Topic: Gratuitous Material Wants

Hello all...

This is a thread to share your most gratuitous wants!

Let us all bathe guilt-free in the decadent waters of ultra-materialism and share some of the stuff we'd really like to buy - but are just a bit too frivolous and/or expensive to justify.

Perhaps something will catch your eye that you'd never considered... who knows?!

To start - well, let's start small...

I love a square Casio G-Shock. For all of the brilliant watches in the world and some of the nicer one's I've owned; may favorite watch ever is my current G-Shock GMW56101ER. It's sized perfectly, keeps as near to perfect time as is possible, takes a beating, is solar powered and as has a great retro look. And, it was only £100 new and looks as good as when I got it nearly 2 years ago.

Casio recently released a stainless steel version with an updated module and even sharper styling. It still works as a beater watch but is just so. damned. good looking!

Alas, for reasons, it's retail point is £450(!) with a pretty strong after sale market going already. Dumb as it sounds, were I to suddenly come in to a lot of money - this would probably be my first purchase.

How about you lot? What are your deeply shameful material demons?

I'm just going to be very reasonable. I have quite a lot of vinyl, but pretty recently I had to throw away my vinyl player. Sad, but there were major fluctuations in its pitch and whatever I did only seemed to make it worse. So, I'm waiting until I have enough money saved up for a new one. Whenever that is, I don't know, but I do know which one I want: the Rega Planar 1.

Just look at it! It's only 250.

@Kidfried That's pretty sharp!

Is there an option and expensive cover too?

I have very little vinyl and nothing to play them on now anyway. I'd quite like one of the old Sony 'flamingo' players though.

I have a couple big ticket items that I'm waiting to get, not specifically because of cost but more because they'd require significant upheaval and reorganisation of my apartment which, unfortuantely, I'm not mentally strong enough to endure right now.

For some bizarre reason, I've always thought that a lounge must have a sofa, despite the fact that nobody's allowed into my apartment except me and my butt really isn't that big, so I'll be gleefully destroying my current IKEA reject and getting something more suited to my needs: a gaming chair. There's a PlayStation-licenced one at Argos for £220 but every time I look at it, I think it looks really uncomfortable, so I might just end up getting something more traditional, like a big ol' Lay-Z Boy (that'll slowly degrade my already-damaged spine over time, but hey) or some kind of captain's chair.

Either way, I'd then have space for a couple more shelving units, onto which can go various overflowing displays of tat (and boring things like books, I guess). The giant cuddly Sonic who currently sits next to me whilst I game and watch things will have to find a new home, poor chap. Beyond that, it's big statues and various other nerdy stuff for me.

@KALofKRYPTON That's one mighty fine watch, and £450 sounds very reasonable when you consider that your average Omega goes for £2,000 and upwards. Merge a Christmas and birthday one year!

@Kidfried Futuristic, yet retro... I can't stand vinyl but even I want one of those!

@RogerRoger oooooh... A mate had an Xrocker thing many years ago. He loved it, I just felt like a kid sitting on the floor - which just didn't suit my then oh-so-cool irreverent teen sensibilities! 😂

Though space for more books is always worth it.

I have yet to replace one of my broken shelves... 😲😂

Very good point about the watch... May have to get people to club together 😁

I hadn't owned a digital watch for years before my current G-shock. Just prior I'd been using a Sony Smart Watch 2, which was great and fully intended to upgrade to the 3 as a birthday gift. So glad I spotted the g-shock though; illustrated quite nicely how I'd really let myself become a bit of a sad slave to notifications for everything!

@KALofKRYPTON Oh goodness no, I won't be getting any of those glorified bucket seats that look like they've been ripped out of hatchbacks. I need a chair-chair. As a somewhat-injured 31 year old, I'm already at the stage in life where I groan when I stand up and sit down... floor level is simply too far for me to regularly travel!

I spy some PSone and MegaCD games on your shelf behind that stack of books, so it's good to know which entertainment items get priority!

Smartwatches are evil. My partner got one and it drove me absolutely bonkers (although it was a Sony, so I wasn't as bonkers as I could've been, yay for OCD). He adores gadgets and I'm fine with that, he's got some awesome tech, but the smartwatch was a step too far; does anybody really need a watch to pre-empt their phone's own multi-sensory alert systems by half a second? Tellingly, without any input or urging from me, he stopped wearing it after about six months. When I asked him why, he mumbled something about it "getting in the way".

Now, show me one of those £2,000 Omegas and it'd be a different story!

The most material thing I usually want is a nice car. Growing up I had a thing for cars, and I decided that I wanted either a Chevrolet Corvette or Dodge Viper when I had a chance. I don't want super high end like a Bugatti or Pagani, since that's basically inviting someone to try and steal it. I just a car I think is cool, and those to me fit the bill.

On a much lesser example, I've always wanted a leather jacket. I almost bought one with my tax returns last year, but that all went to necessities instead. What I had left couldn't meet the $155 price.

I’d like to own at least one of those full-sized authentic long swords. Like an actual sword that would be used by a medieval king or knight. Not like a knock off replica, but an actual functional sword and scabbard, forged legitimately from fine steel and worthy of battle.

I’m nerdy that way.

Actually, I think it would be so cool to have a full sword collection. A samurai katana, a Persian scimitar, a Greek xiphos, a Roman gladius, and a Viking axe for good measure.

