I’m gonna get my new camera! I’m gonna get my new camera! I’m gonna gonna gonna gonna get my new camera! Today! Laa laa laa laa laa!
Mum loaned me some moolah a couple of days back. She must have noticed me moaning about thinking of ways to save up. I promised her that I’ll pay her back again. But mum insisted that I write up an official I.O.U to her. I think she has ideas thanks to watching this show
Is a funny show which I enjoyed immensely. I think its almost comparable to “something’s gotta give” except that in I do, I do, is a story about a delivery guy, falling in love with a career woman, who rejects him which stumbles with an almost perfect guy.
In one of the scene career woman falls in love with the almost perfect guy who gets beaten up because he was the guarantor for a friend who couldt pay up and she finally gave the loansharks some money and he wrote up an I.O.U on his computer to her.
Anyway, speaking about shops, I’ve came across some which I will never, ever patronise if I can help it.
No 1 : Cash Converters
Cash converters is a shop which sells practically anything. There’s one a few busstops away from my home and I decided to buy a PDA from this shop two weeks ago after thinking of its benefits of downloading close to unlimited e-books and reading it on the go. I bought me a Sony CLIE PEG-NR70V there for about $295 dollars.
After a few days, I noticed that some of the buttons didnt work as good. So I decided to go to the shop again. The salesman there said that I could either exchange it or send my pda for a fixing. How long does it take for it to be fixed? A week? I shook my head. I looked at the choices of pda’s in the display cases. It looked pretty scratched and in bad shape. So I decided otherwise. I decided to sell it back to cash converters.
The man looked at the clie and asked for my receipt. And he said to me, our company has a policy of selling back of 1/2 the original price. You’ll get $147 dollars. My eyes nearly popped out of my socket. 1/2? Thats crazy! I’d understand if its 10 percent, or 15 percent, even 3/4. But half? What cut throat! And they’ll sell it back for the original price no doubt! That really got my blood boiling. But of course it’s “company policy” and marina’s policy says that I’ll never go there ever again.
No 2 : Local cinemas
When I heard from the radio that cinema tickets will be raised up to $9 my heart sanked. Only in a cinema does one small bucket of popcorn costs $4.50. Heck, I could get much yummier dairy queen popcorn for lower. But what can one do? Cinemas are pretty much a monopoly here – and if they choose what price that they want to charge, either we pay up or dont get to enjoy at all. Its amazing that it was just a few years ago when cinema operators announced that they wanted to charge only $5 per ticket. This is to avoid having piracy problems.
But there are other alternatives to going to the cinema. I could …
– buy a vcd or dvd at that price which was just running in the cinema 1 or two months back
– rent 4 vcds at the rental shop just below my house.
– cook some food which I can share with my family and eat till we go silly
– Go swimming at the deluxe pool with all 4 of my siblings
In economics, this is called “Opportunity costs” The cost (wheter tangible or intangible) of an alternative service.
Anyway, its a tad bit too pricey if I want to bring Haikal and Diana along. I’m sure families wouldnt find it justifiable either.
No 3 : Seoul Garden
Bleh. Misleading price quotes. It might say $16.99 there. But you’d pay at the very least $25 dollars. Sorry. I’d rather make steamboat at home that feeds 6 people. With a tub of ice cream to boot and enough money left to buy a cheesecake too.
Aye, thats all the bad mouthing that I have to say for the moment. I’ll be sure to add up to more later on.
But for now, I’m going to get ready to go out to claim my new camera 🙂
*saunters out to put on her make up, styling of hair and other vanities*
What? No pictures yet?!!??
soon! Very soon now krysss! 🙂 By the way, I’ve added the image link that you requested for 🙂 Is right there on the right hand side of the menu 🙂
Ahh your mother is getting smart. Now she has proof you owe her!
Cinemas: They are just as big a rip off here in the US as in Singapore. We do have one small thing. Matinee’s on Saturday afternoons and Sunday afternoons. Cinema usually has $2 USD charge.
Check conversion or what ever it is called, had better either fix your pda or replace it. Sounds like that one has been sold over and over again
Well mum’s a very smart woman for sure. I’m very sure she’d go far if she faced a different era where female had a better opportunity for education. Is a crying shame.
And a crying shame about Cash Converters too. I’ll never. go. there. again. ever.
Thanks for the image, its going to get used 🙂