Lead Me Not Into Temptation…?

Okay, so CeX Computer Exchange (is that pronounced Kex, or Sex?) is nothing new. They have been around for a while. My nearest one resided comfortably far away, in the not-very local shopping centre Merry Hill. I have hitherto avoided this haven on the grounds that it would ultimately bankrupt me. But no. The slavering tentacles of what is quite possibly the perfect chain of shops has just landed in my home town. Worse yet, within 100 yards of my current place of employment…!

Apart from eBay, there is nothing that comes close to this paradise. A shop, specialising in buying, selling and exchanging games, gadgets and phones, Undercutting Gamestation and Game for second-hand PSPs and the like. I am the technology rag-and-bone man, and I love amassing used stuff both because it is cheaper than new, and if it’s flat lining or completely dead, I like nothing more in assuming the role of Lazarus or Dr. Frankenstein by breathing new life into it. This is the sort of shop I want to own. Apart from the fact that it would not make any money, because I would personally lust over everything that came in through the door. The bowels of the shop already look like my office desk, albeit better equipped.

I have already been known to pour far too much money into eBay, buying oddities that I will then systematically gang-rape in order to discover every possible function. I love making things do stuff that they were not exactly designed for, and my Gizmondo is the ultimate flagship on the subject. I am not geeky enough to write the programs myself, but I will go out of my way to find them. The thing with eBay always was – all you see of your potential purchase is a very low-grade photo. That’s normally enough to put you off there and then. But, when it’s right in front of you, like Jessica Simpson in an edible bikini, it’s really (I mean really) hard to ignore. It’s true. There’s very little I won’t do for CeX…!?!

- Galford.