Where extraordinary becomes eccentric

As much as I don’t want to generalize, I don’t believe the situation will be much different in other European companies than in SkyEurope which I used.

My friend recently expressed her contempt for the requirements that must be fulfilled for one being eligible for getting the new iPhone at the aggressively advertised price of $199. The fact the phone with this price tag is bundled with plans that are far on the more expensive side of the selection makes the deal rather bittersweet. She compared Apple’s (and providers’) marketing strategy to what the European budget airlines use and what they’re being hated for — not advertising the whole cost of the ticket. But after going through an ordeal of buying my tickets to Amsterdam (our budget was cut by 80% and the airline’s site didn’t work in Firefox — I can’t decided what’s worse), I only wish the budget airlines’ pricing methods were at least as semi-transparent as Apple’s.

I knew the ticket wouldn’t cost those $50 that initially popped up in my shopping cart. However when the next step added the expected $200 for various fees, I thought that was all I had to pay. I was wrong.

Then I was given an opportunity to travel with luggage or without it. Each bag, including the first one, must be paid for. $30. I have read of outrage this policy created when it was first introduced by American Airlines only two weeks ago; I couldn’t believe how quickly we adopted the idea.

But paying for bags didn’t end the shopping spree - I had to buy seats on the plane. That’s where I was becoming truly irritated. The ticket in my cart came without seats? Had there been an option for skipping the seat-selection form, would that mean we would have to stand the whole flight? Another $40, not good.

And even after that I wasn’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I was charged a flat credit-card processing fee of $30. When I was then asked to contribute $8 to offset the carbon footprint created by my voyage to the country of tulips, I cold-bloodedly refused it.

All in all, the final bill consisted of twelve separate items (was booking flight for my brother too) that could have easily been grouped into two - everything concerning my own transportation + cost for the bags. Not only would such booking be faster, it’d also be more customer-friendly because the user won’t feel like being a victim of a daylight robbed after handing in cash for every possibly billable feature of air transportation. On the other hand, displaying a four figure complete price wouldn’t look as a good on the promotional posters as two figure prices do now.

I and my brother have owned an Xbox 360 for almost two years now and up until today we’ve had no problems whatsoever. Neither of us is an overly avid player, especially I am not, so the system serves as a media center most of the time; for us it replaces a DVD player and by connecting my iPod to it I can finally listen to music from adequate speakers too. But occasionally, a hell doesn’t have to freeze over, we play games there too.

Now, Xbox games are extremely expensive in the Czech Republic. Unsurprisingly, the price difference between a Czech and American version doesn’t justify itself by any form of advantage, say an extended warranty or translation of the game (which is a common added value in case of PC games). We’ve realized after our first purchase that buying a brand new game from an official distributor will not be sustainable in the long run, even though we hadn’t planned on shopping much from the beginning. So instead of laying out $100+/a game for a new copy we’ve begun buying used games for a significantly lesser price, say $30 for a title. Buying used games carries with itself a risk that the disc might malfunction — because of its treatment by the previous owner– or the package as such might be incomplete — the manuals or original boxes and covers are often missing — but even if the costs negative externalities are added to the final price, one still buys a product with a good premium.

But from an economic point of view of a developer, this rational behavior is comparable to piracy, only that in this case the developer is receiving his share for the first copy. Once an original owner completes the game and sells it to someone else, he is causing an economic loss to the producer, because all the subsequent buyers take the non-variable utility of the game while compensating only the previous owner, not the original developer. It is a bit unfair.

(more…)

It’s rather late into night and I am trying to fall asleep. It’s not going very well because there’s an overabundance of fresh information presently in my brain and it seems as if every tidbit of it is trying to capture my attention.

My closed eyes open once in a while - to escape the images of notes that are captured in my mind. I’m trying to readjust my thoughts from philosophy and poli sci to leisure. Beach, quiet ocean, quiet music; the Alps, black diamonds, the smell and warmth of a tea served at a bar adjacent to the ski slope.

Several times those peaceful images prevailed and almost put me to sleep. Whenever I was on a brink of sleep, the blinking light outside went on.

The street lamp right in front of my room is malfunctioning. As if it didn’t know it’s slightly after the middle of the night - it keeps randomly turning itself on and off. When my eyelids finally fully cover my eyes, the brain stops entertaining me by the visions of things just learned, and I am ready to fall asleep, the light flashes.

It’s almost like a lightening, except that it’s 10 meters from you. It doesn’t stay on for long enough to allow you to get used to it. It dies again and then unsuspectingly rises from dead.

It’s infuriating. Instead of enjoying dreams — which would often cause Freud to turn around in his grave — I am typing an annoyed post on my BlackBerry. I must immediately send an email to the utility company to come and fix that Doomsday Machine.

I don’t know whether this is common or typical to even the Czech school system, but it’s certainly peculiar to the school I attend.

My friend sent me her preparation materials for our maturita exam with and asked me to review them. I randomly opened one of the 20 Word files, about the prose of the 1st half of the 20th century, and it struck me immediately:

“Marcel Proust - The Search for the Lost Time: inspired by Proust’s memory of dipping cookies in the tea.”

I recall this cookie-and-tea frenzy from two years ago rather well. Whenever anyone’s subject of the oral examination turned to Proust, the unlucky student quickly connected one and one and fired:”Proust, that’s the guy who dipped cookies into the tea!”

During my high school career I’ve noticed the teachers’ tendencies to simplify subjects to this level. Korea was solely about chaebols and any topic in biology always digressed to its effects on global warming.

With the maturita approaching, all those painful memories are arising again. Oh no…