Are absolutely atrocious. I pretty much can't get over any of the prices here (still. after 4 years. you'd think I would.), but lately it's the theatre that's been getting me. I understand paying a bit for professional theatre, but I generally pay what I'd consider professional prices for the amateur productions and atrocious prices for the professional productions. The Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, which is, by the way, amazing, charges in the neighborhood of $25 a show. This is reasonable. The Sydney Short and Sweet productions are also $25 a show. They are great, don't get me wrong, and I loved going and would probably even go back, but $25? Really? Shouldn't it be like $10? Or at the most $10 plus the roll of a die or something? Draw a card from the deck when you come in and pay its face value perhaps? It'd be more in keeping with the vibe of it anyway!
Oh well. Such is life, I guess. And such is why it's really just best to put on productions of Macbeth in your friend's backyard. Oh yeah. Stay tuned on that one!
Showing posts with label overpriced nonsense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overpriced nonsense. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Thursday, November 17, 2011
quicko: "sales"
Australian sales are things of legends. Not because they're ancient or monumental, but because the term "sale" is just so incredibly far from what actually is happening. There are millions of signs proclaiming "sales," but few, if any, of them actually are remarkable. In fact, most sales are remarkable for being unremarkable.
I'm continually blown away by ads promise an amazing 25% off all dresses! 25%! To an American, that's practically standard. Our ears don't really perk up and register "sale" unless it's 50% (acceptable) or 75% -- now that qualifies as amazing. It doesn't happen every day, but it does actually happen. (Have I mentioned how much I love Kohl's?) And it's allowed to use amazing when it does, because 75% qualifies. 25% does not.
Supermarkets are also continually spruiking items evidently meant to be on sale -- but really just not-so-creatively relabeled. 2 for $7.50!! screams an ad for products normally costing $4 apiece. Or 3 for $10 -- when they're $3.30 to begin with. Keeps you on your toes, I suppose, but really. Just give me a sale for goodness sake!
(Oh gosh. Now does that need an apostrophe? It feels like it does (after the last s, obviously. and certainly no additional s nonsense), but it looks a bit funny. I'm leaving it out. Hope you don't mind. Glad we've settled that.)
I'm continually blown away by ads promise an amazing 25% off all dresses! 25%! To an American, that's practically standard. Our ears don't really perk up and register "sale" unless it's 50% (acceptable) or 75% -- now that qualifies as amazing. It doesn't happen every day, but it does actually happen. (Have I mentioned how much I love Kohl's?) And it's allowed to use amazing when it does, because 75% qualifies. 25% does not.
Supermarkets are also continually spruiking items evidently meant to be on sale -- but really just not-so-creatively relabeled. 2 for $7.50!! screams an ad for products normally costing $4 apiece. Or 3 for $10 -- when they're $3.30 to begin with. Keeps you on your toes, I suppose, but really. Just give me a sale for goodness sake!
(Oh gosh. Now does that need an apostrophe? It feels like it does (after the last s, obviously. and certainly no additional s nonsense), but it looks a bit funny. I'm leaving it out. Hope you don't mind. Glad we've settled that.)
Thursday, November 10, 2011
quicko: no food afternoons
Heaven forbid you try to find food before dinner in Australia. Today I went to Manly, hoping to get a late lunch at Ground Zero. Unfortunately, it had just closed. Granted, it was a very late lunch -- nigh on to 5 pm -- but all I really wanted was a BLT and I couldn't get one for love or for money anywhere in Manly. Well, I suppose I could have if you count $15 as money, but I find that egregious for a BLT and refuse to pay. But between the two cafes I really wanted to go being closed for food, the open ones being atrociously priced (and also not even having BLTs), I finally had to settle on a chicken sandwich (consummately not bacon) for $11. Still pricey, but I was starving. I hadn't eaten since 7 am, and last time I tried that and missed lunch I made it to 8 pm without getting food, at which point I gave up and waited till breakfast the next day. This time I seized the day and went for Ben and Jerry's while I was at it. Nothing like chocolate brownie ice cream on the beach to make you forget your BLT woes.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
review: guylian
Anyway, you want to be sure you've sampled them all, and then pick your favorites and stick to them, safe in the knowledge you're consistently having the greatest. So we tried Guylian for Michelle's sake. (I, as I have pointed out before, am a very kind and generous friend. Look at the sacrifices I make!)
