Cheap TatOneEyedMonster remindes us about the crap you can buy in pound shops: "Batteries that lasted about an hour and then died. A screwdriver with a loose handle so I couldn't turn the damn screw, and a tape measure which wasn't at all accurate."
Similarly, my neighbour bought a lawnmower from Argos that was so cheap the wheels didn't go round, it sort of skidded over the grass whilst gently back-combing it.
What's the cheapest, most useless crap you've bought?
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chthonic, Fri 4 Jan 2008, 7:26)
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What is it with watches?I have two watches - a nice one that I was given for my 30th, which must have cost a fair bit, and which I rarely wear; and a cheap one from Argos for everyday use.
When it comes to everyday watches, I tend to spend as little as possible - less than £20, certainly, and probably closer to £10 if I can manage that. And they are, as a rule, pretty short-lived things. The thought of spending, say, £100 on an everyday watch strikes me as preposterous. And yet, were I to live in a watch-free world, and someone was to offer to tell me the time whenever I liked for, say, 30p a day, that's 30p I'd hand over without question. And over a year I'd have happily parted with enough money to buy quite a swish watch that stands a chance of lasting years and years.
With that, I demonstrate that free-market capitalism, predicated as it is on a population of rational decision-makers, is doomed. AICMFP. Which I will then spend on a rubbish watch, 'cos I'll never learn.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:08,
4 replies)
Compare this withthe Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
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The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. but an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could always tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
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Pratchett. What a Guru...
(, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 13:30, closed)
WatchesI just don't bother. I've been given about 14 watched in my life, and broken/lost/drowned/stuffed up my nose every single one.
Same with sunglasses. I just get cheap ones that suit me, instead of horrendously expensive ones. I'd just sit on them, and then cry.
(, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 17:57, closed)
?Who the fuck still wears watches? Don't you just check your mobile phone like everyone else? (Or in this modern world, your MP3 player)
(, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 11:55, closed)
You Are.....The Winner!
Don't spend it all in one go
(, Tue 8 Jan 2008, 12:04, closed)
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