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Mon, 01 Dec 2003
Catching up, or I hate shopping
This is the entry I would have posted on Sunday had my flight arrived in SFO on time.

Yesterday (Saturday) we took a day long shopping trip to Seattle, and capped the day off by meeting some friends who were in town for Thanksgiving. One thing that you have to know is that I hate shopping. The itinerary included the University Village Apple Store (I'd alrady been to the Bellvue Square store), The Gap (also in UVillage), the Tom Bihn store in down town Seattle, and the new Fry's in Renton.

I didn't by anything in the Apple store, but the kids had a great time playing Curious George learns the alphabet on the eMacs. I'm not a big fan of computer software for kids, even so called educational software, but its hard to resist when your kids are so excited about it.

The real letdown of the trip was the visit to the Gap. I hate clothes shopping. Part of this is because the American clothing industry things that I don't exist. I'm right in the gap between men's and boy's sizes, and I'm thin as a stick to boot. Finding anything that approaches resonable cloting is a royal chore. In the past, the Gap has been a good place for me, because they make pants (28x28) and shirts (XS) in my size. This time, I was in search of some jeans, because some of mine are starting to get ratty, or at least that's what Julie says. When I got to the jeans rack, I was greated by a sign that says certain sizes (namely mine) are only available online. I didn't like that at all, but the associate assured me that they'd be the same price on-line as in the store ($19.95 or so). When I got home and checked Gap online, they were $39.50, which I suppose is the normal price for the jeans, but completely outrageous to my thinking. So if you are a small in between the cracks sized guys, and you have good tips for clothing retailers (or sites) let me know.

At Fry's I did what I normally do at Fry's: I went aisle cruising to see what was there. The advantage of Fry's is not the prices, although deals can be had if you are picky. I always liked the selection and the ability to wander around and see what was up. We did buy a cheap (and on sale) A/V receiver to replace the Hafler power and pre-amp combination that recently died, having served faithfully since 1986. The new one, an Onkyo TX-NR501, was well rated by Consumer Reports, and sounds noticeably better. The Hafler setup was quite good at the time, so I'm impressed that I can hear the improvement 17 years later.

[23:32] | [misc] | # | TB | F | G | 2 Comments | Other blogs commenting on this post
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Ted Leung FOAF Explorer

I work at the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF).
The opinions expressed here are entirely my own, not those of my employer.

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