We had the exorbitantly priced hot chocolates ($7.10, and it was pretty much the cheapest thing on the menu), which thankfully did come with an adorable little chocolate seahorse (I am partial to adorable chocolate seahorses). That was the highlight, though, unless you count that you can actually have two full cups of hot chocolate (!!) from one exorbitantly priced serving. (The least they could do, really.)
Unfortunately, the chocolate is not nearly as good as it could be, if by "could be" you mean as good as Max Brenner's Italian thick milk hot chocolate. It is too rich (I -- I -- even asked for a little pitcher of milk to add to mine to stret--er, tame it down).
On the plus side, they do also give you a little Guylian takeaway chocolate for when you're finished, but it just isn't enough. Bottom line? Overpriced nonsense that isn't up to snuff. Might look snazzy, but not worth the cost. Oh -- unless you're talking about the one in the Rocks, where I did have a really amazing ice cream concoction once. Potentially their other dishes are worth going in for -- really quite likely, now that I stop to think -- but much better, girls, if you can get a guy to take you there and flash a little cash. I daresay you'll survive.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
quicko: secret spot!
So yesterday Katie and I discovered this super cool place you can visit in Sydney. I'd tell you where it is, but it's a secret. More because she was driving and I don't really know where I was, but still. It was pretty unspoilt and I'd hate the hoards to descend and render it hoardful. But anyway! It was so cool! At first we just thought it was a nice, albeit severely overpriced, place to sit and sip tea and talk about boys while taking in spectacular views of the harbour, but then we went exploring and found statues to climb on! And canons! And underground tunnels! And trees! And more statues! It was really just plain cool.
Monday, February 28, 2011
quicko: gas prices
They call it petrol here (okay, this one I actually grant them!), and I figure it never hurts to have a quick update of comparison shopping. I'm highly attuned to gas prices when I'm paying for it, but when I'm just buying (a ridiculously overpriced $41-) bus ticket every week, I don't care so much. But for the record: at the moment, gas prices are about $1.40/liter (they of course spell it "litre"), which is about (insert 5 minutes for Kim to do frantic math and google and multiple and divide until she finally hits on something that seems reasonably probable in terms of a result) $5.40/gallon. I think. But I could be wrong. I'll give you the numbers and you can do the rest: 1 liter is about .26 gallons. 1/1.4 = .26/.364. Also, 3.85 is significant somehow. Knock yourselves out, but I think gas is pricey here.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
quicko: outrageous prices
I just have to announce this: I went to Coles tonight. To purchase essentials. Like light bulbs. And cranberry sauce. And toiletries. Really essential toiletries. And the light bulbs, incidentally, were pretty essential too. I mean, the light bulb in my bathroom burned out just after the new year and I've been showering in darkness ever since. So I suppose you could argue the light bulbs weren't really essential, but I like to think I'm entitled to purchase one or two without feeling guilty.
Anyway, the trip cost me seventy-one dollars. Seventy-one dollars! That is insane! It didn't use to bug me quite as much when the Australian dollar wasn't so high, but these days that's the same as seventy-one American dollars, roughly. And that is just crazy! I have no money left! And all because I wanted to be able to wash my hair.
Anyway, the trip cost me seventy-one dollars. Seventy-one dollars! That is insane! It didn't use to bug me quite as much when the Australian dollar wasn't so high, but these days that's the same as seventy-one American dollars, roughly. And that is just crazy! I have no money left! And all because I wanted to be able to wash my hair.
Monday, October 6, 2008
little cupcake
(originally from 27 July 2008)
It was perhaps a mark of living in a city for too long that I didn’t find $3.50 exorbitant for a cupcake.
