I had to finish my Christmas shopping, and the only
place I could think of going for everything was Tyson’s mall. It was
pretty easy to get there, very little traffic for the last sunday
before Christmas. When I did get there, I saw that some of the obvious
parking places were reserved for valat parking. My initial thought was,
what a rip off! They take x number of parking spaces and reserve them
for valat use, that sucks, now I have fewer choices of where to park or
it’ll cost me…
Then my economics thinking took over. Why are they
doing that? To make money of course, but they must be filling a want if
they are making money off of it. I realized that for me, the worst part
about Christmas shopping at the mall is the parking situation. You have
to drive around forever to get a spot, and then you have to hike there
and back. Of course if you can’t remember where you parked (I never can
at Tyson’s), the aggravation is compounded. What would I pay to avoid
all that hassle? I’m not sure, but when I saw that valat parking was 5
bucks for 4 hours, I didn’t think twice about it. Turns out that it
made my shopping quite a bit easier and I was in a much better mood.
They were able to transform my aggravation and time into 5 bucks. I
would probably have spent a little more than that too, but this is a
classic example of micro economic bliss. Both sides got something out
of the trade, and profit was generated out of something that was just a
waste before (my time looking for a space, looking for my car, yelling
at all the assholes Christmas shopping, etc). I imagine that for the
power shoppers or people that can’t get around too well, this is an
even better deal…. It almost made me wish that I had done all my
shopping there (almost mind you).
What else… Oh yeah The Apple store. I’ve been
planning on getting a new Mac for a while. I’m looking at a dual
processor G5 powermac with various add ons. I’m also going to get a new
LCD screen. I was planning on getting a Sony, Viewsonic, NEC, etc
instead of an Apple one. I just couldn’t justify the price difference.
Well, I saw the current Mac monitors in person and OMG I want one!!!
They are absolutly gorgeous. The 30″ is unbelievable, but way way way
out of my range. The 20″ is looking mighty good though. I’m going to
have to come up with some sort of justification, because that’s what
I’m going to get:-) Apple never ceases to amaze me… I also want a new
laptop, maybe a powerbook this time but that’s going to have to wait
another year or so. There are some pretty amazing rumors about the
upcoming ones. Carbon fiber cases, dual core G4 processors, etc. I
think the wait will be worth it.
The strangest thing I saw was at Abercrombie and
Fitch. They hired hunky, muscular guys to walk around the store without
shirts. Guess they were going for the women and gay guys this year. If
they had hired some beautiful women to walk around without shirts I’m
sure their sales would have been much higher!:-) Anyway, before I
forget, Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you had a great Haunaka
David!:-)
Isaac