Category: domestic life

I’ve finally, finally got around to buying a replacement for my 8 year old, 68cm Teac old fashioned CRT TV, our first major purchase after I got married…we even used AGC finance to pay for it at the time 🙂

Picked up a Sony 101cm (40in) Bravia LCD True HD 1080i model: this one I think, the KDL40X2000. Has more inputs that I’ll probably ever have gadgets to plug in to.

Note the list price at Sony.com.au is $4599 (time of writing).

Tip: it pays to shop around. I paid $3700 for it, although it won’t be delivered till next week (stock coming from Perth). And yes, I didn’t buy it online, I bought it locally, in Bunbury, from a real person.

There are 3 major retailers in Bunbury that sell TV’s (outside Kmart/ BigW and Target and a couple of smaller Hi-Fi/ specialty shops). I went to all three pretty much knowing what I wanted, that I wanted “True HD” + LCD, because I believe that it will help future proof the purchase, being that it gives full resolution with Blueray and what not.

Harvey Norman was $4599
Good Guys: $4399
Retravision: $4299

I didn’t even bother trying with Harvey Norman, indeed I’m really surprised they’re still in business, they don’t stock anything that is price or cheap any more, presence is their only redeeming feature.

The local Goodguys discounts at around 8% for cash, which would have bought the TV to about $4050.

Knowing this, when told the price by Retravision, I said to the guy that they had it for the same price as The GoodGuys (they didn’t), and that they’d offered me a very generous discount for cash, without telling him the actual figure. He came back at $3700. Suffice to say SOLD.

Haggling isn’t my thing, but this was easy, I saved $900 over the Sony + Harvey Norman Price, and an amzing $600 off the actual ticket price at the store….that and you need to pay in physical cash is the other tip, when they see you’re serious with a ton of folding in your hand, it’s amazing the bargains you can get.

Last tip: Have a budget as well. I only ever had $4000 in cash with me, and that’s all I was willing to pay. As it turns out, I’ve still got $300 in my wallet 🙂

(note to US readers, prices in AUD, which given a week or two will probably be the same value as the US dollar anyway, currently trading at 83c)

I spent some time Thursday at Perth Zoo with my new camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ50. Amazing what you can do with a decent bit of technology, certainly it might be time to drop the poor photographer tag, 10mgp with 12x optical zoom really makes for some half decent shots. More on my Flickr account.

It’s April and I’m still waiting for my free Vista upgrade from Acer, sent the proof off two months ago, nothing back, rung, they told me to send an email, sent email, no response. Has Acer in Australia run a scam here? time to call DOCEP or the ACCC maybe? Hopefully someone from Acer in Australia scans blog posts and can fix this.

UPDATE Just received a call directly from Acer Australia (1pm AWST), less that 4 hours after the post. Highly apologetic and CD is on its way…they are also going to investigate the whys on the matter as well, apparently the offer was being provisioned by a 3rd party, and yet they apologised none the less and took full responsibility. Brilliant Customer Service and a refreshing attitude for a company operating in Australia. As I said to the chap, love the laptop but bought it when I did because of the Vista offer otherwise I would have held off. Hopefully Vista will be here shortly, but kudos again to Acer for the call.

Nearly 12 months ago we took possession of our new house, and I spent 2 weeks of literally back breaking work laying the floor in the new house, timber laminate was all that we could afford at the time, mind you, it was still $6500 just for the laminate. About 3 months later the floor started to lift, at random places the floor buckled and occasionally broke. We later found out that slabs on a new house (in Australia houses are usually built on a concrete slab) take 12-18 months to “dry out” and that essentially moisture from the slab had caused the problem, and there was not a thing we could do to fix it, bar rip the floor up and start again. Today marks the start of Operation Floor Lift, where I’ve got 1 week to lift 220 sq m of timber laminate and dumb it into a miniskip prior to the new floor being laid next week, and we’ll be out of the house for at least 2 weeks as well after that: the new floor consists of proper timber: local BlackButt (Eucalyptus patens) which is costing an arm and a leg and takes 2 weeks to lay and finish off. I’ll be working from the laptop starting Saturday presuming the floor lifting doesn’t kill me in the mean time, laying at nearly did. Moral of the story: seal your slab prior to laying flooring. Now if only someone had told me that 12 months ago 🙂

About time…give or take a couple of months 🙂

It’s the golden child’s first day at school. It only seems like yesterday they were chopping him out of she who must be obeyed’s stomach 🙂

Happy first day at school son, and I know you’ll look forward to reading this post at Archive.org in 2020. We’re proud of you, just a shame about the 13 years of punishment ahead of you, but I know you’ll kick some you know what along the way. I’d expect nothing less. Of course the next step from Lego.com is Adsense and $100 a week…maybe when you turn 6 🙂

You’ve got over 1000 unread emails and you can’t be asked cleaning them up. OK, so I’m trying now, but it’s hard to get motivated 🙂

OK, so I’m not one to talk in the physical fitness stakes, but a word to anyone who is interested in The Wiggles, the new Yellow Wiggle, Sam, must have been spending a fair bit of time eating whilst he was under study, because suffice to say, he really jiggles…a lot on stage, indeed, he might want to lose a little weight, because he could quite easily become known as the Fat Wiggle.

And how do I know, we’ll I was at the 1:30pm show last Friday in Perth, the day after the big announcement about Greg leaving. Even though Declan had seen them in concert before, I don’t think for the full hour and a bit did his jaw leave the floor. A great act, and the kids love it.

Tags: The Wiggles

This from The West. We might even get daylight savings by December 1. Now if only they’d allow the shops to open on a Sunday we could really join the 20th 21st century.

My new photo set at Flickr is my best pics from the Waroona Show. I’m going to reserve my comment on how the show was…I don’t want to be the blogger who is negative on everything, but suffice to say, the Harvey Show has less of a crowd and a similar portfolio of things to see. The Brunswick Show has the same crowd as the Waroona show but with 10x the things to see 🙂