Tuesday 21 January 2014

Rant 1188 / Sold Out Within A Month

6th Jan

So I bought a safe on the last day of 2013. My last major purchase of last year, and it arrived a few days ago.




About S$800. Been waiting for an entire year, looking for promotions and discounts, but they never have those for safes. This gave me no choice but to take advantage of the really tiny offers by the mall itself plus the store's membership points.

$4-worth of Capitarstar points and 798 Home-Fix membership points. Not sure how much the latter can be converted to.

Coincidentally, I was also eligible for $20-worth of vouchers for using a DBS card, so that's a minimum of $24 in rebate.

Anyway I was deciding between this safe and another, both having roughly the same price in the brochure. This safe has much thicker bolts, a pry-resistant design, but only is certified for only an hour of fire and water resistance. In contrast, the other safe had 50% more bolts but thinner, no pry-resistant design and is certified for 2 hours of fire- and water-resistance.

On a somewhat unrelated note, according to the manual, bolting the safe down to the floor also negates its water-resistance.

This safe was chosened because in a small country like ours, an hour should be more than enough for any fire to be discovered and for the firemen to arrive to extinguish it. In fact there's a fire station just 10-15 minutes drive away from my home, and that estimate is for normal cars.

Hence, I'm more concerned about burglars, which isn't saying a lot since this place is so safe my brother doesn't even remember to shut the wooden door properly before going out and only closes the gate. Not to mention my neighbour next door had installed a few cameras outside.

Unfortunately, this only comes with a one-year warranty, although this isn't a major issue either since I don't expect it to have any issue after that.
























19th Jan

Icewind Dale is interesting.

Also, my order from Singsale came but my chelsea boots ended up as something else. Apparently they had mixed up the names and after a check, I realized that the boots I saw in the photo did not match the name.

Now I'm waiting for a reply to my request for either an exchange or a refund. TBH I would prefer a refund, even if it's going to be in store credits.


As for my safe, I'm done throwing in all my cash other than the coins. Now I've got to think about other stuff to store inside.








20th Jan

So they only do refunds. I'll have to see if they accept my return application.

Also neglected to mention that the 3D-printing pen arrived a while back. It's that glue gun that uses plastic instead of glue, and the results have been good so far. It's easy to use but very hard to master. The main issue I've been having is that I'm not used to the speed at which the plastic is extruded so it's hard to create straight lines in the air.

Otherwise, it's quite interesting. Now I'm thinking about drawing my home's unit number with it to replace my current one on my door, and some kind of hook for my wireless doorbell button to hook onto my gate.















21st Jan


Good thing Singsale has accepted my returns application so I'll be returning it today. Hopefully they will refund me in cash instead of credits because there probably won't be many good sales from now on.

As for my 3D printer, the earliest it's going to arrive is in March.

Also considing two more ways of spending money.

First, I'm thinking about buying a really expensive pair of oxfords, like around S$2000. They will be expected to last almost ten years so it's really not that bad. I need a pair for my brother's wedding, and maybe I'll even wear it for my own, but two thousand is a huge sum, especially for a pair of shoes.

In addition, if I buy this, I will want to wear the shoes often, in which case I will need to make some changes to my wardrobe since oxfords do not go with jeans.

Alternatively, I can just get a cheap pair for around S$200 and think about it again when I'm doing better.

Second, I'm considering going to school again. Initially, I thought about LASALLE's degree on fashion design, but then I discovered they also hold workshops and short courses, so now the short courses look like the best idea.

Maybe I will try them in the coming months.







Bought the last three books of the Wheel of Time series. Finally, they're all out in mass market paperback!!

Also got A Dance of Dragons since it's also out in that format and I needed to get S$50 to qualify for free shipping.

I haven't touched the previous books in years so it will be necessary to re-read the entire WoT series before I start on those.