. I looked into it and, after shipping and Sales Tax, I was only going to save $1 over buying the tablet at the store and walking out with it in my hands. While it WAS only a dollar, I decided it was better to support my friend's company. [My parents always encourage me to spend my money at smaller businesses to help the economy.]

Then, while I was entering my payment information and proceeding to checkout, just as my order was about to process, Toolfarm alerted me that they had just changed the price of the tablet I was purchasing. They lowered the price an additional $30 and, thus, I saved $32 instead of $1 by buying through them.

Later on, my friend messaged me to make sure I had gotten the reduced price because the change was announced right as I was buying it. She told me she could apply the discount retroactively if necessary, but I assured her I got the correct reduced price. I really love having nice friends with awesome discounts!

The only downside is that they emailed me today to inform me that, because of the price drop, they were now backordered and couldn't mail my tablet until the end of the week.

I'm going to go crazy waiting for my new toy!

If you're at all curious, this is the model I bought, The Intuous4 - Small. 100% of people I asked said to go with Wacom, so I'm expecting to be very pleased. They also said that, though the Medium size would be a bit easier to use, the small one was more portable and would cause less stress on my wrist (which is good news for my CTS).

I'm quite anxious for it to get here now!