theMediaman.com

Despite my better judgement I followed Simone to Eaton Centre this week. Boxing week. This time of the year the commissions are pretty feirce, and I was being swarmed by staff who want to be my best friend serve me in any purchase I am considering making. Very strange since I usually spend my time in Future Shops and Best Buys, where they don’t even see you unless you are 50+ and look like you’re ready to buy an HDTV.

On the flip side, I had to wait while two geeks from CompuSmart finish chatting over something useless (and coming from me, that means it was REALLY geeky). Finally, they turned their attention to me, and I asked for a USB drive, 1 GB or higher, but has to be physically small. One lazily points to a fishbowl of impulse purchase, 128 MB drives by the cash register. Once again, I reiterate that I need 1 GB or more. He pulls one off the shelf that’s larger than my thumb. Not what I needed. I saw a smaller, no-name one further down the shelf, and - I don’t know if he actually believed it, had bad sight, or was too fucking lazy to walk six feet - he assured me that it was larger in physical dimensions.

I felt like a customer on CTRL-ALT-DEL. I don’t use AOL, and I was using Netscape before those little shits could click a mouse.

In the meantime, I did manage to get three new shirts and a winter jacket. I’m still looking for an ultra-compact USB drive to attach to the Swiss Army knife I carry everywhere. I have a 40 GB drive with USB and Firewire I carry in my bag, but it’s handy to have something simple on me 24/7. This is one possibility, and here’s the other.