Friday, July 16, 2004
The price for a screwdriver will be AUD$0.12
Today we went zooting around for our necessitites. As usual we were financially needy - my bank draft will probably only be fully cashed in by Monday and my roommate's waiting for her telegraphic transfer to be accounted for in 48 hours time. This leaves us with less than 200 in ready cash and all of it coming from me... So its budget budget shopping. Thankfully there're lotsa them here in melbourne city, though the prices can't beat those from Fairprice. Tell my wallet this is not some fraud?!I signed a 24 month contract with Optus and got a Samsung E700 at zero dollars. It's not free, come on! If I break this I am fully liable to pay a heavy price for it. I'm not sure if this is the best deal around. However mobile phone plans are fairly complicated here. I'll briefly explain the situation we're facing now:
- There are several service providers: Optus [mine], Vodafone, Hutchison 3 [I think, this being rather obscure], Virgin and maybe more obscure ones
- Slightly dated phone models like Nokia 6610i cost around $300 over the counter, without a trade-in, without a plan.
- My plan: rollback [make more calls in a month and reduce length of entire contract], rollover [the exact opposite of the above], and a choice of either of these four 1. 30cents/10mins 7am - 8pm daily in oz, 2. 30cents/10mins every night in oz, 3. 30cents/10mins weekend in oz, 4. free 20 mins every night in oz
- I chose the option 4 which means I will hang up after every 20 minutes.
- Each service provider has plans favouring their customers ie. my precious 20 minutes are solely reserved for Optus users.
- For my plan, sms costs 25cents be it in Oz or international; calls are charged at a flat rate of 42.9cents/30secs; international calls at 29cents/min
- Best thing about mobile phones in Oz: the Free Incoming Calls!
There seems to be no way to effectively mend that widening hole in my pocket. Even if I comfort myself by saying, "It's all part of the establishment costs, lux.", it does not change the fact that prices are fairly steep here and the exchange rate favours the Aussie dollar.
I found an excuse to be fashionable with the [actually not too sudden realisation] that my Nike tennis shoes were a size too tight. I knew they were uncomfortable before I wore them over for the ultimate walking experience [you walk a lot in the city] but I thought that with repeated usage the material fibres will stretch and expand. Presumably, I was foolish in thinking this way. So a pair of two-inched brown suede boots now stand assertively next to the rejected pair.
Realising we had to stretch the worth of our [and for the present, mine] dollar, we did budget grocery shopping. Thanks to Home Brand, similar to the Fairprice brand back home, and their subgrade, affordable olive oil and sweetened condensed milk and one-ply toilet paper.
And we cooked. We had no knives, chopping board and only a saucepan to begin with. The bottle of oyster sauce had a bottle cap which bottlecap-opener-less girls cannot open with bare hands and the primitive hot/cold water technique. We did have stirfried bakchoy and soggy egg-coated rice in the end. Oh yes, the rice was soggy even though we have a rice cooker. And it's not machinery malfunction but a clueless friend switching off the power when the lid started dancing on hot steam and bubbles. Our meal would have been tasteless if not for the substitution of screwdriver for lid opener.
When we heard that priceless 'POP!'...
lux at 7:00 pm