Most of you know that I have a particular weakness for all things gadgety. If it’s shiny or has lots of buttons, I probably want it. Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about wasting my money on:

• Camera phone – If you’ve ever talked about cell phones with me, you’ve probably heard my “I just want a phone that’s a phone” rant. However, I find the instant gratification of a camera phone very, very appealing.
• Canon EOS 20D – 8 megapixels, 0.2-second start up time, 5 fps burst shooting… Now I know that a nice camera does not a photographer make, but this camera is so cool. Plus, it is probably the best affordable <ahem> dSLR camera on the market.
• TiVo – I don’t watch that much TV anymore, but how else am I going to make sure to catch The O.C. every week?
• iPod – I, too, want to be one of the cool people walking around with white earbuds.

In other, completely unrelated news, I saw Garden State last night with Buddy and enjoyed it quite a lot. (“it” being the movie, not Buddy. Not that I don’t enjoy Buddy, but his soundtrack isn’t as good.) Mad props to Zach Braff for an amazing first movie. Plus, Super Bonus™ for writing into it making out with Natalie Portman. Let’s be honest here — who among us, given the chance, wouldn’t do that?

On the subject of Natalie Portman, (not making out with her, just her) I thought she was very good in the movie. Now this came as a bit of a surprise, given the craptastic performances she gave in the last two Star Wars movies. Was this merely a fluke? Or was Star Wars the fluke? It is important to note that Haydn Christensen also gave a sucktacular performance in Star Wars. However, his performance in Shattered Glass was widely praised. Thus, we can come to a single, inevitable conclusion: George Lucas makes good actors bad. That’s gotta suck. Being totally ignorant about both the art of acting and the art of directing, I always assumed that good actors were always good actors, regardless of who is directing them. But I guess this proves that indeed, directors actually do something. Who knew?