This year while Aonghas had to work the whole day, my mum and I went to check out the Boxing Day sales and I have to say they were very underwhelming. We went to The Warehouse first and there weren't too many great deals. There was an announcement made that Ipod Nano's were being discounted below $200, and that caused a large crowd of people to gather at the entertainment department.
Another announcement informing us of the opportunity to receive a free knife for watching a demonstration caused another crowd to gather near the homeware section. I had separated from my mum and so I was frantically looking for her. They said the free knives would be given to those over 21, so I didn't know if I'd be able to get one since I was still 20 and don't turn 21 till next month. I ended up just watching the demonstration, where a lady with an American accent showed how she could cut all sorts of things such as wood and hammers with the fantastic knives she was trying to sell. It was really funny. You'd expect to see this in one of those long TV infomercials. The lady would ask someone in the audience a question, like
"You would expect to pay tens of hundreds of dollars for this wouldn't you?"
and the lady in front would eagerly nod in agreement! My mum soon found me and joined me, and eventually the lady finished her demonstration and started handing out the knives. I managed to get one myself!
While my mum looked at all the Christmas decorations discounted by 50% (she was pretty keen on outdoor lights after checking out Franklin Road the night before!), I went over to Dick Smith to see if there were any discounts there. We've been interested in getting a GPS receiver lately, seeing as they're a lot more affordable these days. I've been doing a bit of reading about the various models and brands, and thought I'd try ask a Dick Smith guy for his opinion. Surprisingly he knew what he was talking about! He was recommending the Navman MY30 model, which is the cheapest model. I've been looking at the MY55 model, which has a few extra features like lane guidance, 3D landmarks, bluetooth and an FM transmitter. I read that TomTom used to be way better than Navman, but that Navman has caught up and are now equal to TomTom with their latest MY series. If anyone knows anything about GPS receivers please let me know!
There weren't any other great discounts at Dick Smith, so my mum and I wandered around West City for a little longer to check out a few more shops. We saw my neighbour Szelin busy working, while everytime we passed Aonghas he was busy folding clothes on the table at the front of the store. I'm sure no matter how often he folded the clothes they'd get messed up not too long after!
We then went over to Harvey Norman where there seemed to be quite a few sales going on. There weren't too many that we were interested in though, except maybe some wireless headphones, but we waited till the next day when Aonghas was free to check them out.
The following morning we had to go to church early to set up tables for lunch, as well as practise music, as the minister wanted us three brothers to play our accordions at the church service. Jenny, the good violinist in our youth group would be playing another song on her violin. After a quick practice, the service started and after the message we had to play our music while the congregation sang. I think we played slightly too slow!
I originally thought that the shared lunch (or 'pot luck' lunch) would be straight after the service, but it turned out that there was going to be a combined sharing where letters from various missionaries our church supports would be read out! Some of us from our youth group tried to make a get-away by going into a side room and hiding there, but somehow we were discovered and shepherded back into the main hall! It wasn't too bad I suppose, even though I wasn't fully paying attention since I was starving to death. There was an elderly couple who sang, which was really nice.
Finally it was time for lunch! I love shared lunches at our church! Because we all have to bring a plate to share, there is plenty of food and we all leave church full without having to pay!
We did a bit more Boxing Day shopping after church, checking out Kmart and Harvey Norman again. My mum bought some more Christmas lights. It looks like we might be lighting our house up next year! Some of the lights are solar-powered so that will hopefully keep the power bill down!
I haven't been doing much since then. While we're on the subject of shopping, I've been thinking about getting a new phone for a long time now, but there haven't really been any models that have caught my eye. My current K800i is getting a bit old. It restarts, lags a lot, doesn't capture great videos and photos. Because it's parallel imported, I can't use too many of Vodafone's services like Mobile TV, and because it doesn't have wifi I can't really use the internet without paying. I used to be set on getting a Windows Mobile phone, but after reading more about Windows Mobile, I'm not so sure. I'm leaning more towards Android, but it still doesn't seem to be fully developed yet. Non-negotiable's for me though would be a good still/video camera (5mp or more), GPS, wifi, 3G, and capacitive touchscreen. Any suggestions are welcome! I've also been thinking about whether to just buy a phone that can at least take good photos and videos and has wifi while waiting for Android to mature and Windows Mobile 7 to come out next year.
Lately I've also had the urge to get an Ipod Touch! I could imagine it becoming handy for using internet on the go, as well as using it as an organiser and reading things or listening to music on the go. The only thing going against it is that it has no camera, and I would prefer to have one device. I would consider the Iphone if it could only take better photos and videos!
Anyway, any suggestions are welcome!
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