Saturday, January 26, 2008

Of impulse buys and small furry creatures - Part 2

Firstly, apologies for being so irregular with my postings.

If you haven't already, please do read the first part of this blog here.

I appreciate your curiosity in coming back for the concluding part of this blog. Today, I answer the most important question you might have had from the previous blog. What has this blog got to do with small furry creatures ? Be patient, and thou shalt be rewarded.

Let's start off with a DAQ.

DAQ: I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be.

So back to impulse buys. Here I was, fresh out of college, just started earning some money at my new job. I managed to convince myself that although I barely had the energy to stay awake after I got home, I needed a way to spend my time more fruitfully than watching television. Here is a simple equation:

Money + foolishness = impulse buy

This is exactly what happened. And I became the owner of a sparkling new Xbox 360. Brand new. Not even a used unit. Absolutely new. And I also had the shopkeeper throw in $100 worth of games to play along with it. Why ? Because I could. But should I have ? In retrospect, no. The reason being that as much as I liked the new system and was super excited about it for the first 2 weeks, I first grew tired of the games. And 3 months later, suddenly realized that I was using it just as a glorified DVD player. Thats about the time I started becoming financially aware. One fine day, I came across a blog here. This, and the pain of seeing a perfectly good system sitting there in my apartment, not serving its purpose, made me take the radical step of getting up off my butt and trying to sell it. I am glad to announce that although I sold it for a loss, I have received more than an average ebay user would have paid for it.

DAQ: There is a theory which states that if anybody discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here, it will be replaced by something more bizzare and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

So what does it post have to do with small furry creatures ? Nothing actually. These quotes are from Douglas Adams' well known humorous science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is a form of comedy not many people might be acquainted and, since I liked it so much, thought I should share it with you.

One final thought on impulse buys. Not all impulse buys spell doom and almost all of them are easy to get out of. So if you are just reading this post and feel "Oh man, I wish I had not bought that Cappuccino-maker-cum-facial-massage-giver for my car", think again. Almost everything can be sold on ebay. But the other point I wanted to make was that before you sell of the item, see if it truly is not of any use to you. Sometimes impulse buys can be one of your most used items. For example, my Ipod nano which I purchased at a time when nothing was going my way, I hardly had a few dollars in my bank and I was of the opinion that this was the only way I could put a smile on my face. This was over 2 years back and I still have it as my trustworthy companion.


Thanks for lending me your eyes and mind for a short while. I enjoyed the company and leave you with a parting DAQ.

DAQ: In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

4 comments:

Kamlesh Nahata said...

ehem ...somebody has been writing up on a blog..., impulsively.

k

Happy said...

i can't believe u sold it!....wow....daring decision

Simple Tam said...

Would have been that or waiting a few more months, which would have led to further depreciation in its value. Besides, I was not at all using it.

smriti said...

Nice. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Have a question though: Why don't you write more often this way?