Every morning my bus flies past a bakery with prim lines of intricately frosted cupcakes and every morning I think how wonderful one would be. One morning I went in and requested a little cupcake with green frosting. The girl told me it was peppermint, and I forked over the dough without a second thought, which was how Little Cupcake and I found ourselves standing at a bus stop one Friday morning.
Little cupcakes aren’t supposed to ride city buses because they are Food, but Little Cupcake came equipped for such nuisances of societal life with a lovely white paper bag, highly convenient for concealing its Foodness. Most food doesn’t fit – much less conceal itself – in a white paper bag (pineapples spring to mind, as do ice cream, sloppy joes or even, good heavens, soup), but Little Cupcake fit very nicely and discreetly.
We hopped gingerly on the bus, Little Cupcake and I, and carefully made our way to the back. We took two seats together and rode daintily down George Street, alighting at World Square to the unforeseen distress of Rain! Was ever a little cupcake so put upon as this? For while bus journeys are a force to be reckoned with, rain is much more serious. Rain can melt frosting.
We did what any reasonable duo would do. We sought shelter and reconsidered: yes, it was raining, but there was still the lovely White Paper Bag of Protection and our walk wasn’t particularly far. Besides, it would be much nicer for Little Cupcake to be nibbled nicely in the warmth than scarfed down in the dampness of World Square’s concrete open-air shopping center. Some places are simply not conducive to the well-eating of Little Cupcakes.
I peeked to check on its frosting. The problem, of course, is that even a lovely White Paper Bag of Protection can offend a little cupcake’s icing, particularly when it is peppermint green. I was most distressed that Little Cupcake’s icing would hit side, much as I constantly fear a thoughtlessly placed lid will disturb the whipped cream on my hot chocolate. Fortunately, except where the fold of the bag poked into it, Little Cupcake was an amazingly well-balanced cupcake, if not in the altogether dietary sense. I was much impressed.
We forged through the rain together and all went remarkably well in spite of the rain, except for the Elizabeth Street traffic signal, which had evidently not been preset with the crossing of Little Cupcakes in mind, but which eventually deigned to allow us to pass.
And then there was but one barrier between us.
There is a well-known concept in the world today, one that I approve of and like and generally publicly support, though one that doesn’t often come naturally to me. There are, however, times and places when Sharing is simply not meant to happen.
Anyone with any sense recognizes these times. Little Cupcake and I had just arrived at work and summoned the lift, finished our wait as it finished its five-floor descent and very nearly stepped blissfully in when one of my friends joined us. It was Friday, but she didn’t ask about our weekend plans.
"What’ve you got in the little bag?" she asked.
Caught off guard, I confessed.
"What kind?"
I hesitated. It isn’t polite to discuss such details in front of little cupcakes, but I didn’t expect her to understand this. "Chocolate with peppermint frosting."
"The best. You can’t beat choco with mint."
We nodded solemnly together. Suddenly she pressed level four. Five minutes later she emerged next to me with a warm chocolate croissant.
"Calories don’t count on Fridays," she said.
The time had almost come. I carefully extracted Little Cupcake from its haven of white, then paused to fold up White Paper Bag of Protection. It had served us well, and I’d grown rather fond of it.
Usually cupcakes are fully disrobed for proper gulping, but Little Cupcake did not invite such immodesty, and certainly not gulping. We compromised at removing half the wrapper and one of us went in for the icing.
It was the sort of icing that should probably have been gracefully ingested, but grace does not always align itself with reality. In the end, there was little left of Little Cupcake, save its delicate outer garment, which in normal circumstances would have been harvested for every possible trace of chocolate before being spit out in a little heap of saliva-ridden wrap, but Little Cupcake was not a normal cupcake. Though I daresay it would have been more fitting to burn the wrapper and scatter the ashes at sea, this would prove difficult to explain to others. At least the trash can had not yet been much used this morning.
It is very hard to proceed forward in life from a Friday morning spent with a little cupcake, but I was forced to forge ahead and sought a consolation prize in the form of a cup of tea. Which was when I suddenly wondered where my last five-dollar bill had gone.
It was perhaps a mark of living in a city for too long that I didn’t find $3.50 exorbitant for a cupcake.
