I'm tired of putting myself through the commercial radio stations. Can't do it, forever scanning the airwaves looking for something decent to listen to, trying to imagine my life on the road, prospecting, 8, 12, 16 hours a day driving, listening to this shit, lucky if you catch even just one good song an hour...
"...You can call my on my cell phone..". Fucking hell. Buddy, if I called you on your cell phone ass hole it'd be to find out where you were so I could track you down and shoot you. You've done for music what Donald Trump has done for politics.
Anyways, I've decided this will end, I have a perfectly great car stereo left over from the Jetta, but no time to install it (or no son, he's in Victoria...). And so I pop by Westbrook Mall to find some options. Into the Source...formerly Radio Shack, they have what I'm looking for. NextTech, the offbrand of offbrands, kinda like V-Tech and other anonymous tech names that no educated consumer would touch with a ten-foot pole. It's $39.99. Seems a bit pricey, maybe I should shop around a bit, I never go shopping for new shit, I'm a pretty bad consumer...
Not worth my time, I buy it, with tax it comes to 41.99. The salesman looks at me with dead eyes, tries to upsell me a ten years supply of value priced off-brand AA batteries. I must look like a real pervert. I politely decline. He asks if I'd like to, for an extra $8.00, purchase their extended warranty, these particular cassette adapters have a known issue with the plug breaking off, for an extra $8.00 they'll replace the plug, twice, over 3 years, no questions asked...
This is the lamest thing ever. And I've experience with the Source's Extended Warranty program...it's fucking shit. I decline. He offers to take my email, put me on their spam mailing list. Is everyone that shops here such a sucker, I wonder? No thanks.
$41.99 later and I have a vaguely uneasy feeling and my cassette adapter, now to find an MP3 player. Nothing great, just something that takes batteries (I don't wanna be charging it) and holds a lot of music. The Source has nothing, and so I shop around...bad quality MP3 players, designed to look like Ipods, $30, $40 bucks a pop, more even, for a lousy 2 or 4 GB memory, this is the gift the saddest kid on the block got at Christmas, I can hear him screaming just looking at it..."I asked for an IPHONE!!!", name's like "Hip Street" and "Cool Tunes" tell you just how uncool they are...
I head to London Drugs, and their MP3 players, like everywhere else, hold nothing, don't take batteries, $50, $100, WTF? Why not just buy a Tablet? Laptop? I mean, for the price...bloody hell...
But they do have a cassette adapter. $7.99. Unbelievable.
Now, a dollar or two, three, five, ten even, I'd swallow the loss, shoulda shopped around. But this boils my blood...
...Back to the Source, $5.00 Gas, this is their strategy, hopefully it's just not worth the suckers time to return it, it's not worth mine but they're not getting my money, fuckers, return cassette adapter, the manager assists me, asking innocuously why I'm returning it...
"Because I found it for $8.00 at London Drugs." I reply. I'm visibly not impressed. He's got no reply, then, after collecting a load of irrelevant data tells me:
"Well, you know, the quality isn't all the same, if you decide you need a better one...". It's the best he can do, I get it, he's gotta try. But really, I could buy 3 of them, use up my extended warranty, for half the price they're selling them for.
My new slogan for "The Source" - "The Source of Dollarama Shit at Holt Renfrew Prices..." Really guys, get a fucking life. And get it together. When you finally close your doors forever don't blame the internet, blame yourselves for your fucked up exploitative pricing.