Burglary

After spending a week out of town to visit my family, we came back to Texas to find our house had been broken into and all our electonics stolen. This included our 22" flatscreen TV, three computers, and my PlayStation 2.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Nothing of significant emotional value was taken, and the things that were taken weren't necessarily top quality stuff.

For example, my PS2 was 7 years old, and (being a Korean version) can't play U.S. games. Though the box also had two of my games, I haven't played them since before I got married.

Of the three computers that were stolen, one had a power supply problem that prevented it from recharging (good luck getting that to work -- it's such a touchy repair that no place wanted to assume liability for it, and so it never got repaired). Another had a DVD-ROM issue so that you couldn't play movies on it, and the third -- the newest (and don't get me started on this tangent) -- was my wife's, but she never used it.

As for the TV, yeah it was a nice, new flatscreen, but at 22" diagonal it was a bit small for our shelving unit anyway.

So in spite of the pain of having to dish out the bucks for new stuff, not to mention the backlog of blog posts I've accrued, life's not too bad. We'll pay $200 or so to fix the door that was broken and another $100 for installation of a security system, but that's small potatoes compared to what we could have lost.

And according to the IRS, the value of property lost to theft is deductible.

Sweet -- junky old electronics that no charity would take is now of financial benefit. Thanks, guys.