I got a voicemail from my district manager today, to let us know that all clearance technology items are to be marked down by an additional 50% in order to make room for new merchandise.

Well, we had TONS of great deals... I was tempted to buy so many things. However, one toy stood out as something that I just couldn't pass up: A Sony Vaio VGC-RB30 Desktop PC.



- Pentium 4 - 530J - 3.0GHz (same processor as my laptop, coincidentally... upgradeable too!)
- 1MB L2 Cache (800 MHz FSB)
- 512 MB DDR RAM (bumped up to 1.5 gigs when I got home)
- 200 GB SATA HDD
- Integrated Video (yuck) with Available PCI-Express Bus (Yay!)
- Double-Layer DVD+RW/CD-RW (Additional CD-Rom in second bay)
- 9-in-1 Media Card Reader

Sure, it's not the greatest computer out there by any stretch of the imagination, but let me break it down:

It was originally $899.99 when we got it a few months ago. It eventually became a clearance item and steadily dropped in price. As of this morning, it went down to $599.01, plus a $100 mail-in rebate.

In addition, it was the last one left (our display model). Take off an additional 10% for that. Finally, tack on my employee discount. Yet another 10%.

I paid $262 after tax. After the rebate, that's $162. I just had to snag it. It was almost as good a deal as the Uninterruptible Power Supply I got for one penny a few weeks ago. :P