i keep forgetting to share an anecdote which recently happened to me. every other week i'll be in charge of finding the technology news, and in one of these stints in september, the launching of apple's new products was plastered on every major news website. being me, too much exposure caused me to reignite my infatuation of owning an ipod nano (i'd taken a fancy to the black 1st generation ipod nano, but did not buy one due to the price tag).
for some reason, i HAD to start craving for the red ipod nano 4th generation... and coincidentally the red ones could only be purchased from the Apple Store (online) and the best part was that malaysia did not have one (at that time...). so i proceeded to search other country's Apple Stores and found that our malaysian price was the highest around... other countries had lower prices after currency conversion but only people residing in the country could make these online purchases. so this posed a stumbling block to my conquest. my emotions shot from extreme happiness to miserable defeat upon learning the t&c. i was trying to think who can i trust and "tumpang" to buy it for me... then i was working out how much the shipping would cost and although in some countries, the ipod nano was more than RM100 cheaper, the shipping to malaysia using a trusted courier would end up costing more than the malaysian market price. another option was to go down to singapore to make the purchase (which incidentally was only around RM6 cheaper) but the problem was that i didn't have a singapore-registered credit card!
then mum suggested i ask her friend in hong kong to make the purchase as she was coming back to malaysia in december. to cut the long story short (and cut out all the negotiation part), she agreed to buy the red ipod. i was on a work assignment in terengganu when i got the news... i was happy and then agitated, as i didn't get a chance to tell her i wanted to have some engraving done on the ipod (i know, spoiled brat!). anyway, i tried sms-ing her but she did not reply... so i'm guessing that she'd already ordered it (oh, i haven't received it yet...).
well, with that said and done... i was quite satisfied, as i will be getting what i wanted. then came the big shocker! i was driving to work on tuesday 11th november 2008... approaching the batu tiga stretch of road before entering glenmarie... listening to Will & Shaz on RedFM... when i heard Will mention that malaysia's apple store was just launched some 20 minutes ago!!! in the car, i was like... shouting my unbelieve! this news coming just 2 days after my mum's friend ordered the ipod for me from HK!!! i was numb, unbelieve turning into a feeling of being cheated and finally regret!!! and the worst part is that we can get the apple products in 1-2 working days and if i'd only waited a few days, i could have had my ipod engraved for FREE! and also get an apple t-shirt (in conjunction with their new launching)... arghh... i felt so stupid!!!
my only consolation is that my (soon to arrive) red ipod nano 4th generation will be about RM50 cheaper than the malaysian price. moral of the story: don't be such a greedy fart and always have patience because as with the famous "Malaysian timing" myth (or more like truth), things will take its own time to reach malaysian shores...
i've noticed that i always seem to take the longer more complicated route about things. this was the case when i was searching to complete my roald dahl, l.m.m. montgomery (of the Anne of Green Gables series) and cynthia voigt (the Jackaroo, Elske etc. series) book collections and also when purchasing the 1996 BBC Pride & Prejudice dvd. i'd to buy a multi-region dvd player for the latter! just imagine that!
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