Yeah, not very practical. But just would be really cool conversation pieces. ...And a home defense system as a bonus.

I want a Tesla. I really want a Tesla. Not many things more gratuitous than that. However, this is too expensive to buy without buying a house I don’t have to mortgage to buy it. I’m not sure that’s what you meant, but I want a Tesla.

@RogerRoger I'd say a really nice 'office' chair would probably fit the bill, and not be inflated for the 'gaming chair' moniker?

Yeah... Thankfully I'd moved my Vita from the shelf below the books the night it collapsed!

He's right on the money. After I stopped wearing mine I shut off notifications for everything barring texts and calls and had a 6 month break from using Facebook and Twitter. Don't have any notifications for them still. Much better.

@DerMeister Cars and good leather count! Any particular style?

@Th3solution the only problem with a real functioning sword is the danger of hurting yourself 😂
I had a replica Blade Daywalker sword. Only 440 steel and 'faux sharpened'... Still managed to cut a gash in my knee (pissing about, admittedly) with it. I could pretty much see the 'what a ******* nerd' amusement on the nurses face when it turned out it really wouldn't stop bleeding 😂

@Jaz007 Which one?
I quite like the flamethrower! 😉

I think I would like to get a really expensive watch, something along the lines of TAG, Omega, Bremont or Breitling but this is pure pipedream stuff. Also I would love an Aston Martin as they are the best looking cars on the market (in my opinion), probably a DBS or a DB9 as I think these look better than the new ones although they won't be as good.

@crippyd I'd go for a V8 Volante (the custom hard top from The Living Daylights)

@crippyd @KALofKRYPTON "Dear Santa..."

"...please, thank you."

As for chairs, yeah, I used to have an incredibly-comfortable ergonomic chair at work and I've kept a note of the specs, but I think I'll be getting something like that for my desk (which could also use an upgrade now that I'm home all the time). I keep coming back to the Lay-Z Boy because, despite everything, there's something to be said for sinking into something you never wanna get up from.

Can we do gaming tat we want in here, or should that be in the other topic?

@Th3solution You and my brother would get along famously. He does Viking recreation stuff and is fascinated by various swords and melee weapons from all kinds of different historical cultures, and almost has that exact wall display you're describing.

As a fencer, I sometimes lament the lack of precision much of his collection would call for in practical use, but it's still quite an impressive sight.

@RogerRoger Ludicrously expensive gaming tat? Don't see why not

@RogerRoger Your brother sounds like a pretty cool guy! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put together a collection of ancient weapons, but I am jealous of those who do. It’s a by-product if my interest in history and fantasy/Sci-fi. But life and it’s stupid practicalities dictates the use of my funds elsewhere.
And the fact you are a fencer is very interesting! Not a common hobby. Are you competitive or just for fun?

@KALofKRYPTON Okay, so I've currently got a shopping list which includes...

He's $285 direct from First4Figures (cheaper if you don't get the light-up version, but who wouldn't want the light-up version?!) but I'll likely have to pay more as there's a massive wait list with them, yet others are floating around on eBay for immediate purchase.

Can't decide which of these Lara Croft statues I want, both from Gaming Heads...

...and both somewhere between £300 and £600 each, depending on where you find them. The one of Classic Lara hasn't been released yet (despite it being a 20th Anniversary Celebration item, so only two years late but hey) but I just love the dynamic pose of the Temple of Osiris one.

Finally, there's this Good Smile Company statue of Ninja Batman...

...which doesn't release until next year and has a current reserve price of ¥92,407 which, at today's exchange rate, is about £630 (give or take). There's also gonna be a Joker to go with him, continuing the rooftop diorama, but he's still at the concept stage.

Told you I needed more shelves.

@Th3solution That's the right way to be; the historical interest and the appreciation of them justifies such displays, otherwise you do find the occasional person who likes "a wall full of weapons" for the wrong reasons. Never say never!

I've only just started to think about picking fencing back up (work got in the way for a while) but when I was a teenager, I took part in a few small inter-club tournaments and did reasonably okay. I think I'd wanna keep it just for fun nowadays, though. The reason I'm not a competitive person in practice is because, under the surface, I'm an intensely competitive person, so it's best I don't crack the lid on that particular Pandora's Box of personality issues!

@RogerRoger Nice! Especially the Batman Ninja - which incidentally is the next small crossover pack for the DC Comics Deck Building Game! It looks like it'll play really nicely, even with a castle endgame; not sure about the bat-monkeys just yet though...

Regarding the fencing - I imagine you going full on Die Another Day!

@KALofKRYPTON Oh, sweet, thanks for the heads-up!

It was that film's fault for me taking it up. My instructor was very patient with me during the first few weeks of my "When do I learn how to leap off a chair?" pestering. Boy, did I learn fast!

@RogerRoger That’s me too. I had to make a conscious decision to not participate in competitive sports because I didn’t like who I become under the pressure of competition. I don’t like how I get hot-headed and grumpy so I very rarely engage in competition — a lifestyle that has bled over into my gaming as well. I usually don’t play online and against other players as a result (SP all the way!) I’ve been known to throw controllers and walk out of a friendly PvP match because I took it too seriously. I can barely watch my favorite sports teams play anymore. Keeping to myself is a much safer bet. 😅
Back on topic: Love those statues. Both Laras are great, but especially the dynamic pose. That Ninja Batman is very cool and I love the artistic lines and feeling of motion it portrays as well.