Every morning my bus flies past a bakery with prim lines of intricately frosted cupcakes and every morning I think how wonderful one would be. One morning I went in and requested a little cupcake with green frosting. The girl told me it was peppermint, and I forked over the dough without a second thought, which was how Little Cupcake and I found ourselves standing at a bus stop one Friday morning.
Little cupcakes aren’t supposed to ride city buses because they are Food, but Little Cupcake came equipped for such nuisances of societal life with a lovely white paper bag, highly convenient for concealing its Foodness. Most food doesn’t fit – much less conceal itself – in a white paper bag (pineapples spring to mind, as do ice cream, sloppy joes or even, good heavens, soup), but Little Cupcake fit very nicely and discreetly.
We hopped gingerly on the bus, Little Cupcake and I, and carefully made our way to the back. We took two seats together and rode daintily down George Street, alighting at World Square to the unforeseen distress of Rain! Was ever a little cupcake so put upon as this? For while bus journeys are a force to be reckoned with, rain is much more serious. Rain can melt frosting.
We did what any reasonable duo would do. We sought shelter and reconsidered: yes, it was raining, but there was still the lovely White Paper Bag of Protection and our walk wasn’t particularly far. Besides, it would be much nicer for Little Cupcake to be nibbled nicely in the warmth than scarfed down in the dampness of World Square’s concrete open-air shopping center. Some places are simply not conducive to the well-eating of Little Cupcakes.
I peeked to check on its frosting. The problem, of course, is that even a lovely White Paper Bag of Protection can offend a little cupcake’s icing, particularly when it is peppermint green. I was most distressed that Little Cupcake’s icing would hit side, much as I constantly fear a thoughtlessly placed lid will disturb the whipped cream on my hot chocolate. Fortunately, except where the fold of the bag poked into it, Little Cupcake was an amazingly well-balanced cupcake, if not in the altogether dietary sense. I was much impressed.
We forged through the rain together and all went remarkably well in spite of the rain, except for the Elizabeth Street traffic signal, which had evidently not been preset with the crossing of Little Cupcakes in mind, but which eventually deigned to allow us to pass.
And then there was but one barrier between us.
There is a well-known concept in the world today, one that I approve of and like and generally publicly support, though one that doesn’t often come naturally to me. There are, however, times and places when Sharing is simply not meant to happen.
Anyone with any sense recognizes these times. Little Cupcake and I had just arrived at work and summoned the lift, finished our wait as it finished its five-floor descent and very nearly stepped blissfully in when one of my friends joined us. It was Friday, but she didn’t ask about our weekend plans.
"What’ve you got in the little bag?" she asked.
Caught off guard, I confessed.
"What kind?"
I hesitated. It isn’t polite to discuss such details in front of little cupcakes, but I didn’t expect her to understand this. "Chocolate with peppermint frosting."
"The best. You can’t beat choco with mint."
We nodded solemnly together. Suddenly she pressed level four. Five minutes later she emerged next to me with a warm chocolate croissant.
"Calories don’t count on Fridays," she said.
The time had almost come. I carefully extracted Little Cupcake from its haven of white, then paused to fold up White Paper Bag of Protection. It had served us well, and I’d grown rather fond of it.
Usually cupcakes are fully disrobed for proper gulping, but Little Cupcake did not invite such immodesty, and certainly not gulping. We compromised at removing half the wrapper and one of us went in for the icing.
It was the sort of icing that should probably have been gracefully ingested, but grace does not always align itself with reality. In the end, there was little left of Little Cupcake, save its delicate outer garment, which in normal circumstances would have been harvested for every possible trace of chocolate before being spit out in a little heap of saliva-ridden wrap, but Little Cupcake was not a normal cupcake. Though I daresay it would have been more fitting to burn the wrapper and scatter the ashes at sea, this would prove difficult to explain to others. At least the trash can had not yet been much used this morning.
It is very hard to proceed forward in life from a Friday morning spent with a little cupcake, but I was forced to forge ahead and sought a consolation prize in the form of a cup of tea. Which was when I suddenly wondered where my last five-dollar bill had gone.
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