Oscilloscope
Today I bowed to the forces of consumerism and purchased... an oscilloscope. I found the Velleman HPS-10 for an excellent price at Omnitron Electronics. There's that link in case you're interested in buying one of your own. They're shipping it UPS ground from Florida. Yuck.
Every review I've read of it says that its a toy, and its just no damn good, etc. But that's okay, because as an electrical engineer I'm no damn good, and besides I'm making toys.
I'm a big fan of DIY approaches to these sorts of problems (which may explain my lack of overall productivity). I spent a full half-hour investigating the possibility of using my PC sound-card as an oscilloscope. I cut that line of inquiry short however when I realized that this DIY approach would likely result not only in frustration, a ongoing lack of oscilloscope, but also a busted sound card.
This HPS-10 oscilloscope (over which I've gotten myself into quite a shopper's frenzy) is shattering my long held notions about oscilloscopes: Oscilloscopes are big, expensive, boxy items sized to hold all those flux capacitors and thermal-bypass fuses and captured eigen-hamsters. This is a handheld device, and is noteworthy perhaps only insofar as it comes packaged in plastic bubble pack.
I want to examine triac outputs for bias, make sure my 555 timers are ticking, and my crystal oscillators are oscillating, and my piezo elements hear me drumming. And I don't want to take up room on my desk for a tool I know will be used rarely. That said, why doesn't it get here already!